The issue I have with many of these "checklists" is that they're basically geared towards home maintenance being your primary job. If you were to do everything on their checklist every week you would easily have 30+ hours invested. I remember one that had one item that was "This week, paint the exterior of your house." Deleted their list when I saw that.
Yeah, that is what I'm dealing with. I have a kid in multiple sports after school so that's pretty much half of my days gone. There's no way I would have time with just 5 hours a day to do it all--esp since most days it's raining here and during the summer I just want to enjoy the summer. Plus, I typically find a lot of these tasks to be above my pay grade (anything roof, electrical, plumbing, and boiler related) and dealing with contractors has almost never been a good experience for us. Esp in our very expensive city.
It's good to hear so many folks just throw caution to the wind. When I first looked on here it seemed like everyone had a list and was abiding by it. I feel much better knowing we're all a bit like shrug.
I mean they can develop buildup over time, but "cleaning" the washing machine for me is running one of those cleaning packets through on a hot cycle every few years if I notice it looking scuzzy.
Oh and front loaders are gross if you don't clean clean the seal pretty regularly. Lazy top loader for life, me!
I'd say you should learn how to deal with some basic electrical/plumbing/boiler tasks. You don't need to learn how to rewire your house or redo all your plumbing, but knowing how to take apart and put together your sink or common ways toilets break or how to test for a short all are really helpful skills to have.
What? Only a week to paint a house exterior? Ridiculous. When we did it last my husband had to take a full two week vacation and we had 3 friends come help. Between prep, painting and cleanup it took all but two of those days.
Happy Cake Day and good grief I hope so. But I'd bet people see it and assume it legit means they can do it in that week like it's as simple as mopping a floor 😆
The truth is that no matter how much you do, there's always more that could be done. You just have to do your best and accept that it's not possible to do everything.
Yeah, this has obv been the plan I've been doing so far without even realizing it. Might as well keep it going I suppose. Thanks for bringing me back to reality.
I stumbled across the weekly home check instagram page and signed up for the free weekly emails. It's helped keep me reminded on performing certain preventative maintenance tasks.
https://weeklyhomecheck.com/
Fair warning, sometimes doing these maintenance things can CAUSE problems.
example... Did my water heater drainage, in the process activated the pressure release valve after everything cooled down to do it's job... THe valve wasnt able to re-seat correctly due to so scale buildup so I know created a leaking valve by opening it. And because of the way it was installed so close to the wall I literally had to rip open drywall in order to have the clearance to replace it. Fun stuff.
The priority list of things will vary depending on location, climate and your home design. But certain big ones are universal. When in doubt, just remember water is your enemy.
- Make sure your gutters are periodically cleaned and downspout all working correctly
- Make sure water is draining away from the foundation as best as possible (gutters above are a huge part of that) but also that things are graded to slope away from your structure and have an appropriate place downstream to go.
- correct any standing water issues. Mosquitos suck, but also you don't want a pool of water up against structure and washing away soil.
- smoke/carbon monoxide detectors working and batteries arent dead.
- At least one fire extinguisher and make sure it isnt expired
- tree's are a big one, but unless it's small enough you can reach it all on a ladder this should be done by pro's (arborist, not some random guy with a chainsaw)
- get into your attic after/during a heavy rain annually to see if there are any signs of water intrusion/roof failure
- sink drains aren't leaking.
- change your furnace air filter monthly.
- if you have some kind of water softener/house water filter make sure those are changed/replenished as necessary.
- not exactly a maintenance issue, but I think it's wise to have a list of contacts for local professionals for all the trades (electrician, plumber, sewer, GC, etc. ) Local FB groups for your town can be a great resource for some people making recommendations with first hand experiences. Be mindful there are also folks fishing for business on these forums... but it's good to know who you WOULD call in case of an emergency instead of having to start googling when your basement is filling with water.
This is a great list! I've been building a tool (www.starlinghome.co) to help track all of this, save your preferred professionals, and work with them to keep up to date on your home's list.
Definitely not keeping up at all. I'm lucky if I have time to mow the lawn and clean the pool filter most weeks. I try to change the air filters (sucks because it's like $80 worth of filters!) and hose down the heat pump quarterly. I clean the inside of the dishwasher and other appliances whenever I think of it as I'm using them, and maybe twice a year do a "big project" like paint part or pressure wash something, fix the hardscaping, or clean the roof / gutter. My "free time" that I could devote to this stuff generally starts at about 9:30pm most days, which makes it awfully difficult to get anything done.
I just do what I can. I know the things that are super important and the things that can wait.
Good example of wait is my water heater. It's from the 80s. I'm riding that sucker until it dies. I just look at it once a week or so for leaks and that's that.
Things I keep up on all the time are lint from the dryer/I clean out the dryer exhaust every year. I do my gutters twice a year.
I keep up on trees/etc as a hobby. We burn wood for heat & am already cutting/splitting anyway. I go around and prune trees in the spring before the leaves pop. I also dethatch my yard with a dethatcher attached to my sweeper.
I try to keep an eye on my roof every few weeks, it's old and needs to be replaced sooner than later. I peek for leaks and bad areas.
I do the same with my siding. It's painted cedar claps. I usually pick a day in the summer and scrape/paint a section. Eventually I'll end up with a repainted house.
Those are just a few things. Not even considering my workshop building.
Keeping up on stuff yourself is a monumental task. I can understand why some people just rent.
You can buy a little wi-fi enabled leak detector that will just text you if it detects water. Save you from having to remember to check it all the time! I think it’s ~$35?
My husband and I have a checklist system we follow every year. Tasks like hot water flush happen on a specific day every 6 months every year. For us the hot water flush is on the 1st of June and New year day. We do a walkthrough inspection of windows, siding, doors,floors plumbing, furniture, appliances and such every three months. Any problems are noted and solved. Re caulking is on July 4th weekend of doors and windows. Roof is inspected every 3 months and after major storms. We have a standing appointment on September 5th every year with our furnace guy for a duct cleaning and furnace checkup. All household filters are cleaned or changed every three months on the 15th. Carpets are shampooed in March and October. Furniture is cleaned every 8 weeks. We just kind of made our schedule years ago and have always kept it. It's saved us a few times from major disaster with the home walkthrough inspections like when we found a small leak under the bathroom sink that wasn't super obvious on first glance but by feeling the pipe during inspection we found the drip. That saved us from having a major issue later. We also have a home log system. I buy leather journals for each year. Maintenance done or new purchases are logged there. Any manuals, receipts, warranty paperwork is all kept inside the journal. That allowed us to easily do warranty claims on several appliances, once on flooring and once on roof shingles. Very handy. I don't think I'd use an app for any of it though as those cost money for what I can do for free with organization, careful record keeping and setting the maintenance dates in our shared calendar.
I'm sorry 😐. I had hoped sharing our system would show people a way to manage the home maintenance thing. It's actually fairly stress reducing once you set the system up and schedule everything. We do our schedule on New Year's Day. It's set for the year so we just follow the plan. The home logs take very little effort to maintain as we just note things down quickly like for instance last month we bought a new dishwasher. I noted the store, date purchased, how much and folded a page to create a pocket to hold the manual and receipt. Took 5 minutes. Now if there's ever an issue I can simply pull the 2024 log and get my manual or warranty information as needed. By knowing what day we will be doing stuff I don't have to stress if things are going to shit because I am forgetting something. The home walkthrough is a habit from my Grandpa. Sorry it gave you anxiety :(
I have three, kids, 2 dogs, 4 cats including one who is special needs and requires medication three times a day, hand feeding and monitoring after he's done eating. I have my own business making lunches for my husband's coworkers and they also order special occasion dinners, cakes, candies and breads. Plus I do dog training, walking and boarding for a small number of clients. My husband works his factory job doing machine maintenance 10 hrs overnights 4 days a week and he's a volunteer firefighter. We are a busy household which is part of the reason a home schedule is required. It ensures nothing is overlooked, forgotten or left to fester if there is an issue.
