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A house is the biggest investment most people will make during their lifetimes. As such, you should take the responsibility of being a homeowner very seriously. For one, you should perform routine maintenance that will help preserve the value of your home over time. Below are six tips for maintaining your new home.
Clean Out Your Gutters
If there is one maintenance task homeowners do not particularly enjoy completing, it’s cleaning out their gutters. However, this is actually one of the most important maintenance tasks you should complete each year. If you don’t, your gutters and downspouts could become clogged with dirt, leaves, and muck. When this happens, water cannot flow away from your home as it should. This is especially the case after snow on your roof begins to melt. If that snow-melt has nowhere else to go due to clogged gutters, it may end up inside the structure of your home instead where it can do massive damage.
Maintain Your Yard
According to the Wall Street Journal, curb appeal can increase a home’s value by 7 percent. It is not only the structure of the home itself that determines its value. It’s also the grass, trees, flowers, bushes, and shrubbery around it that factor into a possible selling price. As such, you must maintain your yard to maintain the value of your home. Mow, trim, water, plant, fertilize, and landscape as needed to maintain an aesthetically pleasing front and back yard. Do your best to remove weeds and other things that can diminish that well-kept look.
Pump Your Septic Tank Every Two Years
The septic tank attached to your home is something else that must be well maintained. From time to time, it needs to drain all the human waste and other gunk that has been sent down into it by your family. If you don’t, the consequences can be quite severe. You may experience a backup. When that occurs, what was supposed to have been sent down into the septic tank may actually end up back inside your house. That would be a smelly disaster no one wants to live through. Instead, have a residential septic tank cleaning company perform a pump and clean of the tank regularly.
Replace Furnace Air Filters
Something that is especially important to make your home livable during the colder months of the year is your furnace. There are different furnace maintenance tasks you should complete on a schedule. Of these, one of the most important is replacing your furnace’s air filters as needed. If you don’t replace them after they become clogged with dirt and debris, you could face some serious problems. For one, the entire performance of your furnace may be affected. This can result in higher utility bills and even certain rooms not receiving the heat they need to stay warm.
Install and Maintain Fire and Carbon Monoxide Detectors
Your home isn’t completely safe as is after you purchase it. Unless they were already added for you, your home also needs fire detectors and carbon monoxide detectors installed in various locations. This should especially be the case near bedrooms and where gas pipes may be located. If you don’t, it may end up being too late someday. Carbon monoxide, in particular, is incredibly hard to detect otherwise. It is a colorless and odorless gas, and it can be extremely deadly if a leak does occur inside your home. Test all your fire and carbon monoxide detectors every few months and replace their batteries as needed.
Inspect Your Home for Problems
Being a responsible homeowner also means inspecting your home for issues on a routine basis. While a new home may not have any issues at first, certain problems can develop over time. Make sure to inspect the roof, the exterior of your home, the foundation, the pipes, the gutters, and more a few times a year. It’s better to detect developing problems early before they turn into serious costly issues.
Overall, owning a home is a big responsibility. Part of this responsibility is performing home maintenance tasks as needed on a schedule. Doing so can help to preserve the value of your home, protect your family and stop costly problems from developing before it’s too late. Take this responsibility seriously.