When people say home maintenance is never-ending

[Pepperminttt]

FTB here and I’m sure this is a daft question but…

People often say home maintenance is never ending eg it gets mentioned on here a lot.

Does this mean routine preventative maintenance like, I don’t know, keeping gutters clear? Or things unexpectedly needing repair? Or both in equal parts?

If bite their hand off for that price (obv get a few quotes first). We had ours replaced last year and quotes came in between £20-35k and that’s in a cheap part of the country!

I decorate a room every 5 or so years but often touch bits up in between. We don’t smoke or have pets but somehow the walls always end up grubby. The kids can’t turn on a light switch without touching the walls around it! Most of our walls are painted so I do most of it myself and aim for 2 or 3 rooms each year.

The outside is a different matter. When we moved in 16 years ago it was looking in need of a freshen up. We finally got round to it last year, 15 years later.

The porch, hall, and stairs need doing most frequently - we've found it to be every 3 years.
Our bedroom has been the same for the longest (9 years) and is just starting to look a bit tatty, but doesn't look or feel dated yet IMO. DCs rooms have been painted more frequently, but that is due to shifting DCs between rooms and paint being a fairly cheap and easy way to make it 'theirs'.
The kitchen and utility were done 6 years ago and are now shabby and overdue to be done. My spare time is currently tied up freshening up a very tired looking part of the garden in readiness for summer, but the kitchen is next on my hit list (provided something urgent doesn't crop up first).

I am definitely in the category of having a neverending list as we keep costs down by doing as much ourselves as possible. Some things are essential to the fabric of the building, others are to keep it tidy looking or avoid larger replacement costs down the line. It is often either very time- or money-consuming (sometimes both!).
So far this year, the larger things we have had to spend out on:
New shed (£600 + 4hrs to build)
New washing machine (£500)
New TV (£500)
Radiator issues and boiler service (£150)
Messy garden corner update (£250 + 12hrs so far to implement)
Stairs and landing carpet (£400)

We are replacing windows at the rate of a couple a year whenever DH gets a bonus - we're nearly done! 2 medium and 2 small ones to go! The dullest spend was £4k on repointing a few years ago: essential, but absolutely nothing obvious to show for it. Ditto underpinning the porch shortly after moving in, because the previous owners had thought foundations were optional (££££ of underground concrete).

Yes there is a lot but DH does most of it himself so it is quite cheap, just gets part from Screwfix or somewhere like that, we have never had anyone one in for any plumbing jobs or stuff like that, examples like changing toilet cistern innards. Most jobs you can do yourself apart from some electrical work and all gas work.

I've been in my house 8 months now, the list of jobs is longer than my arm and then some!

Depends on your property. We owned a modern two bed flat and rarely did any maintenance!

It’s an ongoing thing. General maintenance keeps on top of stuff but occasionally bug jobs need doing because something breaks etc.

our last house was a 1970’s - lived there 19 years and in the time we lived there we replaced all the flooring, re decorated (several time!) replaced the kitchen and bathroom, had a complete new central heating system installed, changed the garden to make it child friendly, had block paved drive done and drains to help with standing water (drive sloped down and heavy rain caused issues), we replaced the front door. The windows will probably need doing and the flat garage roof but we moved recently.

New house 15 years old and already had new bathroom and en suite fitted before we moved here but We need to replace the boiler which is the original fitted when the house built and the kitchen (needs a better layout)
much easier so far to maintain

NEVER ENDING!!!!
We renovated ours, top to bottom, pulled off some wallpaper and the plaster crumbled beneath it, in every single room so re plastered every wall and ceiling.
decorating, painting, new flooring, new kitchen, new bathroom.

Now, after withstanding bringing up 2 kids, it’s a shell of itself so pretty much needs redoing.

I did replace every window but not all at once, they are all new but noticed yesterday that 2 of the conservatory windows have blown so looks like I’ll need to replace them.