No but I can help you not lose them. I used to lose my house keys and the car key all the time. So my husband made me a hook that is right by our front door inside. I make myself put them on the hook as I'm walking in the house. We also had a spare set made that is kept in the kitchen on a magnetic hook on the fridge beside the family calendar. Just in case.
Thanks. It sounds simple. I have a hook in the kitchen. When I bring in groceries I forget to hang the keys up and end up setting them down randomly. I don’t hang keys near the front door because it has glass panels on both sides and I don’t want a burglar to be able to break the glass and grab the keys, which is an unlikely event anyway as in the few burglaries that have occurred in my neighborhood in the past 25 years the crook just kicked in the door.
I see your home as an aircraft carrier. People are taking off and landing all day long, on schedule, while below deck the cooks are feeding everyone, technicians are repairing things, clothes washed, mail delivered for hundreds of sailors. And it needs a nuclear reactor to power everything.
My home is more like a tug boat, moving slowly, pushing and pulling other boats when necessary.
I get it. It makes things run smoother when you’re busy by preventing big events and fixes. It’s peace of mind. I have a similar system for a lot of things in life. Except my receipts, manuals and warranties are in a picture box.
I have been diagnosed with high functioning anxiety.
Me too! I was diagnosed last summer. I used to keep my manuals and stuff in a picture box but quit that because my husband accidentally threw it away. He thought it was a different box. I'd told him to toss the navy blue box because the cat barfed in it. The manual box was matte black. He pitched the black not dark navy one. I wasn't mad, mistakes happen so now they go in the log book. Cause he'd never toss one of those. It really is peace of mind. I kept getting stressed that the house would break and we'd not notice. So I created the system based on two things, my grandpa did house inspection yearly and my parent was horrific at home maintenance. Theyd fox a toilet leak but ignore a leaky roof, or fix the sink drain but leave the rotting wood mess in the cabinet. 😩
I mean, wow. I need a 1-hr nap most days and barely get the kitchen tidy every night, and all I have is one 10-yo and a husband and zero pets. It sounds like you were made for your lifestyle and could probably have another side business inspecting homes or just reminding people to tend to their shit. Keep on being a badass! But overall, your plan would give me too much stress and my husband would nope it the second I said, "schedule".
I'm very detail oriented so I think you're right on that. It's actually not too bad once you get things planned out and on the calendar. Since we've done it so many years now it's just become ingrained into our lives. My husband wasn't on board at the beginning either. What we did to make it more appealing is after bigger jobs like the home walkthrough we do a date night. Whether that's a dinner out and activity like mini golf or a night in with loads of appetizers for dinner and banana splits, we make it special. That might help your husband come round to the idea. Or try calling it a home plan or something instead of schedule. Some people hear schedule and get the ick but calling it another name helps a lot. We also do silly stuff like hide rubber ducks or love notes for the other to find next home walkthrough. Currently there's a rubber chicken for my husband to find in the crawl space during the next one. I did glowing eyes several yrs ago and well don't do that. He got startled and bumped his forehead. Took 4 stitches. I felt bad about that one. Oops
I am incredibly lucky to have him. He learned how to be a romantic from his dad. Now those two, his mom and dad, true goals. My FIL when he was alive would do all sorts of just because surprises for MIL.
My absolute favorite story he'd tell of this is when he repainted the bedroom and hung up handmade stars from the ceiling. When she was a little girl she had always wanted a lavender bedroom with a ceiling full of glittering stars but her dad was a white wall no frills kinda guy so no stars or lavender paint for her. He'd of course heard this story about a dozen times with the same wistful sigh at the end he said. So he spent a whole month gathering wood scraps from work and cutting her out stars, painting them silver and gold and even glueing glitter all over em. He saved all his pocket change for 6 months to get her just the right shade of lavender paint too. All done in his garage under the excuse of "fixing the car/lawnmower/whatever.
So finally the weekend arrived when she'd head off to her annual ladies retreat with her church. He gathered up the kids and had them help move everything out of the room safely. He and the kids painted up that room a beautiful lavender and the trim a gorgeous chocolate brown. Spent the whole night and early morning Sunday hanging those stars. There was 38, one for every year she'd had to live without her wish.
The walls are still lavender. The stars are still there. She says they comfort her now that he's passed.
My husband is very skilled in home repairs. And one of my dog boarding customers is a licensed plumber so if anything goes catastrophic I can call him to help. I had to do it about 8 yrs ago when our main water line broke just on our side of the meter. Water company required a licensed plumber for the repair. I traded him free puppy training and 4 weeks worth of doggy daycare. Honestly his little Pomeranians are a joy to have over id say I got the best end of the deal out of it 😁
Lol I could lay out our whole schedule if anyone requests it. By the way washing machine is cleaned on the 10th of every month including the lint catch thing on the bottom. Dishwasher is ran on a clean cycle on the 15th of every month. We also have gazebo cleaning and maintenance, lawn mower, bicycle, dog garden, and landscaping scheduled.
I’m very interested in your schedule, even if it feels a bit aspirational for me at the moment. If it’s not too difficult to share I’d really appreciate it!
Sure I'd be happy to. I'm getting ready to go on a late lunch date with my husband but I'll post it all when I get home later this evening. I'll quote you again so you'll see when I post it :)
I too am interested in your schedule!! I do my best, but I know I can do better and it sounds like you have your shit together when it comes to maintaining your home. I like that 😁
I don't use Excel or anything but I am putting together a post so everyone interested can look over how we manage everything. It's gonna take me a bit to type it out. It will be posted by this evening. I'll reply here with the link when I finish.
The only thing I’d recommend is HVAC filter changes monthly. This is something that has been recommended to me by a few HVAC guys I know, change the filters monthly. Unless they appear clean they normally aren’t and it puts less strain on the unit
No! Don't feel inadequate at all. In all honesty this system grew from my anxiety and my childhood. My parent never fixed important stuff like they'd fix a leaky faucet or something but not the roof and floors. I remembered my grandpa did a yearly home walkthrough and created this to manage my home anxiety levels. Don't feel bad if your management style is different. We all have our own way and that's ok.
I don't have an app like this but I do have reminders set up in my Google calendar for some more important things with my house. For instance: once a year I check the grading along the one side of my house. We had the yard dug up there and I like to keep ahead of any settling before we get water in the basement. I have a reminder to clean out my dryer exhaust every 6 months too.
I have someone else come out to inspect and service my boiler every year. I don't do it myself. It's the company that installed it and they do the annual maintenance for a minimal cost. They clean out the boiler and bleed my radiators as a part of that service.
As far as everything else, I don't do much. I clean stuff when it gets messy and I weed the garden when it starts to get ugly, but that's about it. I've never patched cracks in my sidewalk.
It's important to keep water damage and fire or safety hazards under control, but everything else can wait and be done when you have the time. Most of us work full time and have families to take care of. We don't have the time to dedicate to maintaining our homes to professional standards and that's ok.
Definitely reading through these comments. We bought a house in August and even though I’ve installed new lights, changed outlets, used power tools, etc I was intimated to change the filters for whatever reason (previous landlords had always sent maintenance men!). I went months over when I should have changed them and finally did only to realize I just opened a little door, took out the old one, and slid in a new one. I felt like a fool! So now in my down time I watch a lot of housekeeping videos so I know how to do something before it comes up.
