An expensive household repair has the power to demolish your budget. Wouldn’t it be great if you could sidestep this expense entirely? It’s possible, as long as you follow one rule:
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Never sleep on maintenance.
Regular and frequent upkeep is the single most important way you can avoid a gigantic household repair with the bill to match. Fix or replace the parts of your home as they start to break down rather than wait until they become an emergency.
Here’s what you can do to incorporate routine upkeep into your day.
Commit to DIY Maintenance
You can jumpstart on this money-saving journey by mapping out the DIY chores you should do throughout the seasons. Here are the most common ones below:
- Keeps Your Eyes Peeled: Perform a visual inspection of the different parts of your home, including your roof, foundation, electrical box, and property.
- Look at your Weatherstripping: Damaged weatherstripping causes heat loss in the winter and heat gain in the summer. You’ll want to repair any cracks in the caulking around your windows and doors.
- Change your furnace filters: A fresh filter every two to three months will reduce how much energy this appliance will have to expend to heat your home. This improves airflow and reduces the chance of a breakdown.
- Clean Your Eavestroughs: Removing debris from your eavestroughs ensures rain and snow melt flows away from your home’s foundation. This can prevent a flooded basement.
- Check Your Fire and Carbon Monoxide Alarms Work. Ensuring these alarms work can save your family’s life and protect your home from a devastating fire.
For an exhaustive list of household maintenance, check out this list for more ideas.
What if You Can’t Afford the Little Fix That Precedes a Big Repair?
If you haven’t set aside much in an emergency fund, even a small fix can be more than you can afford to handle today. Let’s face it — it’s a tough time for homeowners in Canada. One in four Canadians wouldn’t be able to cover an unexpected $500.
Sometimes, you can sleep on non-urgent issues until you squirrel away the cash. But when your safety is on the line, you can check out a line of credit for help. A line of credit is one of the many online Canada loans that may be available in emergencies. It can act as a safety net in urgent situations, when you can’t afford to wait on repairs.
Get the Professionals Involved
Occasionally, you’ll need an experienced professional to run a diagnostic check of certain areas of your home.
Your roof and HVAC system are two examples where it may be necessary to call a company.
- You can get a roofer to come out to look at your roof and determine if something you spotted is worthy of a repair.
- HVAC specialists recommend having your furnace and air conditioner inspected at least once every two years to ensure they’re running at top form.
Make it Easy to Remember These Chores
You’re a busy person. Keeping track of all these little chores in your head can be tricky. So, do yourself a favour — offload the remembering to your phone. Input reminders in your calendar and set alarms to go off at the appropriate times.
You can also download an app like HomeSavvy. All you have to do is answer some questions about your home, so the app understands what kind of chores you need to do. It will generate a list of tasks related to your property, complete with instructions and reminders.
By adopting this one simple habit, you stand a good chance of avoiding huge repairs that topple your budget.
