When it comes to home maintenance and repair , we often think of heavy, labor-intensive tasks. But you can prevent your home from deteriorating with just five minutes a day .
In addition to paying off a mortgage, owning a home comes with a host of other responsibilities, from keeping the house clean and tidy to maintaining all the infrastructure that makes it livable and safe. All that maintenance can be stressful—one survey found that 68% of homeowners are stressed about home maintenance.
It doesn't have to be this way. One reason home maintenance can seem so intimidating is that most of us assume that the only way to "do" it is to spend an entire weekend (or longer) on big projects. Treating home maintenance that way turns it into a weekend-ruining nightmare. There's a much better way: Instead of procrastinating and spending an entire day or week on home maintenance, do it every day for just five minutes.
Quick home check
Some home maintenance tasks take more than five minutes. You won't be able to repaint a bathroom or refinish a wood floor in five minutes.
But spending five minutes a day on home maintenance will complete a long list of small but important tasks later on, reducing the frequency of larger ones. Small repairs can prevent bigger problems, and regular maintenance of appliances, equipment, and ventilation systems will prevent breakdowns and prolong their life.
The trick is to simply set aside five minutes a day to do home maintenance—and start by doing a five-minute home assessment. Walk around, and note anything that needs attention—loose fixtures, stained items, scratched items, items that no longer work or don't work properly. Every now and then, take five minutes to check specific areas—the roof, the basement/walk-in space, the yard—that need a little extra attention. Doing so will help you address small problems as they arise, rather than discovering a much larger problem weeks or months down the road.
Home Repair in Five Minutes
When your five-minute inspection reveals a problem, turn it into tomorrow's five-minute fix. Here's a list of home maintenance tasks that take just a few minutes but can have a huge impact on the condition of your home and reduce the frequency of repairs and maintenance:
- Tighten Cabinet Screws: Kitchen and bathroom cabinet doors are frequently touched. Opening and closing doors can loosen the screws on the hinges, which can significantly affect their functionality. In just five minutes, you can check your cabinet hinges and tighten any loose screws. Suddenly, the doors will no longer open by themselves or rub against each other when you close them, reducing wear and tear and extending the life of the doors. You can also tighten any loose door hinges with a screwdriver on hand.
- Filling Wall Dents: If you have a small dent or hole in your drywall, you can easily repair it with a patch kit, available at most hardware stores. Of course, the entire repair process will take more than five minutes—but it can be broken down into two five-minute steps. First, apply the patch and spread the compound over the dent according to the instructions. The next day, lightly sand it. Finally, paint over the patch. Just five minutes a day for three days and the hole will be gone.
- Touch-up paint: Painting an entire room is a big job, but covering a small scratch or repair only takes a few minutes, unless you need to cut around trim or other obstructions. If you have a spot in the middle of a wall that needs repainting, this is an ideal five-minute fix.
- Clean your appliances: Keeping your various appliances in good working order is important—replacing them is expensive. It only takes a few minutes to clean your dishwasher, washing machine, dryer, and refrigerator coils. This will significantly extend their life.
- Clean/Replace Filters: Many things in your home have filters, and changing/cleaning them only takes a few minutes. Do this once a day for a week and your home will smell better, the air quality will be better, and everything will last a little longer.
- Lubricate the windows: If your windows are a little stuck, don't let them become immobile over time. A little dry lubricant will help loosen them up and get them working like new.
- Repairing wallpaper seams: If your wallpaper has loose seams, ignoring them will only lead to complete wallpaper failure. To prevent this, grab a bottle of seam sealer and apply it – it only takes a few minutes and your wallpaper will be as good as new.
- Unclogging drains: Waiting for smelly drains to back up into your home is no way to live. A drain unclogging kit can dislodge clogs from drains in minutes, long before they become severe enough to cause damage.
- Remove stains from the ceiling: If you have a small water leak in your ceiling that leaves a stain, you may see it every day and wonder how much work it would take to fix it. But you can fix it in just a few minutes. Mix one part bleach with five parts water in a spray bottle, spray it on the stain, blot it dry, and repeat. If you don't want to go to that length, you can also buy a can of "up shot" sealant, which will cover most white ceiling stains in about two minutes.
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