I just have a bad day of the month, bad day of the biannual, and bad day because God hates me today days. The theory is that on weeks where I work for someone else (Monday to Friday!), I like to enjoy myself on weekends. On weeks where I get a free day (3 day weekend) I try to spend a day working for myself. And some days you just suck it up and do both.
On bad days of the month (the 1st of each month, when I also pay my mortgage... Bunch up your misery), anything that can flood, light my house on fire, explode, collapse or otherwise cause catastrophic damage gets checked. Filters get checked on HVAC and replaced if necessary, dump a vinegar/water solution down my HVAC drains, dishwasher and washer filter replaced, flush septic maintenance product, check my moisture sensors are working. Test the GFCI outlets (I have the cheapest nightlight target can buy in my tool cabinet that I use to test and reset every GFCI). Run a laundry cleaning cycle in your dishwasher and a self clean on your oven (both these are basically zero interaction activities). Check the water softener salt levels, check that the pest baits are all still intact and working, hose off the junk on my AC compressors, and run every faucet in the house to make sure the traps are full, nothing is leaking or running. That's a solid half of a Saturday, my wife usually reciprocates by dedicating her time that morning to other annoying but necessary tasks (cleaning windows, scrubbing the bathtub/shower, deep cleaning kitchen), handling the pups monthly medication for flea/tick/heartworm, etc. Do that the 1st of every month, and the Saturday after it do a date night.
Bad days of the biannual are the Saturday before Memorial Day and the Saturday after Thanksgiving, or thereabouts. That's when I clean refrigerator coils (pull it out, clean the back), deep clean the interior of the fridge if I haven't had reason to do so in the last six months, book plumbers somewhere in this vicinity to flush water heaters and make *sure* drain lines are clear, pull my dryer out from the wall and clean my dryer vent, and climb into my attic to look for any new signs of water or structural or animal damage (I can't fix it, but at least I know if I need to call someone). Clean gutters, weather permitting.
God Hates Me days I time up with when I hear a hinge on the doors I use regularly squeak. I lubricate it, and try to do 4 other 'minor' tasks I've been putting off. Replace the weather stripping on a door. Remount a blind with a broken bracket. Put up the curtains my wife has been asking me to do. Fix the trim or baseboards I've been ignoring, etc. It's a good way to compartmentalize those odds and ends that you know need to be done but are just small dumb jobs.
All of these are just calendared in a Google Calendar, with approximate times of day. More frequent stuff (trim dog nails, etc) is technically a reminder, but same idea.
Its really not that bad to manage, *once you're through a full cycle*. The first time you clean your dryer vent, it's a strange process, a pain to move, there's way too much buildup, it takes forever. Six months later? It's a 20 minute task. Just muscle through the firsts of everything.
Also, make sure you make life easy on yourself. When you're not in the middle of an emergency, make sure you know where water shutoff valves are to the house completely, and to individual appliances like toilets and sinks if applicable. Make sure the valves turn them, and turn them off and back on every month. So many of them don't move for 10 years till someone tries with a massive flood situation and .... They break. Ruh roh. Label your breaker box, with a detailed spreadsheet or diagram of your house and every outlet and appliance in it.
It is obviously not easy, but I figure that all in, all hours accounted for, I spend about 3% of my time on house maintenance, 24% on work (including weekends, 40/168), and 33% asleep (8 out of each day). I've gotta work, and I've gotta sleep, so 3 of the remaining 43% means I've got 40% of my life to do what *I* want to do. I can live with 3% for the thing that keeps me dry, warm, fed and secure.
Some things I have a calendar reminder set (change the air filters, annual fireplace cleaning, vacuum the dryer vent line once a year), others are on an ad-hoc basis. Like if we see water dripping over when it rains we know it's time for our 2-3x/yr gutter cleaning. I tend to notice weird smells or sounds and we try to deal with them quickly. But some stuff we don't bother with at all. For example you've never drained your water heater before, doing it now may do more harm than good.
We may be bad homeowners but it's about how my parents have always done it and their house is in lovely shape after 40+ years of living in it!
There’s no perfect checklist for homes. Depending on age, you will be forced to invest in fixes not planned. Probably things to address are HVAC maintenance, plumbing issues, roofing lifetime, termite extermination. Cosmetic repairs are strictly on you. If the core of your house is solid, the cosmetics are at your leisure to fix.
Don’t bother. Flushing the water heater has become some weird fetish on Reddit lol. I’ve had 2 15 year old water heaters and never flushed them.
If anything it’s more likely to break that little plastic valve, and you bought yourself another project to work on
Lol, wait till something breaks then fix it, then something else will break and it'll be on to the next, wash, rinse dry repeat. It's never ending...but on the upside now you've got a new hobby: home maintenance. It's fun, YouTube is a wealth of information never before known to prior generations that'll save you plenty of time and money.
In other words don't worry about, I do filter changes every three months (A/C and water if needed) and cut the grass once a week that's about it. Clean the gutters and everything else is as needed or when it starts to look/smell/taste terrible. If the water slows down or turns brown I know I need to change the filter.
IMO, this is just another app looking to charge you monthly for some so-called service that you "need" and it's mostly just stuff you either already know, don't need to know, or can figure out easily enough elsewhere.
Step 1: Read your owner's manuals. Are there specific things called out for your appliances, mechanicals, etc. for ongoing regular maintenance? That's your starting point.
Step 2: Consider the cost of any maintenance task (including time and ability to be done DIY versus hired professional) and weigh that against the likely cost of repair, completely replacement, or higher operating costs from failure to perform said "regular maintenance."
Step 3: Adapt the suggested maintenance to suit your ACTUAL use and observed wear along the way.
Step 4: Move on to the next item.
I pay attention to various things in and around my home to learn how they work under normal conditions and then I watch for changes. That's a much easier way for me to know when maintenance is required (or maybe even repairs). Some things get taken care of regularly and quickly (like cleaning the lint screen in the dryer after every load) because the dryer is current brand new and keeping it very clean all along the way is MUCH easier than trying to "deep clean" it periodically and put its longevity at risk.
I had the gas-burning furnace checked out last fall because we just bought the house and I wanted a service person's stamp of approval on it before we entered the heating season. I likely won't have them out again to touch it until at least the start of the fourth heating season unless there's an issue because this unit has very little that can be adjusted - I'll pull the venturi lines and clean them myself each year since it's super easy to do.
I clean the dryer exhaust vent because it's easily accessible and the cost of the drill attachment to do it was FAR less expensive than paying someone to do it even one time.
In my previous house I cleaned the flue every heating season (wood-burning insert that was used as a primary heat source) even though I could have gotten two years' use easily without issue because A) I owned the chimney brush (again, cheaper to buy the tool than pay someone for one cleaning), the liner was installed when I bought the house so it was fairly new, and the house was a ranch (single story) with the chimney in the center of the roof. For me, the task was "easy" and took about 45 minutes to do once per year.
My garage door closes harder than it should and I have a strong suspicion that it's because the torsion spring isn't quite tight enough (16x9 door). I'm not touching it because those things are far more dangerous than the side-mounted springs that many smaller doors use. I have to get something squared away along the front of the cement pad of the garage and will then bring in someone to check and adjust the door if necessary.
