Image Credit: Aleksi Partanen from Unsplash.
Everyone wants to be a responsible homeowner, but many first-time owners overlook how much time, effort, and work this takes. They end up not being properly prepared for it. In turn, that could lead to a bit of stress and hassle as you try to get used to looking after your home.
Thankfully, this doesn’t need to be nearly as complicated as you could think. Having a home maintenance checklist makes it a whole lot easier.
It makes sure you know what you need to do, and gives you a better idea of when they need to be sorted out. But, you’ll need to know exactly what to include in this checklist and make sure nothing’s overlooked. Some home maintenance tasks stand out with this because of the impact they can have.
There’s no reason not to make sure seven specific tasks are a part of your checklist because of how important they are.
1. Clean Humid Areas
Humidity can be an issue in many homes, especially around the kitchen and the bathroom. If left unchecked, this increases the chances of mold and similar issues in your home, which can be harmful to your health. While proper ventilation helps with this, you’ll need to put a little more effort into avoiding any mold.
You're much better off cleaning humid areas regularly, no matter how well-ventilated they are. This helps to make sure mold doesn’t have the chance to grow, so there’s no reason why you’d have to worry about any mold growth. It only takes a few minutes, so you’ve no reason not to put the time and effort into it.
2. Check the Plumbing
Your plumbing is one of the largest systems in your home, and it’ll get almost constant use every day. It goes through a lot of wear and tear because of that, which risks damage that could harm the rest of your home. That’s why it’s always worth checking your plumbing regularly for this.
If you notice any, it could be worth getting a professional plumber in to sort it quickly and avoid any major issues. Water damage restoration also doesn’t need to be too much of an issue, and you can always get that addressed a lot faster than you would’ve thought, should any plumbing issues get to that point.
3. Inspect the Gutters
Most people don’t tend to pay too much attention to their gutters until there’s some form of problem. Usually, this ends up resulting in the gutters getting clogged up with leaves and other debris, causing them to collect rainwater. This can then cause further damage, both to the gutters themselves and to your walls and roof.
Avoid this by inspecting your gutters regularly for any signs of damage. Be on the lookout for anything that could clog them, too, cleaning them out regularly to make sure this doesn’t have to be an issue later on.
4. Test the Fire & Safety Alarms
One of the easiest home maintenance tasks to get done is also one of the easiest to forget about. Testing your fire alarm and other alarms around your home should be done every few weeks. If you don’t, these could end up running out of battery or just stop working, leaving you more at risk if something comes up.
Thankfully, testing these doesn’t have to be complicated, and it only takes a few seconds to get done for each alarm. Most options should have a button on them to test them. It should just be a matter of pressing these for a few seconds. If it doesn’t respond, you could need to replace the batteries.
5. Do a Deep Clean
One of the more obvious ways to look after your home is to keep it clean, and you could already have this worked into your week. But, that doesn’t mean just giving your home a basic clean. Sometimes, it’s worth doing a deep clean to make sure your house is as immaculate as possible.
Getting into the hard-to-reach areas, under the furniture, and more than a few other areas could help with this. There’s no reason not to put the time and effort into them. Thankfully, you don’t need to do this too regularly to see the impact, even if it’ll take a bit of elbow grease to do.
6. Don’t Forget the Appliances
You’ll use your appliances almost every day. Like anything else you’ll use regularly, this puts them through a lot of wear and tear. Make sure you give your appliances enough TLC to last for as long as possible. They’ll be expensive to replace, after all, so you wouldn’t want to do it regularly.
This doesn’t have to be too complicated to do, even though it could need a bit of elbow grease. Cleaning out your refrigerator coils, replacing filters on the HVAC unit, and similar small tasks could all be more than enough to help with this. There’s no reason why your appliances shouldn’t last years.
7. Keep Up With the Landscaping
The inside of your home is what you’ll use the most, so it’s natural to focus on that with your home maintenance. But, don’t let that mean you neglect your garden. This deserves a decent bit of time and attention, too, especially considering how much it can affect your home’s curb appeal.
Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be nearly as difficult as you’d think. Trimming the hedges and trees, mowing the lawn, and more than a few other simple landscaping tasks could be more than enough for this. If you’ve got a large garden with a complicated design, you can always get professional help with it.
A home maintenance checklist is a great way to make looking after your house a lot more manageable. At a minimum, it helps make sure you know what you need to get sorted and roughly when it needs to be done. There’s no reason this shouldn’t help you avoid a lot of stress, especially as a first-time homeowner.
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