Tips for Maintaining the Exterior of Your Home so You Can Avoid Major Repairs Later
Maintaining the exterior of your home is one of those things that seems like a complete no-brainer. Not like you need you the education of a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon to keep the outside of a house looking more than halfway decent, right? Maybe so, but you might be surprised at just how many things can go wrong when it comes to maintaining a nice looking home. If you can implement just a few of these tips, you can go a long way toward guaranteeing a home that needs far less maintenance in the long term as a result of not getting the right maintenance in the short term.
Plants and Paint
If you really want to cut back on the long term maintenance while improving the appearance of your house, go around the building with a pair of pruning shears. Cut back any tree limbs or shrubs or other plants that actually make contact with painted exterior. Over the course of the life of your home, this contact will peel away paint and their moisture will cause blistering, peeling and mildew.
Repair Damaged Siding ASAP
Siding has a way of cracking, warping and coming loose that is highly deceptive and can cause some serious long term maintenance headaches that can be avoided if you attack the problem immediately. Damaged siding is an entryway for water that can cause rotting that goes unseen for years. Better to spend a few hours repairing the siding than deal with the expenditure of time and money that comes with water damage that only builds upon itself.
Mildewed Siding
Another common maintenance chore related to keeping the exterior of your house looking good is mildew that destroys the aesthetic quality of siding. The really annoying part is that cleaning off mildew before it has a chance to overrun an entire side of the house is such a low-maintenance job. All it takes is a gallon of water to which you have added a cup of bleach. A vigorous scrubbing will take care of your mildew problem.
Raking
Raking leaves can be one of the most unwanted maintenance tasks that a homeowner will face. Either you love it or you hate it, but it needs to be done regardless. Again, raking leaves may seem like a no-brainer, but if you want to keep the labor of this home maintenance to a minimum, you won’t be adverse to advice. In the first place, always rake your yard under dry conditions since wet leaves will easily double the weight of the leaves and the amount of labor involved. No matter how expansive the coverage of leaves that fall on your yard during autumn, you should not shrug off the seemingly pointless task of raking. Allowing leaves to form a colorful outdoor carpet is a sure way of smothering the grass beneath to death. And then you will be faced with the high maintenance of successfully growing a brand new lawn.
Weeds Through Concrete
Weeds rising between the cracks of your patio or walkway or driveway can not only become an eyesore, they can potentially cause devastating damage turns cracks into crumbling foundations. Better to engage in a little painless maintenance at the outset than have to deal with that kind of major repair work later. Especially when the solution is so simple. Take care of weeds before they have the chance to cause significant damage by boiling up some water, mixing in common table salt and pouring directly onto the weeds where they grow.