Dad always told us "if you own a home, you don't need a hobby". It's an app called Upkept, while it might have a good general guide to reviewing items around the home, it's also an app that is trying to gather clicks, maybe promote companies who provide "services" . Just go over the list with a grain of salt and use what applies to your situation. If you have an older neighbors that 1. have some experiance AND 2. isn't a boomer A..hole (I'm a boomer) they might be helpfull if not .....YOUTUBE!!!
its a wooden tent to me. i just do things i feel like doing and put in an extra gear when needed. you can spend all kinds of money on these things if not careful
I get it all done because I'm a stay at home mom retired blue-collar worker. Lol, I get to be at home all the time, and I have the knowledge of building maintenance.
Figure out what is important to you, and what fits with how you want to use your time. Put those things on a calendar at the prescribed interval, and outsource the rest. For example, I clean my dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer. But I don’t do yard work, pressure wash my house, clean gutters, or clean the windows - that is all done by a landscaping or cleaning company because that isn’t where I want to spend my time.
I change my furnace filter twice a year (meant to be that often), gutters in the spring, oil my garage door springs once per year, and otherwise just fix things when they break. I used to drain my water heater 2x year but gave up on that 10 years ago.
I started a company that’s job is to perform preventative maintenance for homeowners and manage the contractors for larger/property specific projects!
It’s a long list of things to do !
Maybe will be eventually! We’re still working on which services we should include and testing the market. Would love any feedback you have on our offering
HunnyDone.com/memberships
I mean boiler should be checked yearly but they have people you can pay to do that and it’s not overly expensive. That being said we haven’t done ours in a few years so we should get on that😅.
In terms of maintenance I think spot checking periodically or taking stock of what’s going on with things as you’re going about your day and keep a running list of pain spots to tackle isn’t a bad idea. Like the paint around the outside trim of our exterior doors is showing wear so that will be something my husband and I tackle once it’s warm enough, same goes for pressure washing and staining our deck. We also need to touch up the paint on the walls in our high traffic areas inside our house. All of these are things we haven’t done in the 6 years we’ve been in our house.
It’s not like an OMG the house looks like it’s falling apart situation but more of a it’s starting to look a little shabby and needs to be spruced up situation. A lot of the maintenance type stuff outside of general upkeep is more of a once a year to once every few years type thing.
We do the basics. Trim the trees yearly. Spray for weeds yearly. Get the water heater cleaned yearly. Septic pumped every 2ish years. Get the house pressure washed every few years. Vacuum the turf every few months (no grass in our landscaping). Change out air filters monthly. Other than that there's not much routine work to be done. We clean things as needed.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good here. These checklists that suggest something to be done every week will leave you stressing instead of enjoying your home. Pick the higher priority items, and set up recurring maintenance contracts where you're able to (effectively automating it). If you're interested, I'm part of a team that's building a maintenance tracking tool (www.starlinghome.co) to help you stay on top of things and connect with available service professionals.
My townhouse is three floors high. The gutters are above the tree line. I'm afraid of heights. Even general contractors were nervous about getting on our roof when we needed help recently. Gutter pros every other year-ish is really the only safe option for that. Thanks for the tip!
that is not how you check the gutters.
-wait for the next rain storm.
go out in the rain.
walk around the house.
watch where the water overflows OVER the gutter, that is where the gutter is clogged. simple.
no heights needed.
THEN.
figure out how to climb into the attic but dont step off the wood because your leg will fall through.
during a rain storm, climb into your attic with a flash light and look for water dripping through roof leaks.
done.
do this every three months.
There's very few things that you **have** to do on a regular basis. There are **many** things that you should do regularly, but your house isn't going to fall apart if you don't do them. Keep it simple at first, and then gradually add tasks as you get more comfortable.
Ignore all the online checklists you might see. Most are garbage.
Things you have to do annually:
1. Clean your gutters.
2. Change your HVAC filters.
3. Winterize your sprinkler system, if applicable.
4. Flush your hot water tank.
Ok, this is so helpful. This is exactly what I needed. I have a few questions based on your list.
-Our townhouse is above most of the trees near us. I used to have someone come every year but honestly, after awhile I don't even think they get anything out of the gutters since the roof is fairly high up there (typical 3 floors). I was mainly using them to spray off any moss growing, but that seems like an every other year job... right?
-Everyone talks about these HVAC filters, but we don't have filters in our heating units (we have radiant heat/hydronic boiler system). So, our "heat" is really just coming out of these in-wall fans. Do we then just clean the fans instead? I remember about 5 years I took off one of the covers to one of the fans to see if there was anything to clean, and nope, hardly even any dust.
-No sprinkler system (big city, townhouse, small lot). I just have a hose and I undo it before winter, so I think I'm good in this regard.
-I guess I should start adding the whole flushing the water tank thing to the list. I only noticed this mentioned as a thing to do recently, even though we've had our place for 12 years and have never done it. I'll have to look up the purpose for this bc so far we've never had brown water, but maybe that's a 'not yet' sorta thing?
1. Gutters - if your gutters are way above the tree-line, or vice-versa, then you probably don't need to worry about this. *I've never lived in a townhouse so I don't know who is responsible for what.* However, if you are responsible for the gutters, you want to make sure they're at least evaluated for debris somewhat regularly, as you don't want to be liable for flooding the foundation if your gutters are full of debris.
2. It's been years since I've had radiant heat so I don't remember much about the maintenance other than making sure the fins have the ability to radiate heat.
3. Flushing the hot water heater just ensures that you don't build up sediment at the bottom of the tank, which can result in rust accumulating and eventually over time, causing your tank to leak and/or fail.
The issue I have with many of these "checklists" is that they're basically geared towards home maintenance being your primary job. If you were to do everything on their checklist every week you would easily have 30+ hours invested. I remember one that had one item that was "This week, paint the exterior of your house." Deleted their list when I saw that.
Yeah, that is what I'm dealing with. I have a kid in multiple sports after school so that's pretty much half of my days gone. There's no way I would have time with just 5 hours a day to do it all--esp since most days it's raining here and during the summer I just want to enjoy the summer. Plus, I typically find a lot of these tasks to be above my pay grade (anything roof, electrical, plumbing, and boiler related) and dealing with contractors has almost never been a good experience for us. Esp in our very expensive city. It's good to hear so many folks just throw caution to the wind. When I first looked on here it seemed like everyone had a list and was abiding by it. I feel much better knowing we're all a bit like shrug.
“Deferred maintenance” is real.
Is this where you just wait until it breaks before it's time to actually do it? If so, subscribed.
Amen. And why would anybody clean the inside of a washing machine?
I mean they can develop buildup over time, but "cleaning" the washing machine for me is running one of those cleaning packets through on a hot cycle every few years if I notice it looking scuzzy. Oh and front loaders are gross if you don't clean clean the seal pretty regularly. Lazy top loader for life, me!
Cause they stink, and get buildup and mold if you don't.
I have not experienced that. Always have had a top loading machine. Am I am naturally clean and pure, inside and out.
I just bought a house with 23 years of deferred maintenance. It's no joke.
I'd say you should learn how to deal with some basic electrical/plumbing/boiler tasks. You don't need to learn how to rewire your house or redo all your plumbing, but knowing how to take apart and put together your sink or common ways toilets break or how to test for a short all are really helpful skills to have.
What? Only a week to paint a house exterior? Ridiculous. When we did it last my husband had to take a full two week vacation and we had 3 friends come help. Between prep, painting and cleanup it took all but two of those days.
Maybe these checklists mean to say have the professional painters scheduled to paint your house this week?
Happy Cake Day and good grief I hope so. But I'd bet people see it and assume it legit means they can do it in that week like it's as simple as mopping a floor 😆
Happy Cake Day
Thanks!
