A home maintenance plan is a checklist of all the items around your home that you should inspect, maintain, or call a professional for help with in the calendar year. This plan is an essential part of homeownership because you can protect your investment and help prevent major, stressful issues from arising.
In this article, we’ll review the best way to go about putting together a home maintenance plan, how to build a home maintenance budget that works for your home and life, and why HVAC preventative maintenance can be such a difference-maker for homeowners.
Remember: it’s never too late to start a home maintenance plan or to get more involved with your home maintenance! Even if you’ve owned a home for several years, don’t neglect the positive impact that preventative maintenance can have on your home and your life.
See even more home maintenance tips and tricks!
Check out our infographic for more preventative maintenance tips, ideas for creating a maintenance budget, and ways to make your home more efficient.
Put your checklist in priority order
Next, you will need to re-order your list of home to-do items with the highest-priority items at the top. To decide which things are high-priority, look through the lenses of these two qualifying factors:
Does completing this maintenance have an impact on your home’s structure or safety? This might include things such as a roofing checkup, a termite inspection, or a water heater tank flush.
Does completing this maintenance protect a major investment in the home? This includes HVAC checkups, as well as appliance cleaning.
Put all those items at the top of your list; if you can’t get to everything, you’ll at least want to have this part of the list completed. After all, your air conditioner quitting on you is a major problem. Not washing the baseboards—while it would be nice to have them clean—will not be the end of the world.
Budgeting for home maintenance
There are both costs that you can anticipate (such as the cost of your annual AC tune-up, or the cost of a termite inspection) and those that you cannot. Build your home maintenance budget in such a way that the planned costs are covered, but there are some rollover funds available to deal with the unexpected, such as a roof leak that needs repairs or a broken window.
Just how much should you save?
Most home experts recommend stashing away 1-2% of your home’s value each year as a home maintenance budget. While this can be a good rule of thumb, keep in mind that your home’s market value and its actual, real-life maintenance needs have no actual connection. If you have an older home or a home with pre-existing issues, you will generally need to set aside more every month.
HVAC maintenance can help you save money
Two of the most important items on your home maintenance checklist are your spring air conditioning tune-up and your fall heating tune-up. This preventative maintenance for your HVAC systems helps ensure that they continue to run effectively and efficiently. When you call the professionals here at Allbritten for your seasonal tune-up, you can know that you are setting yourself up to save money down the road. Here’s how:
Lower energy bills
Professional AC and heating maintenance makes your HVAC systems operate more efficiently, saving you money on your energy bills every month. This is especially important when that unexpected summer heatwave here in the Central Valley rolls in. You do not want to be caught unaware by a higher-than-expected electric bill this summer!
Reduced risk of breakdowns
Preventative maintenance from an experienced HVAC professional can lower your risk of a system breakdown. This not only means you can avoid the stress and hassle of being without cooling or heat, but you also can avoid needing to pay for repairs or a replacement system.
Complete several item on your list by calling Allbritten
At Allbritten, we specialize in helping local homeowners here in Fresno and the Central Valley with their cooling and heating tune-up needs. Here’s something else that’s great about us: we’re also your go-to team for plumbing, energy audit, and indoor air quality services. That means that with one call to Allbritten, you can start making serious headway on your home maintenance checklist! Let’s get this done together.
For more tips on putting together a home maintenance checklist and budget—as well as ways to save by making your home more energy-efficient—check out this infographic we’ve created:
Our best home maintenance tips and tricks
Keep reading to learn more about how you can save money with smart preventative maintenance, energy-efficient upgrades, and the right maintenance budget for your home.
