7 Top Ways To Maintain Your Home

Your home will likely be the most expensive thing you ever buy. If you’re not careful, it’ll cost you increasingly more money. While that’s obvious when it comes to any renovations or extensions you have done, there could be some ways you could waste this money.

That’s really true when you’re not maintaining your home the way you should be. At least some basic home maintenance is needed to protect the money you put into your property. While that costs money in itself, it’s minimal compared to the cost of fixing any problems that come up because of any neglect.

Knowing the right ways to maintain your home is vital to this. While there are a wealth of ways to do this, seven specific options stand out. They’ll take relatively little effort, despite the impact they should have.

Top Ways to Maintain Your Home and Their Benefits

Everyone knows they should put effort into maintaining their home, but they’re likely unaware of the benefits it can offer. Some of these will be relatively obvious, but others won’t. Some of the more notable benefits of a home maintenance routine are:

• Save Money – Putting effort into making sure nothing gets damaged over time prevents you from needing costly repairs. You’ll save more money than you’d think.
• Increases Value – A well-maintained house is more attractive to homebuyers than one that hasn’t been looked after. They’ll see it as more valuable, and wouldn’t have an issue paying more to buy it.
• Reduces Risk – Broken or damaged appliances and other areas risk your safety and health in multiple ways. By looking after them, you avoid this risk.

Using a few specific ways to maintain your home makes sure you can see each of these benefits. It’s worth looking into what the most effective strategies are for this, with seven specific ones standing out.

Ways To Maintain Your Home: 7 Top Options

1. Control Moisture Levels

High moisture levels in your home can cause more damage than you could be aware of. The most obvious risk with this is mold buildup, which poses a threat to you and your family’s health. It takes a lot of work to get rid of this and make your house safe to live in again.

Then there’s the fact high moisture levels can attract rodents and other pests, leading to even more damage in time. You can reduce the moisture levels in your home by making sure it’s well-ventilated. Even opening the windows and keeping them open for a while can be enough to do this.

Bathroom and kitchen vents can also be an effective way of reducing home moisture levels.

2. Keep Dryer Vents Clean

You’ll likely have a few dryer vents in your home, but you mightn’t have paid too much attention to them. It’s vital you look after them, as they can pose a significant threat to your health and house. If they get clogged up, they can end up causing a fire in your house, which everyone wants to avoid.

You’ll need to clean your dryer vents at least once a year to make sure it’s as clean as possible, but it could be worth considering cleaning them more than that to minimize the fire risk as much as possible. Once you do, you shouldn’t need to worry about any fires.

If you have an older, accordion-style dryer vent, it might be worth replacing it with a newer model. These tend to be straight and have a lower risk of getting clogged up and causing a fire. While that could be relatively expensive, the peace of mind that comes with it will be worth it.

3. Prevent Water Damage

Water damage can wreak havoc around your home when it’s left unchecked. You’ll need to keep an eye out for any potential damage so you can make sure it doesn’t spread. If you’ve noticed even a small amount of water damage, it’s worth getting some plumbing services to find and fix the issue.

You shouldn’t wait until this point to maintain your home, however. Preventative care is often recommended, as it avoids needing to get anybody out to fix anything. You should look at a few specific areas to make sure they’re working effectively, including:

• Sump pump
• Baths, showers, and sinks
• Water softeners
• Gutters, drains, and downspouts

If you notice any problems with these areas, get a professional in to deal with them as quickly as possible. Once you do, you should avoid needing to fix any damage they could lead to.

4. Get Rid Of Pests

Nobody wants to deal with pests, as they’re an annoyance, can wreak havoc on your house, and could even pose a health risk. Few people notice when an infestation starts, however. Since it can start off small, it’s easy to see why it can be overlooked.

It’s something you’ll need to be on the lookout for, however. The more a pest infestation grows, the more it’ll impact your health and property. Getting rid of these can be more and more expensive, and that’s without mentioning the cost of repairing any damage they can do to your home.

You’ll need to put effort into making sure you find any pests as quickly as possible while getting rid of them straight away. There are multiple products you can use to get rid of them, but it’s also worth looking into whether you need a professional, as it can be easier and more effective.

Putting preventative measures in place to make sure these pests don’t come back is also recommended.

5. Check Exteriors

When you think of a home maintenance routine, you’ll likely think of the things you need to do inside of your house. You could overlook the outside, which you’ll need to avoid doing. You should put some effort into checking the siding, paint, and roof regularly.

Every few weeks is recommended for this, as well as after any bad weather. Severe winds and large amounts of rain can do more damage to your home exterior than you’d think. Once this happens, it leaves parts of your house open to even more damage, leading to somewhat of a domino effect.

If you don’t know what you’re looking for, it’s worth getting a few professionals to take a look at everything. Even if everything’s in good shape, it’ll give you peace of mind knowing everything’s working properly.

Should there be any issues, the contractor can fix it relatively quickly, protecting your home more than you’d expect. While this comes at an expense, the damage not doing this leads to could cost much more.

6. Maintain The HVAC

People often overlook their HVAC unit when they’re maintaining their home, despite how important it is to the property. It improves your air quality, affects temperature, and much more. Since it takes in air on one end and releases it through the other, it’ll end up taking in a lot of dirt.

Most of this ends up on the filters and builds up relatively quickly. In time, that renders your HVAC unit ineffective and your air quality could become incredibly unhealthy. You’ll naturally want to avoid this. The quickest and easiest way of doing this is regularly changing the filters.

Doing this every three months is recommended to make sure the HVAC unit stays as efficient as possible. You should also get a professional to take a look at it regularly so you can avoid any issues coming up.

While this seems like a hassle, it’s less work than needing to replace or repair the unit in time.

7. Clean Fans

Ceiling fans can be a great addition to any home. They’re an energy-efficient way to circulate cold air around your home, and they can even be used to warm up a room when used the right way. Just because they seem simple and easy to use doesn’t mean they don’t need a bit of effort, however.

You’ll need to clean them regularly to make sure they’re running as effectively as they should be. Dust and dirt can build up on the top of the fans, which could make them ineffective. It also means the fans will spread the dust and dirt around the home when they’re on.

It’ll end up making your air quality worse, and you’ll breathe it all in. To keep your air quality healthy, make sure you clean the fans at least once a week.

Ways To Maintain Your Home: Wrapping Up

There are more than a few ways to maintain your home you might want to implement. With the benefits a home maintenance routine offers, you shouldn’t have a reason not to do it. At a minimum, you’ll make sure your home is as livable as possible and protect the money you put into buying and doing it up.

Regularly cleaning fans, preventing water damage, maintaining your HVAC unit, and multiple other strategies will be needed for this. While these seem like a lot of effort, they shouldn’t be. Compared to the work involved in fixing any potential problems, they’ll be quite minimal.

With how important – and expensive – your home is, there’s no reason not to focus on them.