10 Vital Home Maintenance Tasks

You perform routine maintenance on your car to make sure it remains in optimal condition – but how about your home? But you have to know where to start and that’s why we’ll be exploring ten vital home maintenance tasks here in this article.

All of these tips are essential to maintaining your home’s quality. We have not arranged them in any sort of degree of importance – all are of great importance.

1. Cleaning Out Your Gutters

It’s a gunky, gross, and tedious task but somebody has got to do it. Plan on setting a rhythm to climb up on a ladder and get those gutters cleaned out at least twice a year.

Typically the best times to do this are late spring or early fall.

What makes this an essential task is a serious potential for damage that could occur if you don’t do it. Water, over time, causes erosion. That’s why you want water safely ferried out and away from your home’s foundation. If your gutters are clogged the system fails to carry the water away and it begins to spill out right on top of your foundation.

If you have zero interest in this task whatsoever consider installing high-quality guards on your gutters; while pricey they will dramatically cut down on the amount of manual gutter cleaning you have to do.

2. Replacing Your Furnace’s Filter

Another tedious, and potentially dirty depending on where your furnace is located, task that’s critical is changing the filter for your furnace. This filter has a major role in maintaining good air quality in your home; it’s important.

The size of the air filter really determines how often it should be changed: 1-2 inch filters should be changed every three months; 4 inch filters every 6 months; and 5 inch filters can get away with being changed annually.

3. Checking Your Sump Pump

If you have a basement in your home, there’s a strong chance that you have a sump pump present in order to prevent any backup of water in the basement.

Don’t wait until disaster strikes – be sure to check it for proper functionality once every quarter and immediately address any operational issues that may be present.

4. Drain Sediment From Your Water Heater

It may come as a shock to you, but your water heater has a tendency to build up sediment. These particles tend to settle at the bottom of the tank and, over time, can cause your heating element to stop working.

Fortunately, combating this isn’t a difficult process. Simply turn the unit off, cut the cold water inflow to it, wait for it to cool, and then attach a hose to the side drain valve and let it run out into a drain or a heat-proof bucket.

5. Lubricate Your Garage Doors

Prolonged usage of your garage doors will lead to the rollers starting to seize up in the tracks. If this problem isn’t addressed soon after it begins happening it could lead to the death of your family garage door’s motor – not good.

We’ve covered the overall procedure of how to go about lubricating these components and which specific sections to focus on so we’ll keep it brief here. The main thing to bear in mind is that you do not want to use WD-40; you’ll want to apply a lithium-based grease instead.

6. Clean Dryer Vents

Make sure that you are regularly and routinely checking and cleaning out your dryer vents. You do this routinely for the lint-trap in the dryer itself, so why would you want to avoid doing it for the vent itself?

You’ll at least be saving yourself some extra energy usage (a great thing in itself) and, more importantly, you’ll be improving home fire safety.

7. Check Your Garage Door’s Balance

An out of balance garage door is a garage door on its way to dying.

Which is why it’s absolutely vital to regularly check the balance on your door.

To do this, close the door midway, reaching the top of your waist, and see if the door stops and remains stable. If there is any sort of shifting or motion this indicates that the door is out of balance and you’ll need to get a tech out to troubleshoot and repair.

8. Sharpen Garbage Disposal Blades

Kitchen knives are at their peak after being freshly sharpened and the same is true for the blades on your garbage disposal.

In order to maintain optimal performance of your disposal, and avoid obnoxious backups, have a routine of sharpening these blades often. The process of doing this is simple – just grind up a handful of ice cubes and some citrus (lemon is a good option) in the disposal at the same time.

9. Inspect Your Roof Shingles

Water needs to stay out of your house – not come in it.

Which is why every quarter you should have a habit of getting up on your roof and doing a thorough inspection of your shingles. Look for any divots, holes, or roofing nails that might be showing. Getting to these quickly with some sealant can save you a major headache.

10. Test Your Smoke Detectors

It’s simple to do, just push the test button and wait to hear the chirp.

Do it once every month to ensure that your detectors have strong batteries in them and that they’re not going to fail you in a time of crisis.

Finishing Home Maintenance Tasks

The overall satisfaction that comes with finishing home maintenance tasks is refreshing. You finish all the tedious tasks with the gutters, dryer vents, shingles and other items on this list. Afterward, you can go with Feldco for your windows, siding, doors and replacement garage doors. We have helped over 400,000 homeowners in the Midwest. Speak to a product specialist and get a free quote online today.