Even if you’re a handy person, doing everything on your home maintenance checklist can seem like a chore. But if you reframe it to see that maintaining your home also helps maintain its value, then you’ll look at all those ‘chores’ as investments in the value of your home.
To help you understand which tasks are best for keeping your home’s value intact, we’ve put together the following home maintenance checklist.
5 Items For Your Home Maintenance Checklist
Your home may have features that require its own maintenance. But these tips will give you an idea of what you should always keep well maintained.
1. Always Keep Your Home Clean Inside & Out
Yes. We thought we’d start with the most dreaded of all chores. Here’s why. The cleaner you keep your home, the cleaner you expect it to be. When you let things slide and not clean as often as you should, you become used to it. But that does mean visitors, or potential homebuyers when the time comes, see it the same way.
This is where hiring a professional cleaner can make a lot of sense. Not only are you relieved of cleaning duties, but your investment now will pay off later. You should also get the exterior of your house, including windows, entrance doors, walls and garage doors, regularly cleaned.
2. Replace Furnace Filters
Do this for yourself, and you’ll get the benefits for your home too. A clean air filter keeps the air in your home cleaner and healthier, and reduces the dust on your furniture. It also helps your HVAC equipment last longer and needs fewer repairs. Replace the filters at least every season.
3. Keep Your Sink Disposal Fresh-Smelling
This is another one you can become used to, but it will put off visitors and buyers. Food can accumulate in your garbage disposal and cause odours. At least once a month, put orange and lemon peels through the disposal. They will not only clean out built-up residue, they will leave a fresh scent of citrus.
4. Fix the Little Things
Have a door that sticks or squeaks a little? Is there a faucet the drips just a bit? How about a hole in the wall from when you moved a picture? Or a scratch on your floor? We can go on. But the point is, every little thing you let go without maintaining or repairing them contributes to a big problem if and when it comes time to sell.
5. Clean Your Eavestroughs
From tuckpointing to keeping trees and shrubs well-pruned, you should do everything you can to keep the exterior of your home well-maintained too. One area where it may be more important than others is in your eavestroughs. Cluttered or clogged eavestroughs can cause water to back up and overflow. That can stain the outside of the troughs and make them a curb-appeal-killing eyesore. Water falling right beside your home can also splash mud against the walls and even leak into your basement. Finally, if trapped water freezes in winter, it can damage your roof and even become a safety hazard.
Invidiata has helped sellers get the best price for their homes for over 35 years. We have a robust team of real estate professionals, who are all proud of the white-glove service that we deliver to every one of our clients.
