Summer Home Maintenance Checklist

Summer is the perfect time to check off all of those outdoor maintenance jobs! Get out there in the sun this summer and keep your house in tip top shape!

• Check your roof for rust, cracks, leaks and damage to the paint work. Leaks in New Zealand homes usually originate at the top of the house. Extra caution is advised if your house is roofed with what is known as sheeted corrugated iron as these types of roofs have a tendency to rust where the sheets overlap on the joints.

• Check gutters are clean to prevent water from overflowing in the event of a heavy downpour. Also ensure all trees surrounding the house are cut back away from the spouting so you don’t end up cleaning leaves from your gutters every week! Additionally, ensure all downpipes are attached and that all spouting fixtures are free of rust and damage.

• Inspect your cladding for paint flaking and rot. 9 times out of 10 we find that houses we inspect are either coming up or overdue for a new coat of paint. Often when houses aren’t painted often enough, cladding begins to rot because it is no longer being protected from the weather.

• Trim gardens back away from cladding of sub floor ventilation grilles. Gardens often cause moisture ingress to timber framing and cladding and during our inspections we usually pick up elevated moisture readings where gardens are hard up against the house.

• Give your fence a bit of love. Especially if it is coming up for a paint job, paint helps to prevent timber from rotting and deteriorating, wouldn’t you rather repaint than replace?

• Have a close look at your wooden joinery as it often requires regular maintenance including putty replacement and painting. As you replace putty it should then be painted. If wooden joinery isn’t maintained, moisture ingress can occur, resulting in damage to the joinery and other surrounding building elements.

• Clean your windows! Make sure to clean the frames at the same time – this prevents dust and sulphur build up which can increase deterioration.

• Wash down your decks and driveway. Doing this regularly helps to keep these areas clean and slip free, and the job won’t be so big if you do it once a year!

If while ticking off this summer checklist, you find some nasty things you didn’t know were there, give us a call on 0800 4 TRUTH (0800 487 884) and we can come and take a look. All of the above-mentioned things to look out for are covered in our inspections and we are sometimes even able to give out some advice to remediate issues that we identify.

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