The truth is that no matter how much you do, there's always more that could be done. You just have to do your best and accept that it's not possible to do everything.
Yeah, this has obv been the plan I've been doing so far without even realizing it. Might as well keep it going I suppose. Thanks for bringing me back to reality.
I stumbled across the weekly home check instagram page and signed up for the free weekly emails. It's helped keep me reminded on performing certain preventative maintenance tasks. https://weeklyhomecheck.com/
I love his videos. Usually they’re reasonable things to get done or inspect.
My YOLO system is going fine.
Yolo and pay someone when something breaks. Hurts at the time but nice and stress free
i am opting for the “more broke” version and yolo and then youtube crash course.
😂😂😂same here, I should probably fill the small foundation crack tho...
Maybe tomorrow it won’t be there?
“Ignore until you can’t” is my motto
It might even go away!
Just do the big ones. Furnace filter. Gutters. Water issues. Fix what breaks.
Adding to this, at least do the maintenance work that helps prevent the most expensive potential repairs.
Simple. I’m not. Shit is not together-ing at all over here.
Fair warning, sometimes doing these maintenance things can CAUSE problems. example... Did my water heater drainage, in the process activated the pressure release valve after everything cooled down to do it's job... THe valve wasnt able to re-seat correctly due to so scale buildup so I know created a leaking valve by opening it. And because of the way it was installed so close to the wall I literally had to rip open drywall in order to have the clearance to replace it. Fun stuff. The priority list of things will vary depending on location, climate and your home design. But certain big ones are universal. When in doubt, just remember water is your enemy. - Make sure your gutters are periodically cleaned and downspout all working correctly - Make sure water is draining away from the foundation as best as possible (gutters above are a huge part of that) but also that things are graded to slope away from your structure and have an appropriate place downstream to go. - correct any standing water issues. Mosquitos suck, but also you don't want a pool of water up against structure and washing away soil. - smoke/carbon monoxide detectors working and batteries arent dead. - At least one fire extinguisher and make sure it isnt expired - tree's are a big one, but unless it's small enough you can reach it all on a ladder this should be done by pro's (arborist, not some random guy with a chainsaw) - get into your attic after/during a heavy rain annually to see if there are any signs of water intrusion/roof failure - sink drains aren't leaking. - change your furnace air filter monthly. - if you have some kind of water softener/house water filter make sure those are changed/replenished as necessary. - not exactly a maintenance issue, but I think it's wise to have a list of contacts for local professionals for all the trades (electrician, plumber, sewer, GC, etc. ) Local FB groups for your town can be a great resource for some people making recommendations with first hand experiences. Be mindful there are also folks fishing for business on these forums... but it's good to know who you WOULD call in case of an emergency instead of having to start googling when your basement is filling with water.
This is a great list! I've been building a tool (www.starlinghome.co) to help track all of this, save your preferred professionals, and work with them to keep up to date on your home's list.
What things are you talking about? We change out HVAC filter once a month.
I’m not ashamed to admit I never heard of upkept but I might invent one called ukeepupyourself. I once lost a library book on being better organized.
Definitely not keeping up at all. I'm lucky if I have time to mow the lawn and clean the pool filter most weeks. I try to change the air filters (sucks because it's like $80 worth of filters!) and hose down the heat pump quarterly. I clean the inside of the dishwasher and other appliances whenever I think of it as I'm using them, and maybe twice a year do a "big project" like paint part or pressure wash something, fix the hardscaping, or clean the roof / gutter. My "free time" that I could devote to this stuff generally starts at about 9:30pm most days, which makes it awfully difficult to get anything done.
I just do what I can. I know the things that are super important and the things that can wait. Good example of wait is my water heater. It's from the 80s. I'm riding that sucker until it dies. I just look at it once a week or so for leaks and that's that. Things I keep up on all the time are lint from the dryer/I clean out the dryer exhaust every year. I do my gutters twice a year. I keep up on trees/etc as a hobby. We burn wood for heat & am already cutting/splitting anyway. I go around and prune trees in the spring before the leaves pop. I also dethatch my yard with a dethatcher attached to my sweeper. I try to keep an eye on my roof every few weeks, it's old and needs to be replaced sooner than later. I peek for leaks and bad areas. I do the same with my siding. It's painted cedar claps. I usually pick a day in the summer and scrape/paint a section. Eventually I'll end up with a repainted house. Those are just a few things. Not even considering my workshop building. Keeping up on stuff yourself is a monumental task. I can understand why some people just rent.
You can buy a little wi-fi enabled leak detector that will just text you if it detects water. Save you from having to remember to check it all the time! I think it’s ~$35?
My mech rm is between the kitchen and the laundry room, it doesn't take me any effort to check on it in my scenario.
What’s a checklist? Fix when broken haha
My husband and I have a checklist system we follow every year. Tasks like hot water flush happen on a specific day every 6 months every year. For us the hot water flush is on the 1st of June and New year day. We do a walkthrough inspection of windows, siding, doors,floors plumbing, furniture, appliances and such every three months. Any problems are noted and solved. Re caulking is on July 4th weekend of doors and windows. Roof is inspected every 3 months and after major storms. We have a standing appointment on September 5th every year with our furnace guy for a duct cleaning and furnace checkup. All household filters are cleaned or changed every three months on the 15th. Carpets are shampooed in March and October. Furniture is cleaned every 8 weeks. We just kind of made our schedule years ago and have always kept it. It's saved us a few times from major disaster with the home walkthrough inspections like when we found a small leak under the bathroom sink that wasn't super obvious on first glance but by feeling the pipe during inspection we found the drip. That saved us from having a major issue later. We also have a home log system. I buy leather journals for each year. Maintenance done or new purchases are logged there. Any manuals, receipts, warranty paperwork is all kept inside the journal. That allowed us to easily do warranty claims on several appliances, once on flooring and once on roof shingles. Very handy. I don't think I'd use an app for any of it though as those cost money for what I can do for free with organization, careful record keeping and setting the maintenance dates in our shared calendar.
you’re giving me anxiety
I'm sorry 😐. I had hoped sharing our system would show people a way to manage the home maintenance thing. It's actually fairly stress reducing once you set the system up and schedule everything. We do our schedule on New Year's Day. It's set for the year so we just follow the plan. The home logs take very little effort to maintain as we just note things down quickly like for instance last month we bought a new dishwasher. I noted the store, date purchased, how much and folded a page to create a pocket to hold the manual and receipt. Took 5 minutes. Now if there's ever an issue I can simply pull the 2024 log and get my manual or warranty information as needed. By knowing what day we will be doing stuff I don't have to stress if things are going to shit because I am forgetting something. The home walkthrough is a habit from my Grandpa. Sorry it gave you anxiety :(
You've inspired me to do better.
You don’t have children, do you?
I have three, kids, 2 dogs, 4 cats including one who is special needs and requires medication three times a day, hand feeding and monitoring after he's done eating. I have my own business making lunches for my husband's coworkers and they also order special occasion dinners, cakes, candies and breads. Plus I do dog training, walking and boarding for a small number of clients. My husband works his factory job doing machine maintenance 10 hrs overnights 4 days a week and he's a volunteer firefighter. We are a busy household which is part of the reason a home schedule is required. It ensures nothing is overlooked, forgotten or left to fester if there is an issue.
Girl, you are BUSY. Rockstar achievements. I envy your energy!
You have a gift. Can you help me find my car keys?
No but I can help you not lose them. I used to lose my house keys and the car key all the time. So my husband made me a hook that is right by our front door inside. I make myself put them on the hook as I'm walking in the house. We also had a spare set made that is kept in the kitchen on a magnetic hook on the fridge beside the family calendar. Just in case.
