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Maintenance Checklists

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Now that you are in your home, there are a few maintenance activities that should be taken care over in order to maintain both the value of your home & the living conditions.

 

You should expect to spend about 2 hours every month performing some sort of home maintenance task. These tasks vary by season so you can expect to spend more time in the summer on outside home maintenance (lawn mowing, weeding, gardening, window washing) than you would in the winter taking care of inside items (sealing the shower or tub, deep cleaning the carpets).

 

Here are a few different tools to help you keep track of what sort of home maintenance tasks should be done in each season.

 

  1. Annual Home Maintenance Checklist – Print out a copy of this checklist & post it to your fridge. It highlights some common maintenance activities necessary for most homes. There’s even space to add additional tasks so as to remind yourself in the future.

  2. Home Maintenance Checklist – This article does a good job detailing the types of home maintenance tasks for each season.

 

Learning Key Skills

 

In addition to the ongoing maintenance tasks, there are a few skills that you can learn to not only save you money, but also keep your home looking great. We’ve included several videos below.

 

Please Note: These videos are provided for reference. The Chenoa Fund & MMI are not responsible for the contents of the videos nor do we have any affiliation with the video creators.

 

 

Outside the House Work

 

  • Lawn Care

    • A beautiful lawn can function as a great place for you and your family to spend time outside. Putting in the effort to get the lawn done right at the beginning can save you maintenance time later.

      • Checkout this video from the Lawn Care Nut on how to maintain a great lawn.

      • This Old House also has a great rundown on how to totally redo your lawn. Be careful, this is quite a bit of work so it’s not recommended for everyone.

 

  • Mulching

    • Laying down mulch is a great way to keep your garden beds looking great. Done correctly, it also helps to encourage water to drain away from the house, which helps to keep your house dry and mold down.

      • CTSCAPER  - A discussion on the 3 musts of mulching.

 

  • Cleaning the siding

    • Depending on the type of siding in your house, the recommended method to clean your siding is a little different.

      • Amy Mable Vinyl Siding. - For houses with a vinyl siding, this video has worked well for folks.

      • Timothy DC Vinyl Siding – Another combination of spraying & scrubbing.  

      • How to with Doc – Another vinyl siding & garage door cleaning using the wash method.

      • Guy Blackmon – Sometimes a good power washing is exactly what’s needed. Checkout this video in which the folks walk through how they recommend power washing a house.

 

Inside the House Work

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There’s a ton of very basic & straightforward things that you can do yourself to keep your house looking brand for less than $10.

 

  • Patching a hole in the wall is a skill everyone should know. Whether it be because of kids, pets, moving furniture around, a simple accident, or any other reason, there’s likely to be one time or another that a hole in the wall that needs to be fixed. There are a lot of videos out there on how to patch a hole. Here are some of our favorites.

 

  • Painting a Wall, Room, or Trim

    • Having a basic knowledge of how to paint can make it very easy to fix those scratches, dings, and scrapes. Here’s a couple of great video guides that you can use to either touchup trim, a wall, or even a whole room!

 

  • Cleaning a Clogged Drain

    • It’s easy to clog a drain and over time, every drain will have some build up. Check out the videos below for some easy & cheap ways to try to clear a drain.

      • Pan TheOrganizer – Cleaning a drain using baking soda & vinegar.

      • ProMaster Home Repair & Handyman of Cincinnati – Sometimes a drain is really clogged and requires a more manual intervention. In those circumstances, this video does a great job of walking through a very hands on approach to solving the problem.

 

  • Sealing a Tub

    • After a while, most showers & tubs need to be resealed. In those instances, less than $10 worth of material and a few minutes of your time can get you up & running and prevent the shower or tub from leaking.

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