When you purchase a new car, it goes without saying that you need to get the oil changed and have the tires rotated regularly. Yet so many times we see clients that do not do any maintenance to their new home even though the house costs many multiples of their new car purchase. For some reason, it is incorrectly assumed that a new home requires no maintenance. Without regular maintenance you home will fall into a state of disrepair and failure.
A new home is a complicated system of over 30,000 parts. Most everything in the home has a maintenance requirement of some sort. There are many ways to educate yourself on what you need to do to maintain your home.
First, your builder is a good source of maintenance information. The builder’s warranty document may contain a maintenance schedule. Builders typically highlight important maintenance items at the new home orientation walkthrough just prior to move in. Many also supply home maintenance guides to their clients.
At ProBuilt, our written warranty has a monthly maintenance guide and explains homeowner maintenance responsibilities. We go over key items at the new home orientation, supply our clients with a 170-page home maintenance reference guide, and provide periodic videos and letters reminding clients of key home maintenance items. Please go to the blog section on our website for an array of videos and articles on home maintenance.
Manufactures are great source of information on maintenance schedules for their products in your home. Visit their website or look at the product instructions that came with the product for more information. At ProBuilt, we gather all the product information during the build and place it all in a 3-ring binder for convenient reference in the future. There are many good books on home maintenance as well. The internet can be a good source to education yourself on home maintenance. Finally, if you do not want to do the maintenance yourself you can hire a handyman contractor to perform the maintenance for you.
