While everyone wants to take care of their home, they often don’t put the time and effort into doing it. At best, they’ll cover the basics, but they mightn’t do much more than that. One of the more notable ways this is seen is when they damage their home, even accidentally.
If you don’t know how you could be damaging your home, you could be harming the property more than you’d think. There are more ways you could be doing this than you could be aware of. You’ll need to avoid these, as well as have a proper home maintenance routine, to properly look after your home.
Seven specific mistakes are relatively common, but you’ll need to know about them to avoid them. It’s worth looking into what these are and how you can make sure you look after your home the right way.
How You Could Be Damaging Your Home: 7 Notable Mistakes
1. Ignoring Leaks
Leaks can be easier to overlook than you could think, but they can cause untold havoc on your property. Over time, this becomes increasingly worse. You’ll need to find and address these as quickly as you can, so you should be on the lookout for them.
It’s also not worth tackling the issue yourself, with professionals like Made’s Plumbing being better recommended. They’ll not only address the issue relatively quickly, but they’ll find any other plumbing-related issues around your home and fix them.
It’ll avoid damaging your home more than you’d think.
2. Letting Tree Limbs Get Too Long
If you have any trees in your garden, you likely would’ve let them grow to a certain size. It’ll look nice and provide a lot of shade for you to enjoy your garden in. That doesn’t mean you should let them grow too long. If tree limbs grow above a certain size, they could pose a danger to you and your home.
That’s especially true if any parts of the tree are above the house. With a small storm or similar disaster, these could come down and cause a lot of damage. Destroyed roofs and broken windows are the tip of the iceberg here.
Avoid this by making sure the tree limbs don’t get too long.
3. Fixing Your Roof Yourself
Fixing your roof yourself when there’s some minor damage can be understandable, but it mightn’t always be the best approach to take. That’s especially true with anything larger than a missing or broken shingle. If you try to do it yourself, you could end up doing more damage than you’d think.
You could also be unsafe when you’re carrying out the repairs. Hiring a professional instead makes sure you avoid all of this. It’ll also make sure the repairs are done right, which avoids water damage and other issues from cropping up in the future.
4. Overlooking The Foundation
Foundation issues can be more common than you’d think, especially after heavy periods of rain. They can often be relatively easy to overlook, as they’ll be difficult to notice unless you’re specifically for them. You’ll have to make sure you’re on the lookout for them.
Checking as many parts of the foundation as you can is vital for this. Being on the lookout for cracks, mold, and similar issues is essential for this. If they’re left unchecked, they’ll get much worse relatively quickly. That puts you and your home at risk, as well as costing a lot more to address in time.
If you’re unsure about checking your foundation – or don’t know what you’re looking for – then it’s worth getting a professional in to take a look for you.
5. Neglecting The HVAC
Your HVAC unit does a lot to keep your home at the right temperature and maintain air quality. Over time, that makes the unit become somewhat rundown, so you’ll need to put some effort into maintaining it. The easiest and most effective way is to replace the filters regularly.
These can get filthy over the course of a few months, making your HVAC increasingly more ineffective. It can also lead to further issues in the future, such as the unit breaking down. That’ll be a costly process that you’ll naturally want to avoid.
By simply replacing the HVAC filters as per manufacturer recommendations, you should make sure that doesn’t happen. It could also be worth having a professional take a look at it every once in a while.
6. Slamming Doors
Slamming a door is something everyone’s done at some point or another. What you mightn’t have known is this can cause some damage to your property. You’ll mainly see this with the door getting more and more out of alignment, which will then cause further issues in time. If you have a habit of slamming the door, it’ll get worse quite quickly.
The momentum of the door opening and closing when it’s out of alignment can cause the jamb and seem to separate, creating a gap between them and the wall. As much of an issue as that is, it could lead to further issues.
Cold air and moisture can get into your house through this gap, which could cause water damage, as well as create a draft. As small as slamming a door seems, it leads to increasingly larger issues in time. Avoid it as much as possible.
7. Using The Wrong Tools
Every homeowner needs to get some repairs done every once in a while. You’ll have a choice between doing these yourself or hiring a professional for them. While you should always hire a professional for anything complicated, it could be worth doing a few of them yourself if you have the right skills for this.
One notable mistake when people try this – aside from being outside of their depth – is to use the wrong tools for the repairs. Using a slot head screwdriver instead of a Phillips alternative, for example, can cause more damage than you’d expect.
You should put the time and effort into making sure you have the right tools for the DIY project. Since these are relatively affordable and easy to get, there’s no reason not to do this.
Top Tips For Maintaining Your Home
Once you know how you could be damaging your home, you’ll naturally do your best to avoid it. You shouldn’t have a problem tackling each of the above mistakes and making sure they don’t happen anymore. Looking after your home goes beyond that, however. It’s not as simple as making sure you’re not doing any damage.
Instead, you’ll also need to have a home maintenance routine to look after everything properly. As difficult as it seems, it doesn’t need to be complicated. Instead, it’s a matter of using a few tips for maintaining your home. Some of the more notable of these are:
- Keep It Clean – You likely already put some effort into cleaning your home, but is it as clean as you’d like it to be? If it isn’t, then you’d need to put more effort into this. Cleaning as you make any messes can be the easiest way to do this, but it’s worth doing a little more for it. By having an in-depth cleaning session every week or every few weeks, you’ll avoid getting a pest infestation and avoid damaging your home.
- Get Repairs Done Quickly – Leaky pipes and roof fixes were mentioned above, but they’re far from the only repairs you could need to get done. You’ll need to make sure you get them done as quickly as possible. If you don’t, it could get worse and worse, becoming a much larger issue than you’d want. It’ll be easier and more affordable if you do it as soon as possible.
- Have A List – A home maintenance routine can seem complicated and difficult to manage, but it doesn’t need to be. By having a checklist of what you need to do and when it needs to be done, you make it much easier for yourself. With some apps, you can set automatic notifications to remind you of this. Your routine should be much easier to manage than you’d think.
By having a comprehensive home maintenance routine, you can make sure your home is in as great a condition as possible. It should avoid you needing to make some costly repairs, as well as any other issues coming up.
How You Could Be Damaging Your Home: Wrapping Up
If you don’t know how you could be damaging your home, you could be doing more harm to the property than you’d think. You could be making quite a few mistakes with your home maintenance routine, and you could even be avoiding a few specific repairs and other issues.
Neglecting the HVAC unit, not fixing leaky pipes quickly, letting tree limbs overgrow, and multiple other mistakes can be relatively common mistakes. You’ll need to avoid these, among others, to make sure you’re properly taking care of your home.
Combined with a few tips for maintaining your home, you shouldn’t have a problem keeping it in top shape.