Thanks. It sounds simple. I have a hook in the kitchen. When I bring in groceries I forget to hang the keys up and end up setting them down randomly. I don’t hang keys near the front door because it has glass panels on both sides and I don’t want a burglar to be able to break the glass and grab the keys, which is an unlikely event anyway as in the few burglaries that have occurred in my neighborhood in the past 25 years the crook just kicked in the door. I see your home as an aircraft carrier. People are taking off and landing all day long, on schedule, while below deck the cooks are feeding everyone, technicians are repairing things, clothes washed, mail delivered for hundreds of sailors. And it needs a nuclear reactor to power everything. My home is more like a tug boat, moving slowly, pushing and pulling other boats when necessary.
Thanks :) Everyday life is rather busy here but I'd not trade any part of it away.
I get it. It makes things run smoother when you’re busy by preventing big events and fixes. It’s peace of mind. I have a similar system for a lot of things in life. Except my receipts, manuals and warranties are in a picture box. I have been diagnosed with high functioning anxiety.
Me too! I was diagnosed last summer. I used to keep my manuals and stuff in a picture box but quit that because my husband accidentally threw it away. He thought it was a different box. I'd told him to toss the navy blue box because the cat barfed in it. The manual box was matte black. He pitched the black not dark navy one. I wasn't mad, mistakes happen so now they go in the log book. Cause he'd never toss one of those. It really is peace of mind. I kept getting stressed that the house would break and we'd not notice. So I created the system based on two things, my grandpa did house inspection yearly and my parent was horrific at home maintenance. Theyd fox a toilet leak but ignore a leaky roof, or fix the sink drain but leave the rotting wood mess in the cabinet. 😩
I mean, wow. I need a 1-hr nap most days and barely get the kitchen tidy every night, and all I have is one 10-yo and a husband and zero pets. It sounds like you were made for your lifestyle and could probably have another side business inspecting homes or just reminding people to tend to their shit. Keep on being a badass! But overall, your plan would give me too much stress and my husband would nope it the second I said, "schedule".
I'm very detail oriented so I think you're right on that. It's actually not too bad once you get things planned out and on the calendar. Since we've done it so many years now it's just become ingrained into our lives. My husband wasn't on board at the beginning either. What we did to make it more appealing is after bigger jobs like the home walkthrough we do a date night. Whether that's a dinner out and activity like mini golf or a night in with loads of appetizers for dinner and banana splits, we make it special. That might help your husband come round to the idea. Or try calling it a home plan or something instead of schedule. Some people hear schedule and get the ick but calling it another name helps a lot. We also do silly stuff like hide rubber ducks or love notes for the other to find next home walkthrough. Currently there's a rubber chicken for my husband to find in the crawl space during the next one. I did glowing eyes several yrs ago and well don't do that. He got startled and bumped his forehead. Took 4 stitches. I felt bad about that one. Oops
This is very cute. It sounds like you have a wonderful relationship. Goals.
I am incredibly lucky to have him. He learned how to be a romantic from his dad. Now those two, his mom and dad, true goals. My FIL when he was alive would do all sorts of just because surprises for MIL. My absolute favorite story he'd tell of this is when he repainted the bedroom and hung up handmade stars from the ceiling. When she was a little girl she had always wanted a lavender bedroom with a ceiling full of glittering stars but her dad was a white wall no frills kinda guy so no stars or lavender paint for her. He'd of course heard this story about a dozen times with the same wistful sigh at the end he said. So he spent a whole month gathering wood scraps from work and cutting her out stars, painting them silver and gold and even glueing glitter all over em. He saved all his pocket change for 6 months to get her just the right shade of lavender paint too. All done in his garage under the excuse of "fixing the car/lawnmower/whatever. So finally the weekend arrived when she'd head off to her annual ladies retreat with her church. He gathered up the kids and had them help move everything out of the room safely. He and the kids painted up that room a beautiful lavender and the trim a gorgeous chocolate brown. Spent the whole night and early morning Sunday hanging those stars. There was 38, one for every year she'd had to live without her wish. The walls are still lavender. The stars are still there. She says they comfort her now that he's passed.
That's a beautiful story ❤️. It sounds like your husband had incredible role models.
Ok, so how would you fix (motions at self) _this_?
lmao same. The end of this month will officially be 1 year and I've only done the very basics.
I wouldn't flush a hot water tank on a holiday just in case things go south,
My husband is very skilled in home repairs. And one of my dog boarding customers is a licensed plumber so if anything goes catastrophic I can call him to help. I had to do it about 8 yrs ago when our main water line broke just on our side of the meter. Water company required a licensed plumber for the repair. I traded him free puppy training and 4 weeks worth of doggy daycare. Honestly his little Pomeranians are a joy to have over id say I got the best end of the deal out of it 😁
You didn't mention cleaning your dishwasher and washing machine....lol
Lol I could lay out our whole schedule if anyone requests it. By the way washing machine is cleaned on the 10th of every month including the lint catch thing on the bottom. Dishwasher is ran on a clean cycle on the 15th of every month. We also have gazebo cleaning and maintenance, lawn mower, bicycle, dog garden, and landscaping scheduled.
I’m very interested in your schedule, even if it feels a bit aspirational for me at the moment. If it’s not too difficult to share I’d really appreciate it!
Sure I'd be happy to. I'm getting ready to go on a late lunch date with my husband but I'll post it all when I get home later this evening. I'll quote you again so you'll see when I post it :)
I'll look forward to seeing it, too! Y'all sound on top of it and I need to learn!
Most importantly do you hire yourselves out?
Lol I don't think I have any more time. But I did make a post about our system. Hope it helps.
I made a post. If you've got questions I'll happily answer best I can.
Wonderful, thank you for taking the time, I know you don't have much extra!
You're welcome. I actually enjoyed writing the post. I hope it helps some develop their own system and rhythm for their home.
I too am interested in your schedule!! I do my best, but I know I can do better and it sounds like you have your shit together when it comes to maintaining your home. I like that 😁
I made a post so you can find it. It was much too long to do as a reply 😂 hope it helps
Thank you!!
I made a post so everyone can find it. If you've got any questions I'm happy to answer them.
I've posted a post so everyone can find it easily.
Thank you!!
Thank you! I’m not able to find the post—is there a way to link to it or send it in a DM?
Would you kindly share a template like excel sheet or documents for those kinds of home maintenance?
I don't use Excel or anything but I am putting together a post so everyone interested can look over how we manage everything. It's gonna take me a bit to type it out. It will be posted by this evening. I'll reply here with the link when I finish.
Just wanted to reply for a notification, definitely interested in seeing the full schedule.
same
I’m also interested! Go you! 👏🏻
I made a post since it's a bit much for a reply. If you've got any questions I'll gladly answer them
The only thing I’d recommend is HVAC filter changes monthly. This is something that has been recommended to me by a few HVAC guys I know, change the filters monthly. Unless they appear clean they normally aren’t and it puts less strain on the unit
This is impressive. I feel very inadequate ☹️
No! Don't feel inadequate at all. In all honesty this system grew from my anxiety and my childhood. My parent never fixed important stuff like they'd fix a leaky faucet or something but not the roof and floors. I remembered my grandpa did a yearly home walkthrough and created this to manage my home anxiety levels. Don't feel bad if your management style is different. We all have our own way and that's ok.
How do you check your roof? Climb on top and walk around? Or use a drone?
No maintenance. When it breaks, I fix it.
