While some home maintenance tasks can be done every once in a while, others have to be tackled more often than you might’ve thought. Thankfully, that doesn’t mean they have to be complicated or take a lot of time and effort. In fact, by doing them regularly, you can make sure they don’t take much time or become a bigger problem.
Some of the benefits of doing simple maintenance tasks little and often are:
- Helping your home be as energy efficient as possible and therefore cutting the cost of your bills
- Saving you money on expensive home repairs
- Increasing your home value long-term
- Preventing any stress and hassle caused by urgent home repairs
- Giving you more of a sense of pride in your house
Home maintenance doesn’t have to be complicated, difficult or expensive. Instead, it could be much more straightforward than you’d think and, by tackling little tasks when they come up, you can save money in the long term.
It’s just a matter of knowing which home maintenance tasks you should focus on from the start. Seven of these stand out more than others, as they can have the largest impact on your house. If you want to make sure your home is as nice as possible, it’s worth diving into them.
1. Look After Appliances
When most people think of home maintenance, they think of the larger areas, like looking after windows and the structure. While that isn’t a bad thing, it shouldn’t mean neglecting other areas. Your appliances, such as the dishwasher, washing machine, oven and fridge, are simple to maintain on a regular basis and won’t take up too much of your time or attention.
They’ll need to be cleaned out regularly so how about making it a habit? Just before doing a big food shop – so maybe once every couple of weeks – empty your fridge, wipe out the shelves and clear any blockages from the drainage hole. Then you can refill the fridge with your food shopping, knowing that it’s clean and working efficiently.
Check the manufacturer’s instructions for how often to clean other appliances, and don’t be afraid to use convenient products such as dishwasher cleaning pods or a washing machine descaler. With these cleaning solutions inside the machine, there’s no need for you to put in any extra effort – just run an empty cycle and your appliances will be refreshed.
2. Check Your Gutters
Gutters are designed to make sure your home doesn’t suffer from water damage or flooding when it’s raining. They can only do this when they’re not damaged or clogged up, so you’ll have to spend a little bit of time and effort into making sure they actually work. It doesn’t have to take too long to check your gutters and it doesn’t have to be done often – I’d suggest clearing fallen leaves out of the gutters in the autumn so that they work effectively throughout the wet winter.
This is easy enough to do on a bungalow but, if your gutters are very high, I’d suggest checking them with a camera on a selfie stick to see if they’re blocked. If so, don’t try to tackle this yourself and cause an injury – instead, ask the window cleaners to do a gutter clear-out the next time they come. They have the equipment and experience to be able to do this for you safely.
3. Check Alarms & Security Systems
While you would’ve put some effort into checking and maintaining your alarms and security systems when you first got them, it shouldn’t mean you should just forget about them after that. They’ll need a certain amount of regular attention to make sure they’re working properly and do their job.
This doesn’t take much time or effort – you’ll simply need to check the batteries and press the button on smoke alarms and carbon monoxide alarms to test that they’re still working. It should only take a few seconds each, and you’re good to go. Some alarms will beep to alert you when the batteries are running low so replace them as soon as you can to get the alarms working again.
4. Get Rid Of Pests
Pests are often seen as a nuisance, but they can often be much worse than that. They can spread disease and they can damage various parts of your home. And I’m not just talking about rodents and woodworms that can cause a lot of damage – even tiny pests like mosquitoes and ants can be a problem.
That’s why it’s always worth knowing how to get rid of mosquitoes and other pests if they ever arrive in your home. Do this as soon as you see them to make sure there aren’t any larger infestations to deal with in the future. Thankfully, it shouldn’t take you much time and you can stop them coming in the future by keeping your home clean, damp-free and by using deterrents, like cinnamon scents to put off ants.
5. Don’t Forget The Plumbing
People often tend to overlook their plumbing until there’s a problem. That’s usually because it’s kept out of sight, so it’s out of mind. However, if you notice a leak or a drip, tackle it as soon as you can, as this could end up leading to larger, more expensive problems to deal with in the future.
Even if there isn’t any water escaping, you can still check your plumbing regularly to see if there are any signs of rust or damage. Even if what you find seems relatively small, it’s still worth dealing with. You can keep on top of limescale build-up with cleaning products, and can soak shower-heads in descaler solutions to keep your water flowing well.
6. Clean Humid Areas
Your bathroom and kitchen, among other areas, can get steamy quite regularly. While this doesn’t seem like it’s an issue, it can lead to problems over time. The more humid it gets, the more likely it is that mould can start growing, which then leads to health issues for you and your family.
Thankfully, there’s a quick and easy way to prevent that. You’ll just need to air and clean these areas regularly. Use extractor fans whenever you use the rooms for cooking or bathing and open windows whenever the weather allows for it. The more you keep on top of humidity in your home, the less likely it is you’ll have to deal with any future mould in your rooms.
7. Keep Up With Gardening
Landscaping the garden can often be one of the more overlooked areas to look after your home, but it matters much more than you’d think. Preventing it from getting overgrown not only gives you a nicer-looking garden to enjoy, but it also helps to prevent issues with pests and damp.
If not properly looked after, your garden could interfere with the structure of the house. The roots of trees and some plants could interfere with the foundations, for example. So, take a little-and-often approach to gardening, doing just a little bit of clearing, pruning, mowing and cutting-back whenever you get a spare hour. This is much easier when the weather is good and the days are longer, so head out in the evenings and have a tidy up – then enjoy sitting out in your neat garden!
If you want to keep your home nice and make sure it’s livable, just a little bit of regular home maintenance can make all the difference. Plus, the more often you do them, the quicker and easier it’ll be to get them out of the way next time. Let me know your home hacks in the comments below, I’m interested to hear how you maintain your home in super-fast time.
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