Does Your Home Have 100,000 Miles on It?

It's easy to tell when your car is getting up there in mileage; just check the odometer. Not to mention that there are other indicators - engine knocking, fluids leaking, gas mileage dropping - that let you know your car "ain't what she used to be." But what about your house? There is no odometer to say to clean your gutters at this mileage or add insulation at this year or caulk your windows before you go on vacation.

More of our time is spent in our houses than in our cars, yet we perform more routine maintenance on our cars. Homes typically cost 10 times as much as vehicles, so homeowners need to do some maintenance every month just to keep from spending more to replace and repair on down the road. Until we have odometers attached to our homes, we are going to have to start doing a little more maintenance.

Use Your Senses

First, listen to your house, and not just for the obvious things like creaking floors and dripping faucets. Does your cooling unit sound right when it comes on? Is there a loud noise that occasionally scares you? It might need a little care. Call an HVAC contractor to come out and check. Have this unit checked at least once a year. If your HVAC unit is constantly kicking on and then back off, it means that your home is having a difficult time holding a consistent temperature. This can be the result of many different maintenance issues or a combination.

Definitely you are having trouble insulating. Consider blown in insulation, which can provide solid performance during any season without having to rip out your walls.

If insulation is not the problem, you might have trouble with the seals around your windows and doors. Replacement windows will certainly do the trick, but at minimum have your windows caulked and sealed once a year.

Your ducts are likely dirty and inefficient, which also makes more work on your HVAC unit. Three items here: have your ducts cleaned, change the filter on your HVAC unit, and have your ducts sealed. These three items together are likely to save more money in one year than it will cost to have them performed. Your filter should be changed at the beginning of summer and winter.

Be Sure to Look

Next, you have to look at things. It can be hard to notice items that you are constantly walking past, but take a good look at your home.

• Is the paint on your home peeling?
• Are the gutters chock full of leaves and debris?
• Do your deck and fence have sun damage?
• Has your sink been dripping for months?

Investigate

Take a spin through each room in your house and just investigate everything. Use your hands to feel walls and floors and determine if everything seems on the up and up. This might take 10 minutes. You have time for that, right? You might find some things you didn't know were there and you can stop them before it's too late. You might also rediscover an old problem that you have swept under the rug.

Homes, not vehicles, are designed to last a hundred years, but they won't do this without regular maintenance. Maintenance is all about small spots of time and little pockets of money so that you don't have to replace an expensive item sooner that expected.

To find local home maintenance experts who can help you with your home improvements and repairs, visit www.ServiceMagic.com.

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