Maintain now, save a lot of money in the future

“Some home-maintenance and repair projects are easy, of course, and require time rather than your money, such as clearing a blocked kitchen drain, cutting back a tree or derusting and repainting a garden gate. Others are definitely bigger, however, and you may well be tempted to put them off either because you don’t have the expertise to tackle them yourself or because you fear that calling in an expert would be too expensive,” Rademeyer says.

“But this will usually just lead to even greater problems and more expensive fixes, not to mention possible increases in your insurance premiums. As a homeowner, your best course is to open a maintenance savings fund as soon as possible, and more importantly, to create a maintenance schedule for your property.”

Rademeyer says having a schedule such as this should enable you to find and address most common maintenance issues yourself, before they develop into major problems.Here are some examples of tasks to add to the list:

• Check your roof regularly, and especially if you’ve had strong winds, hail or heavy rain lately. Check for loose tiles and flashing, loose roof nails, damaged waterproofing and blocked gutters and downpipes. All of these are relatively easy and inexpensive to fix.

• Don’t forget about the plumbing. Just because most of it is out of sight in the ceiling void or walls, does not mean it should be out of mind. Fix any dripping taps or running toilets immediately to keep your water bills low. Lag all exposed pipes to stop heat loss and prevent winter freezing that can cause them to break. Check your geyser regularly for any leaks or corrosion. And if a pipe suddenly starts banging or gurgling, or you notice a patch of damp that might indicate a leak, call in professional help.

• Take electricity seriously. Even if you have an electrical certificate of compliance for your home, you should have the whole electrical installation checked by a professional about every two years, or sooner if you are having any problems such as lights or switches only working intermittently. Rodents can get at your wiring at any time, wear and tear can cause overheating and short circuits, and overloading or water in the system can cause the power to keep tripping, and it is more than worth it to have an electrician find and fix such problems if it can prevent a fire in your home or someone getting a serious electrical shock.

“Remember, even if your homeowner’s insurance policy did cover most of the serious problems mentioned, you would still have to pay the excess and most probably higher premiums going forward. There is also a risk that you might not be covered if the insurance company decided that the damage resulted from a lack of basic maintenance,” says Rademeyer.

“In short, putting in a little work or money on the front end means you stand a good chance of avoiding major expense down the road. Better still, it will pay off when you want to sell your house, because you are not likely to have to make a lot of costly repairs all at once, or drop your asking price to account for what repairs the buyer will have to make.”