Why You Should Maintain Your Property
Whether it is your home, your beach house, or a rental property with tenants, you need to look after a property.
Ignoring the simple maintenance tasks is not a good idea. Those small jobs can snowball into big ones. Big ones that will cost far more than the time and energy of taking care of the maintenance tasks now.
If you leave it for too long, you will be forced to fund essential maintenance at a time when you can no longer avoid it. Years of wear, tear and damage can make the job costly. Plus, it can cause damage to other areas of the property during the time you ignored things. Instead of waking up to a nasty surprise one day, regular maintenance helps you to detect any potential problems and deal with them before they get worse.
Your house is your castle. After investing a significant amount of money into buying it, you want it to look good and function well. The only way you can guarantee this is to do some maintenance work. Plus, if you let it fall into disrepair then you are considerably lowering the value of the property.
So what can you do to stop that happening?
Simple Maintenance Jobs
There are certain jobs that you should do around the house every year. The summer holidays are perfect for ticking these jobs off the list as the weather is good and you have plenty of time up your sleeve.
They are:
Sweep Your Chimney: If you have a fireplace, then it is essential that you get your chimney swept annually. This is not just a safety hazard, but your insurance policy becomes invalid if you have a fire and you can’t prove your chimney has been swept each year. Summer is the perfect time for this job as your fireplace will not be needed in the warmer weather.
Wash Your Roof: Allowing moss, mould and lichen to build up on your roof can halve its life expectancy. It can cost upwards of $10,000 to replace a roof, that is not a cost you want sneaking up on you.
Wash The Exterior Of Your House: Washing the exterior of your property can double the life of your paint, preventing the need to invest thousands in repainting.
Clean Your Gutters: If water backflows into your property then it can cause major problems. Sometimes this can start happening without you realising. If it gets to the stage where there are drips from the ceiling or water running down the wall, then you are in for costly repairs!
Check Your Security: The invasion of privacy that a burglary causes is the worst feeling. Plus, having to repair damage and replace items is a hassle (and a cost) you don’t need. Instead, ensure that your property is secure at all times – doors, windows, locks, and alarms should all be working well.
Long Term Maintenance You Should Plan For
Having a property is not cheap. As well as the rates, the insurance and the mortgage, there is always the maintenance. And we don’t just mean the cost of cleaning products or a window latch. Over time there will be bigger jobs you are required to complete on your property and you should have a plan in place for how you going to tackle them.
The best place to start is to do a thorough assessment of your property. There is no better time to do it than the summer holidays!
Every property will have different needs. For example, a simple brick and tile will have less need for maintenance than a weatherboard villa. Look at the age of the property, what condition it is in, when the last time major maintenance work was done, and if there are any potential areas of concern. This assessment will prepare you for the work that will need to be completed long term.
Certain jobs you can do yourself, but some require more expert help. For the larger jobs or renovation projects, then get in touch with us here at JACK – we are experts in breathing life back into properties.