Home maintenance is something that we try to go through every year. However, not many Americans maintain their homes during the first few years of their purchase. Many American homeowners usually wait five to ten years before they start maintaining their homes. This can be a big investment mistake.
Experts believe that you can save a decent amount of money by maintaining your home every year. But first, let’s talk about a vital strategy for home maintenance: the one-percent rule.
One-Percent Rule
You might have heard of such a rule before purchasing your home. It’s certainly a strategy that many people do once they’ve bought their very first home.
If you aren’t aware of the one-percent rule, it’s about saving one percent of your overall home price for maintenance. So if your home is priced at $200,000, you save $2,000 every year for home maintenance. You don’t necessarily have to spend this amount on maintenance every year, but you must save this amount of money. It will get you through tough times, especially if you need to renovate your home completely.
Now that we’ve talked about one of the essential strategies in home maintenance, let’s talk about the crucial home maintenance you have to do annually. You can start with one of the most important maintenance you should do every year: your HVAC systems.
HVAC System
We all know that the HVAC is one of the most critical systems in our home. Without it, we can’t survive various seasons like summer and winter. However, it is also the most vulnerable to depreciation and one of the most expensive to replace.
It’s estimated that replacing an HVAC system could cost you from around $7,000 to $10,000. That depends on the size of your system and your home. What’s the cost of maintaining it every year? It’s around $200. That’s savings of over $6,000 if you do the maintenance alone every year. You won’t need to replace your HVAC systems until after ten years or so. If you maintain them properly, you might never need to replace them ever again.
This is one of the more costly replacements, so it only makes sense that you maintain them the best way you can every year.
Gutter System
Your gutter system is another crucial part of your home that’s often overlooked. Getting your gutters replaced is another costly endeavor. However, it’s one of the most avoidable replacements out there if you only do gutter maintenance annually.
Our home gutters can get easily jammed by various obstructions such as dead trees during fall and thick snow during winter. This can significantly damage our gutters and can lead to drastic consequences in the future. For example, during storms, a clogged gutter can lead to flooding. This is why you should always maintain your gutter annually, to ensure that nothing drastic happens during emergencies.
Plumbing
Another often overlooked home maintenance is plumbing. Since we usually don’t get our plumbing done until something goes wrong, it’s important that we schedule this home service every year so that we don’t forget.
The cost of replacing faulty plumbing is around $800 to $2,000, and it can get much more expensive than that if your home is pretty big. The cost of maintaining your plumbing system is a fraction of that price, at around $200. Once again, this is one of the yearly maintenance you shouldn’t miss.
Your home’s plumbing is also one of the most crucial parts of your home. Much like your gutter, an unmaintained plumbing system can lead to floods and other disasters. Make sure to get it maintained every year to avoid this from happening.
Smart Device Maintenance
Lastly, you must maintain and update the smart devices in your homes to ensure that they are working at an optimal level.
Many homes are now using smart devices, and it would be amiss if you left them unmaintained. Smart devices can cost well up to $200 per device, and you could easily have five of those devices in your home. By not maintaining these devices, you could quickly spend $1,000 every year in replacing them. Make sure to check them every year and get someone to fix them if you notice any problems.
Furthermore, make sure that you update these devices every year. A smart device that isn’t updated might malfunction or lead to other errors. So ensure that you keep them updated annually.
Here is some essential home maintenance you should do every year. If you miss out on these home maintenance, you can easily spend thousands of dollars replacing them. Ensure that they don’t depreciate too much so you can save some money for the future.