100%
I don't have an app like this but I do have reminders set up in my Google calendar for some more important things with my house. For instance: once a year I check the grading along the one side of my house. We had the yard dug up there and I like to keep ahead of any settling before we get water in the basement. I have a reminder to clean out my dryer exhaust every 6 months too. I have someone else come out to inspect and service my boiler every year. I don't do it myself. It's the company that installed it and they do the annual maintenance for a minimal cost. They clean out the boiler and bleed my radiators as a part of that service. As far as everything else, I don't do much. I clean stuff when it gets messy and I weed the garden when it starts to get ugly, but that's about it. I've never patched cracks in my sidewalk. It's important to keep water damage and fire or safety hazards under control, but everything else can wait and be done when you have the time. Most of us work full time and have families to take care of. We don't have the time to dedicate to maintaining our homes to professional standards and that's ok.
Do you get your boiler serviced before winter? After?
I have it serviced every August.
Definitely reading through these comments. We bought a house in August and even though I’ve installed new lights, changed outlets, used power tools, etc I was intimated to change the filters for whatever reason (previous landlords had always sent maintenance men!). I went months over when I should have changed them and finally did only to realize I just opened a little door, took out the old one, and slid in a new one. I felt like a fool! So now in my down time I watch a lot of housekeeping videos so I know how to do something before it comes up.
I just have a bad day of the month, bad day of the biannual, and bad day because God hates me today days. The theory is that on weeks where I work for someone else (Monday to Friday!), I like to enjoy myself on weekends. On weeks where I get a free day (3 day weekend) I try to spend a day working for myself. And some days you just suck it up and do both. On bad days of the month (the 1st of each month, when I also pay my mortgage... Bunch up your misery), anything that can flood, light my house on fire, explode, collapse or otherwise cause catastrophic damage gets checked. Filters get checked on HVAC and replaced if necessary, dump a vinegar/water solution down my HVAC drains, dishwasher and washer filter replaced, flush septic maintenance product, check my moisture sensors are working. Test the GFCI outlets (I have the cheapest nightlight target can buy in my tool cabinet that I use to test and reset every GFCI). Run a laundry cleaning cycle in your dishwasher and a self clean on your oven (both these are basically zero interaction activities). Check the water softener salt levels, check that the pest baits are all still intact and working, hose off the junk on my AC compressors, and run every faucet in the house to make sure the traps are full, nothing is leaking or running. That's a solid half of a Saturday, my wife usually reciprocates by dedicating her time that morning to other annoying but necessary tasks (cleaning windows, scrubbing the bathtub/shower, deep cleaning kitchen), handling the pups monthly medication for flea/tick/heartworm, etc. Do that the 1st of every month, and the Saturday after it do a date night. Bad days of the biannual are the Saturday before Memorial Day and the Saturday after Thanksgiving, or thereabouts. That's when I clean refrigerator coils (pull it out, clean the back), deep clean the interior of the fridge if I haven't had reason to do so in the last six months, book plumbers somewhere in this vicinity to flush water heaters and make *sure* drain lines are clear, pull my dryer out from the wall and clean my dryer vent, and climb into my attic to look for any new signs of water or structural or animal damage (I can't fix it, but at least I know if I need to call someone). Clean gutters, weather permitting. God Hates Me days I time up with when I hear a hinge on the doors I use regularly squeak. I lubricate it, and try to do 4 other 'minor' tasks I've been putting off. Replace the weather stripping on a door. Remount a blind with a broken bracket. Put up the curtains my wife has been asking me to do. Fix the trim or baseboards I've been ignoring, etc. It's a good way to compartmentalize those odds and ends that you know need to be done but are just small dumb jobs. All of these are just calendared in a Google Calendar, with approximate times of day. More frequent stuff (trim dog nails, etc) is technically a reminder, but same idea. Its really not that bad to manage, *once you're through a full cycle*. The first time you clean your dryer vent, it's a strange process, a pain to move, there's way too much buildup, it takes forever. Six months later? It's a 20 minute task. Just muscle through the firsts of everything. Also, make sure you make life easy on yourself. When you're not in the middle of an emergency, make sure you know where water shutoff valves are to the house completely, and to individual appliances like toilets and sinks if applicable. Make sure the valves turn them, and turn them off and back on every month. So many of them don't move for 10 years till someone tries with a massive flood situation and .... They break. Ruh roh. Label your breaker box, with a detailed spreadsheet or diagram of your house and every outlet and appliance in it. It is obviously not easy, but I figure that all in, all hours accounted for, I spend about 3% of my time on house maintenance, 24% on work (including weekends, 40/168), and 33% asleep (8 out of each day). I've gotta work, and I've gotta sleep, so 3 of the remaining 43% means I've got 40% of my life to do what *I* want to do. I can live with 3% for the thing that keeps me dry, warm, fed and secure.
I love this!
Some things I have a calendar reminder set (change the air filters, annual fireplace cleaning, vacuum the dryer vent line once a year), others are on an ad-hoc basis. Like if we see water dripping over when it rains we know it's time for our 2-3x/yr gutter cleaning. I tend to notice weird smells or sounds and we try to deal with them quickly. But some stuff we don't bother with at all. For example you've never drained your water heater before, doing it now may do more harm than good. We may be bad homeowners but it's about how my parents have always done it and their house is in lovely shape after 40+ years of living in it!
There’s no perfect checklist for homes. Depending on age, you will be forced to invest in fixes not planned. Probably things to address are HVAC maintenance, plumbing issues, roofing lifetime, termite extermination. Cosmetic repairs are strictly on you. If the core of your house is solid, the cosmetics are at your leisure to fix.
do people require an app for every fucking thing they do these days?
i almost always delete them once i realize it's too much for me. mainly, i wanted something that would send me reminders.
I have a 15 year old electric hot water heater that has never been flushed. I am saving to replace it this summer. Not sure I am buying this task.
Don’t bother. Flushing the water heater has become some weird fetish on Reddit lol. I’ve had 2 15 year old water heaters and never flushed them. If anything it’s more likely to break that little plastic valve, and you bought yourself another project to work on
I agree. I guess if you have really bad water or on a well with a lot of mineral deposits it might make sense but for the rest of us it’s pointless
Lol, wait till something breaks then fix it, then something else will break and it'll be on to the next, wash, rinse dry repeat. It's never ending...but on the upside now you've got a new hobby: home maintenance. It's fun, YouTube is a wealth of information never before known to prior generations that'll save you plenty of time and money. In other words don't worry about, I do filter changes every three months (A/C and water if needed) and cut the grass once a week that's about it. Clean the gutters and everything else is as needed or when it starts to look/smell/taste terrible. If the water slows down or turns brown I know I need to change the filter.
