Your home isn’t just four walls and a roof. It’s a complicated machine with ever-moving parts working just out of view as you live, sleep, eat, work, and play. If you know anything about machinery, you know that moving parts are breakable parts. Just as your car experiences gradual wear and tear under even the best operations, so too does your home. Like your car, a failure can be catastrophic, but if you wait until you notice issues with your home’s systems to address them, you could be acting too late.
Preventive maintenance strategies throughout the home will allow you to intercept and preempt key issues that arise in HVAC, plumbing, appliances, and your home’s exterior. In this guide on how to stay on top of home maintenance, or the price of smaller upfront costs, you can prevent significantly larger repair and replacement expenses.
Keep Cool (or Warm) With HVAC Check-Ins
When your furnace and air conditioner aren’t clean, they work too hard. The harder they work, the more energy they consume, and the more likely they are to break down. Don’t let HVAC maintenance get away from you. Check on your furnace and AC before and after each “season” and keep an eye peeled for signs of wear. Once a year, you may want to schedule a maintenance check with your trusted HVAC technician.
Plumbing Issues
One of the best areas to apply the principles of preventive maintenance in plumbing is with caulking. Bathtub caulk is not something we tend to think much about. But if caulk dries, cracks, and fails, it can lead to leaks and seepage with disastrous results. Check on the caulk around your bathtubs, toilets, and sinks to make sure all fixtures are properly sealed.
Keep Your Appliances Going
Your refrigerator can take on the appearance of a dying appliance if you don’t take time to clean the coils beneath it. Dust and debris insulate the condenser coils, which prevents it from circulating cold air. Use a long wire brush to extricate this unwanted material and keep your food sufficiently cool.
Gutter Cleaning
This is where we take “how to stay on top of home maintenance” literally. In what should be a recurring theme by now, don’t wait—don’t wait for misdirected rainwater to collect along your foundation, causing seepage, flooding, or serious foundation damage. Twice a year, take the time to scale the ladder and clean the gutters of fallen leaves, dirt, and other debris that collect in the troughs over time.