Last week 2 fence panels blew and broke so that was £100 for those plus delivery, now I have the remnants of the 2 broken ones to get rid off, they will fill up and dirty my car boot.

the chimney was falling down so we had that repaired, while up there the builders showed us pictures of the flat roof extension which was basically rotted black wood and no covering so that had to be replaced, £7k later with actually nothing to be seen, we are safe and water tight. (Other “maintenance”jobs done too)

Big jobs are super expensive and so disruptive (painting hall, stairs and landing on a 3 story house) but desperately needs doing now.

Yep. Never ending indeed.

This bank holiday I've got painting walls, cleaning windows and mending the gutter on the list.

The wall behind the hob had been done in cheap builders emulsion which comes off when it's cleaned so I'm washing walls free of grease and painting with egg shell which is tougher.

Plus some of the window seals have spots of mould on so they need treating with bleach before it spreads.

What else are bank holidays for? 😁

Thanks, realised I wasn’t clear in my question. I meant to say presumably you do the inside and window cleaners do outside!

I don't have a window cleaner.
All of our doors/windows are floor to ceiling glass.
Currently on the market and we have had a lot of horizontal rain recently so they stay clean for about a day at most.
Lost count of the number of times I have cleaned the windows inside and out.

Not in the UK, so window cleaners aren't even a thing here, but if we did have one they would need to come at least twice a week to keep everything looking nice.

I would say 15-20 years is about the amount of time from when everything is new to everything is knackered.

Don't underestimate the effects of kids on a house. Smashing toys into the skirting boards, sticky hands on the walls, slamming the doors, spraying water all over the bathroom, spilling stuff on the floors ... it goes on and on.

Some things I have learnt :

Boilers : when you buy a new build, the boiler will be shit. That's because no one buys a house on the quality of the boiler, more like on how many bedrooms its got or whether it has a good garden. The builder will install the cheapest boiler they can get their hands on. Which means it will almost certainly be knackered in 15-20 years. So anyone moving into a 20 odd year old house will almost certainly need the original one replacing if it hasn't been done.

Fences : again missed this one when moving into my place. You want concrete posts and decent panels. A basic wooden post/horizontal overlap fence will only last 15-20 years. If you have concrete posts the panels can be replaced pretty easily and save you a ton of money in the process.

Doors : Again 15-20 years. Builders do not put high quality doors in new builds. Often people will overpaint the original doors where they are going rotten.

Electrics : generally modern wiring is pretty good, but in 20 years you will almost certainly have found the wiring standards have changed which means you will probably need a new consumer unit if you want to keep up to the latest standards.

Water/CH : radiators are normally furred up within 20 years (although if you have a magnetic trap you won't get this so much). Any hard water area you are going to get a lot of limescale deposits, which will probably ruin your aux immersion heater/hot water cylinder and also wear appliances like dishwashers and washing machines. Things like bar mixer showers will need replacing on this sort of timescale.

I could go on, and on. But its a bank holiday. And I have stuff to fix :(

You'll have essential maintenance, things like ensuring the roof is not leaking and the door locks. Then there is a huge list of things that depend how tolerant you are to things looking a bit ropey. Our carpet has needed replacing for 6 years for example but every time I think about it it seems wasteful, bad for the environment and expensive when we can put that money towards a holiday, so it goes another year. Same with kitchens, unless the cupboards physically won't withhold a can of beans then I'm not replacing it in a rush even if it is a bit tired looking.

Oh god.

I was thinking I’d do a little light weeding and maybe yell at DS to put his pile of junk in the loft.

Now I realise I have 20 years of neglected house maintenance to catch up on.

Depends on the house. Some more than others. We keep on top of stuff in current house, but it actually needs very little maintenance.

Today I have had to weed the front garden, re paint the decking. Was nearly all done and ready to actually sit down on the bank holiday when the side gate fell apart.

m was kind of a blessing as I wanted it moved further down the side of the house. But still. Ugh. Have the garden done and all my annuals planted. So I’m good for that.

Husband has started on the getting rid of weeds part of the year. Then comes re sowing the grass later this week. And I still need to finish weeding the front of the house.

It's simply NEVER over, in any way shape or form. Be it preemptive, be it reactionary. It will CONSUME your every minute of your day. Think about it like this, if time is ticking then theirs a kind of Maintenance to be done.