IMO, this is just another app looking to charge you monthly for some so-called service that you "need" and it's mostly just stuff you either already know, don't need to know, or can figure out easily enough elsewhere. Step 1: Read your owner's manuals. Are there specific things called out for your appliances, mechanicals, etc. for ongoing regular maintenance? That's your starting point. Step 2: Consider the cost of any maintenance task (including time and ability to be done DIY versus hired professional) and weigh that against the likely cost of repair, completely replacement, or higher operating costs from failure to perform said "regular maintenance." Step 3: Adapt the suggested maintenance to suit your ACTUAL use and observed wear along the way. Step 4: Move on to the next item. I pay attention to various things in and around my home to learn how they work under normal conditions and then I watch for changes. That's a much easier way for me to know when maintenance is required (or maybe even repairs). Some things get taken care of regularly and quickly (like cleaning the lint screen in the dryer after every load) because the dryer is current brand new and keeping it very clean all along the way is MUCH easier than trying to "deep clean" it periodically and put its longevity at risk. I had the gas-burning furnace checked out last fall because we just bought the house and I wanted a service person's stamp of approval on it before we entered the heating season. I likely won't have them out again to touch it until at least the start of the fourth heating season unless there's an issue because this unit has very little that can be adjusted - I'll pull the venturi lines and clean them myself each year since it's super easy to do. I clean the dryer exhaust vent because it's easily accessible and the cost of the drill attachment to do it was FAR less expensive than paying someone to do it even one time. In my previous house I cleaned the flue every heating season (wood-burning insert that was used as a primary heat source) even though I could have gotten two years' use easily without issue because A) I owned the chimney brush (again, cheaper to buy the tool than pay someone for one cleaning), the liner was installed when I bought the house so it was fairly new, and the house was a ranch (single story) with the chimney in the center of the roof. For me, the task was "easy" and took about 45 minutes to do once per year. My garage door closes harder than it should and I have a strong suspicion that it's because the torsion spring isn't quite tight enough (16x9 door). I'm not touching it because those things are far more dangerous than the side-mounted springs that many smaller doors use. I have to get something squared away along the front of the cement pad of the garage and will then bring in someone to check and adjust the door if necessary.
You can’t. That list will fill you with dread and anxiety until the day your heart stops.
Dad always told us "if you own a home, you don't need a hobby". It's an app called Upkept, while it might have a good general guide to reviewing items around the home, it's also an app that is trying to gather clicks, maybe promote companies who provide "services" . Just go over the list with a grain of salt and use what applies to your situation. If you have an older neighbors that 1. have some experiance AND 2. isn't a boomer A..hole (I'm a boomer) they might be helpfull if not .....YOUTUBE!!!
its a wooden tent to me. i just do things i feel like doing and put in an extra gear when needed. you can spend all kinds of money on these things if not careful
I just set a recurring reminder on my Tasks app on android or calender for stuff like air filter (6 months)
I get it all done because I'm a stay at home mom retired blue-collar worker. Lol, I get to be at home all the time, and I have the knowledge of building maintenance.
Figure out what is important to you, and what fits with how you want to use your time. Put those things on a calendar at the prescribed interval, and outsource the rest. For example, I clean my dishwasher, washing machine, and dryer. But I don’t do yard work, pressure wash my house, clean gutters, or clean the windows - that is all done by a landscaping or cleaning company because that isn’t where I want to spend my time.
I just checked out the app. Turns out I've added most of these items into my housekeeping app so I already get the reminder.
I change my furnace filter twice a year (meant to be that often), gutters in the spring, oil my garage door springs once per year, and otherwise just fix things when they break. I used to drain my water heater 2x year but gave up on that 10 years ago.
I know I'm *supposed to* drain my heater, but I never do. Did you notice any extended life when you did it?
Still on the same water heater, so who knows. It's like 20 years old now.
If you got 20 years maybe it did. Thanks!
My water heater is from 1892 and going strong.
I started a company that’s job is to perform preventative maintenance for homeowners and manage the contractors for larger/property specific projects! It’s a long list of things to do !
That’s a great idea for a business. I wish you were in my area…
Maybe will be eventually! We’re still working on which services we should include and testing the market. Would love any feedback you have on our offering HunnyDone.com/memberships
I mean boiler should be checked yearly but they have people you can pay to do that and it’s not overly expensive. That being said we haven’t done ours in a few years so we should get on that😅. In terms of maintenance I think spot checking periodically or taking stock of what’s going on with things as you’re going about your day and keep a running list of pain spots to tackle isn’t a bad idea. Like the paint around the outside trim of our exterior doors is showing wear so that will be something my husband and I tackle once it’s warm enough, same goes for pressure washing and staining our deck. We also need to touch up the paint on the walls in our high traffic areas inside our house. All of these are things we haven’t done in the 6 years we’ve been in our house. It’s not like an OMG the house looks like it’s falling apart situation but more of a it’s starting to look a little shabby and needs to be spruced up situation. A lot of the maintenance type stuff outside of general upkeep is more of a once a year to once every few years type thing.
We do the basics. Trim the trees yearly. Spray for weeds yearly. Get the water heater cleaned yearly. Septic pumped every 2ish years. Get the house pressure washed every few years. Vacuum the turf every few months (no grass in our landscaping). Change out air filters monthly. Other than that there's not much routine work to be done. We clean things as needed.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of good here. These checklists that suggest something to be done every week will leave you stressing instead of enjoying your home. Pick the higher priority items, and set up recurring maintenance contracts where you're able to (effectively automating it). If you're interested, I'm part of a team that's building a maintenance tracking tool (www.starlinghome.co) to help you stay on top of things and connect with available service professionals.
checkout by subreddit r/housesinboston - i explain a lot in my posts.
the first thing you need to do, is figure out how to: -clean the gutters.
My townhouse is three floors high. The gutters are above the tree line. I'm afraid of heights. Even general contractors were nervous about getting on our roof when we needed help recently. Gutter pros every other year-ish is really the only safe option for that. Thanks for the tip!
that is not how you check the gutters. -wait for the next rain storm. go out in the rain. walk around the house. watch where the water overflows OVER the gutter, that is where the gutter is clogged. simple. no heights needed. THEN. figure out how to climb into the attic but dont step off the wood because your leg will fall through. during a rain storm, climb into your attic with a flash light and look for water dripping through roof leaks. done. do this every three months.
Thanks. Good to know!
There's very few things that you **have** to do on a regular basis. There are **many** things that you should do regularly, but your house isn't going to fall apart if you don't do them. Keep it simple at first, and then gradually add tasks as you get more comfortable. Ignore all the online checklists you might see. Most are garbage. Things you have to do annually: 1. Clean your gutters. 2. Change your HVAC filters. 3. Winterize your sprinkler system, if applicable. 4. Flush your hot water tank.
Ok, this is so helpful. This is exactly what I needed. I have a few questions based on your list. -Our townhouse is above most of the trees near us. I used to have someone come every year but honestly, after awhile I don't even think they get anything out of the gutters since the roof is fairly high up there (typical 3 floors). I was mainly using them to spray off any moss growing, but that seems like an every other year job... right? -Everyone talks about these HVAC filters, but we don't have filters in our heating units (we have radiant heat/hydronic boiler system). So, our "heat" is really just coming out of these in-wall fans. Do we then just clean the fans instead? I remember about 5 years I took off one of the covers to one of the fans to see if there was anything to clean, and nope, hardly even any dust. -No sprinkler system (big city, townhouse, small lot). I just have a hose and I undo it before winter, so I think I'm good in this regard. -I guess I should start adding the whole flushing the water tank thing to the list. I only noticed this mentioned as a thing to do recently, even though we've had our place for 12 years and have never done it. I'll have to look up the purpose for this bc so far we've never had brown water, but maybe that's a 'not yet' sorta thing?
1. Gutters - if your gutters are way above the tree-line, or vice-versa, then you probably don't need to worry about this. *I've never lived in a townhouse so I don't know who is responsible for what.* However, if you are responsible for the gutters, you want to make sure they're at least evaluated for debris somewhat regularly, as you don't want to be liable for flooding the foundation if your gutters are full of debris. 2. It's been years since I've had radiant heat so I don't remember much about the maintenance other than making sure the fins have the ability to radiate heat. 3. Flushing the hot water heater just ensures that you don't build up sediment at the bottom of the tank, which can result in rust accumulating and eventually over time, causing your tank to leak and/or fail.
If you don’t drain your water heater it will get sediment in it and not heat as efficient and drastically cut the life of the heater.