Owning a home is something we all dream of – but once we have one, there seems to be no end to the number of maintenance tasks that crop up. It’s hard to prioritize home maintenance! Should you mend the fencing or attend to the new coat of exterior paint first? The real answer isn’t as simple as it may seem on the surface.
Calling in tradies to assess the situation seems like a good move, but each will give you a full list of “must dos.” By the time you have assessments from all of them, you might be wondering if you’ll need a second – or even a third – mortgage to finance it all!
As is so often the case, getting your priorities right across all the trades involved requires an impartial outsider. You’re looking for a firm that doesn’t actually do home maintenance themselves. It’s a company that specializes in home inspections and, since they don’t collect profits from fixing them, you can rely on them to give you a home maintenance priority list that addresses the really important things first.
Why That Coat of Paint May Have to Wait
As with any “to-do” list, there are must-haves and nice-to-haves on your home maintenance list. The “must-haves” come first. So, what would these things consist of?
Unfortunately for your planned paint job, it’s probably only an aesthetic issue. As such, it isn’t really important until you’ve attended to tasks that do something to mend or protect your family’s health and safety or the structural integrity of your home. On the bright side, you can also look at ways to improve your home’s energy efficiency, and there’s a chance that will help pay for the paint job you really want.
A good home inspection company can check on things like roof leaks, possible electrical faults, and poor insulation. They might even use high tech equipment that allows them to do all this without physically disturbing your home in any way. Some things will require physical checking, but there’s no need to rip out wiring or break through walls to do it.
The basic requirements for home inspectors? They should be able to inspect roofs, foundations, plumbing, heating and cooling systems, appliances, and insulation all in one go. Most of all, they shouldn’t be trying to sell you any services beyond that. It’s your way of making sure that you get a properly prioritized home maintenance and renovations list.
After Identifying Priorities, it’s Time to Plan
Once you know what needs to be done in order to have a safe, comfortable home, planning home maintenance becomes easy. It’s time to contact those tradies and start getting in the quotes. That gives you an amount you’ll need to budget, and you can start working according to that.
You’ll know what’s urgent and should be done first, and you’ll know what needs to be done, but can wait a little while. Depending on the urgency of the issues a home inspection uncovers, you might even slot in a few “nice-to-haves” in between. After all, it’s hard to feel excited about a non-leaking roof, even when mending or replacing, it is clearly important. A few low-cost easy wins in between will help to keep you feeling positive about your attempts to prioritize home maintenance while you attend to the essentials you may not even have known about before.
Unfortunately a lot of essential home maintenance jobs aren’t all that obvious – until your house burns down, mold begins to bloom, or the walls start cracking. Professionals will help you to spot them before disastrous symptoms appear so that you can know that your home-maintenance budget is well-spent.
