While rewarding and satisfying once completed, home maintenance can be a real inconvenience. Your home and your life will run much smoother if such hassles could be avoided from the off, and with these six preventative measures, solutions and investments, you could be living that dream sooner than you think.
1. Predict problems
Firstly, always attempt to predict problems at their source. Home maintenance hassles such as damp or cracked paint can creep up on you, but if you are already aware of which areas of your house might be susceptible, you will be able to notice them and rectify them before they cause bigger issues.
Condensation and leaks are likely to cause damp, and outside walls are particularly vulnerable. In these areas, ensure ventilation is consistent when possible. If possible, install a dehumidifier.
2. Protect weak structures
The step after predicting potential problems is protection. If you have identified a structure in your house that appears weak or damaged, call in a professional to do an inspection. Having maintenance issues identified early will enable you to fix them quickly and more cheaply than if they are allowed to deteriorate further. For example, if rising damp is nipped in the bud before it has spread, repairs will need to be carried out on a smaller area.
3. Do not plant around the foundations of your home
This is a quick and simple tip for protecting the foundations and structural integrity of your home, as well as for deterring pests. If you have lots of shrubbery or flowers planted at the bottom of your walls, this can increase damp and encourage mice or rats to settle a little too close to home. Furthermore, if you have bigger plants such as trees, their roots can seriously damage foundations.
4. Install a composite door
One of the more tiresome maintenance hassles that you would likely rather be rid of is the regular treatment of timber doors. Instead of doing this, consider replacing them with composite doors which have all the aesthetic appeal of wooden ones, only without the trouble. Composite doors are also energy efficient because they provide excellent insulation, which helps reduce both bills and damp.
5. Hire professionals for installations
Unfortunately, DIY projects are a huge cause of maintenance hassles. Whether it is because the job was done on the cheap or was simply not done properly, the money saved from trying to fix a broken pipe or installing a new oven yourself could well cost you more in the long term. Hire professionals for the job they are trained to do, and structures and appliances will likely not require such heavy maintenance.
6. Do small bits at a time
Keeping on top of the bits and bobs of maintenance is the last but possibly most important method of all for reducing maintenance hassles. Cleaning a couple of windows every week rather than leaving all of them to be done at once, for example, makes your life easier.