Homeownership comes with a lot of responsibility, and many first-time homeowners are taken aback at what it takes to run a household. One of the many home responsibilities is doing preventive maintenance on the interior and exterior elements of your home.
Home tasks sometimes fall by the wayside when life gets busy and funds get tight. If ignored, however, neglecting your preventative home maintenance tasks can cost you in the long run. Properly maintaining your home is less time-consuming and less expensive than dealing with big, unexpected issues.
Many of these tasks take little time and once they’re completed, you’ll have peace of mind knowing you did your part to prevent disastrous problems that can be expensive to fix.
Preventative Home Maintenance Checklist from the HouseMaster Home Inspection Pros
We’ve inspected enough homes to know what components of the home should be regularly maintained to avoid any lurking issues. We suggest keeping up with the below tasks to maintain an efficient and smooth-running home.
Roof
For safety reasons, it’s best to leave it to the professionals to get up on the roof and inspect it. Nonetheless, yearly roof inspections are a necessary part of your preventative home maintenance checklist. If shingles are damaged, loose, or missing, the roof could leak and cause water damage that can lead to mold and mildew.
Cleaning Gutters
Cleaning your gutters is another essential preventative home maintenance task. If gutters are clogged, they can’t do their job of keeping water away from the house. When gutters fail to drain water from the rain, or ice left over from snowstorms, you run the risk of water and moisture getting inside the home’s foundation.
HVAC
Each year, just before the fall or summer season begins, your HVAC systems need a tune-up. Before your air conditioning or heat starts to run at peak season, it’s a good idea to make sure all system components are running properly. Not only is this a task that can detect major issues, it can also make your heating and cooling system more energy efficient.
Plumbing and Electrical
Be proactive about the plumbing and electrical components of your home. Keep up with maintenance to look out for drainage or leak issues with your toilets, showers, and sinks, and make sure there are no loose connections with your electrical components. Plumbing and electrical issues can go unnoticed until a major problem pops up, often to the detriment of your wallet.
Smoke Alarms
Regularly checking your smoke alarms and carbon dioxide detectors can save lives. Each detector will have a test feature, which should be used about every six months or less. This is a simple task that should only take a few minutes and can notify you if replacement is needed.
Termite Prevention
Preventing your risk of a termite infestation can be done by keeping moisture away from your home’s foundation, sealing gaps that could be a possible form of entry for termites, and getting a termite inspection. Termite inspections, also known as a wood-destroying insect inspection or wood destroying organism inspection, includes home inspectors giving a visual examination of the readily accessible areas of the home for evidence of wood-destroying insect activity, or the visible damage caused by termites.
Look for Leaks
Leaks can cause water damage to the interior of the home or the home’s foundation, both of which can be expensive to fix. If no action is taken to fix a leak, it could lead to mold and mildew, and even attract termites. Any sign of a leak should be taken seriously, and actions should be taken right away. Plumbing leaks, water heater leaks, roof leaks, and any type of leak should be fixed immediately.
HouseMaster Serving Harrisburg and Lebanon Home Inspectors’ Preventative Home Maintenance Inspection
HouseMaster Serving Harrisburg, East Shore, West Shore, and Lebanon offers a preventative maintenance inspection that we highly recommend. This inspection involves a thorough review of the current condition of the exterior and interior components of the home and its systems.
We will review the roof, flashings, insulation issues, heating and air conditioning units, grading, the proper function of appliances and plumbing, electrical components, and smoke alarms for deferred maintenance. Just the same as our regular home inspections, we will offer recommended actions to take after these systems have been inspected.
Why do Homeowners Need a Preventative Maintenance Inspection?
Homeowners should get a preventative maintenance inspection to ensure there are no lurking issues with the home’s interior or exterior features that will unexpectedly pop up. The preventative maintenance inspection is used as a preemptive measure that can be used to catch problems early. Instead of waiting for the issue to prevent itself, a preventative maintenance inspection will proactively reveal issues that the homeowner can fix before they become a huge problem.
Harrisburg home inspectors Dan Ayers and Scott Ayers, like all HouseMaster home inspectors, have extensive training and certifications and are tested annually to meet the industry standards of continuing education, inspection, reporting, and customer service. As part of the oldest and most trusted nationwide home inspection business, Dan and Scott have been able to put their decade-long experience in fire and water property restoration and their passion for customer service to good use in the professional home inspection process. Request an inspection today!
