Best Ways to Save Money on Your House Maintenance
Buying a home can be a lengthy and costly process. However, the work doesn’t stop once you get the keys to your own house. Maintaining the house in good order is important to ensure your days are happier and it can even save you plenty of money in the end. Yet, keeping your home up to date and in good working condition can be a burden on your wallet. To ensure you don’t end up wasting a lot of money, you should consider the following tips. These are the best ways to save money on your house maintenance.
Keep it clean
Quite a few problems can happen simply because your house is a mess. If you want to limit internal and external damage to your house, you need to learn the keep things clean. The Good Housekeeping site has plenty of great tips for cleaning – you definitely want to start a weekly cleaning routine and to clean the house more thoroughly twice a year.
Remember that your cleaning shouldn’t just be about fixing things on the inside of the house. You also need to maintain the outside of the house. So, wash windows from the inside and the outside. Wash your doors and re-paint them if needed. You should also check the gutters and clean them regularly, especially after stormy weather. If your house has its own roof structure, climb up and get it sorted out at least twice a year.
Regular check-ups
You should also start checking your house appliances and equipment regularly to ensure you aren’t having any problems. Regular check-ups and tests can help you spot problems earlier, which in turn can guarantee you fix things soon and save money at the same time.
You generally have legal obligations to check things such as heating and gas regularly. Aside from these obvious tests, you should also check and bleed your radiators regularly, run all the taps to ensure nothing is leaking, test other electrical appliances regularly together with the switches. You also want to check the fuse box and any appliance that requires batteries to ensure these are operating normally.
Remember to fix issues you notice as soon as possible. The longer you put out fixing things, the higher the chances are that things turn into something much worse and end up costing a lot more money.
Learn DIY
Aside from ensuring you keep your house clean and in order, you also need to be ready for some basic DIY. If you are able to tighten a leaky faucet or paint your walls on your own, you can cut down the maintenance costs almost by half. DIY is definitely the cheapest solution to most issues.
Getting started won’t be difficult. You need basic tools, such as drills and screws, to solve most home-DIY problems. To save money, utilise the vouchers available for DIY shops from Toolstop. Buy the things you need and keep your tools in good condition. When you encounter a maintenance problem, such as a reeking door, you can check out YouTube videos and home maintenance websites for video tips and tutorials. These are great for practising your DIY skills.
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Some house maintenance things you should learn to do include:
- Tightening faucets and taps
- Changing light bulbs
- Painting walls and doors
- Refilling cracks
- Tightening screws, such as cupboard doors and hinges
Get professionals to help when needed
While DIY is great for little repairs and fixes, there are certain things you shouldn’t try repairing yourself. If you feel unsure about what to do or the job looks more like a professional fix, you shouldn’t be afraid of hiring a professional. Problems with electricity or major plumbing work are better left for the professionals to ensure you don’t end up causing more damage to your house and your budget.
When picking a professional keep a few things in mind. First, always check the qualifications, the experience and the reviews for the person. If you can have a friend recommend someone, it can be a great way of finding someone reliable. Furthermore, you do want to check around for quotes and fully understand what you are paying for. Make sure you are aware of the cost – you don’t want to be faced with unexpected expenses at the end of the repair process.
Have money at hand
Sometimes home maintenance is costly because we can’t afford it and we end up either putting it off or we need to take a loan with a high-interest rate. Therefore, you can guarantee a cheaper home maintenance bill if you have a bit of money at hand at all times. Start a savings account and have a few thousand at hand for fixing problems or replacing broken equipment. This ensures you get problems out of the way quicker and you don’t have to get in debt to sort out little issues.
With the above tips in mind, you can save money on your house maintenance and have a stress-free life.
