Buying a house means quickly learning how to deal with all the little household maintenance responsibilities that arise from time to time. Even brand-new homes aren’t flawless. Sometimes homeowners have to fix backed-up sinks or squeaky doors. People aren’t perfect, either, and sometimes accidents mean the homeowner might abruptly find themselves having to repair a hole in their drywall or replace damaged floor tiles.
There is always work to be done when you own a home. Although many of those repairs can be done quickly, many possible issues within a home could make it clear that you don’t know where to begin trying to resolve them. For many problems, such as a light bulb going out, it’s pretty easy to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. Yet how do you know where to begin solving a problem such as a sink fixture that won’t stop dripping?
Even the most seasoned homeowner will face one or two of these types of difficulties from time to time, and it can get more complex to figure out how to solve them as the house gets older and the problems start to add up. A typical homeowner will spend roughly 1 to 4 percent of the value of his or her home each year on maintaining and repairing things within or around the home. This gets to be a much higher cost as a house ages. Long-standing problems such as cold floors or excessive dust might seem like minor inconveniences to a homeowner who has lived in the home for a long time and become used to them. However, if the homeowner decides to sell that house, a possible homebuyer might only be thinking of the 1 to 4 percent he or she would have to spend each year and wonder if it might be higher in that home.
Understanding what causes some of the most frequent issues in a house and knowing how to fix them is extremely important whether a homeowner wants to stay in the home for a long period, or is looking to sell the home at some point in the future. In many cases, these problems can seem like significant, underlying problems with the home that will require significant repairs or remodeling to solve — but fortunately, that’s not often the case.
For example, a room with a draft might seem like the sort of thing that would require a costly furnace upgrade, or even an intensive remodel to solve issues with the airflow throughout the room. However, in most cases, a drafty room is caused by small fractures or breaks around windows or doors that can be fixed by simply introducing weather stripping insulation. If you’re feeling angered by some common house problems, this checklist could help you find the solutions. Refer to this checklist the next time something seems wrong in your home and you’re unsure where to start in terms of repairing it. Being a homeowner means that sometimes you'll have to roll up your sleeves and solve a problem yourself. The accompanying infographic provides a good starting point to evaluate your options.
