What do you wish you'd known about maintaining a home (house or apartment, etc.) when you started out

[OneFancyTealQuail]

Can be anything

That on a strip of rawl plugs there is a hole for you to put the drilling end of a drill into to find the right size drill bit and 2 holes for the minimum and maximum screw size So you can find a screw between the hole sizes that will fit. Also that if you use the correct drill size it doesn’t matter how deep your hole is because rawl plugs are designed to flare stop them falling into the hole.

No matter how careful you are drilling hole for rawl plugs, your wall is liable to disintegrate if you have an old house so you need filler on hand at all times and some of the metal filler tool things (or a credit card).

HG mould spray and Wickes antifungal wash are great.

Misted double glazing units can be replaced without needed a whole new window and you can get universal window handles online.

Zinsser bin and bullseye 123 as a first coat mean you can paint over most surfaces.

When something breaks, something else breaks a few days later.

This is all true, which is why the best thing you can do as a homeowner is acquire as many DIY skills as you can. Most of them are easy, and can be learned from the internet.

That on a semi-regular basis, you will wish you were 12 again.

Being an adult and running a home (whether rented or owned) is just a never-ending task list.

This is really good advice. Keeping on top of it is the best way! That way if something comes up suddenly/ you've missed a clean everything still looks pretty good. Plus it's easier 😅

God, this.

I'm a project management type person, and every so often I have a mild panic attack thinking about the two things in life which are unalterably ongoing commitments, rather than one-off projects: house maintenance and fitness.

I really, really hate that I have to work out every day, and that the house is never finished.

Keep all your documentation (boiler service, any work you get done etc etc). Keep it in a file ready for when you sell your house, even if you think you will never sell it. I did (by accident rather than by design: a big pile of unsorted papers on my desk) and it made selling the house much easier.

Also: drains are a bastard. Buy a plumbing snake, and pour boiling hot citric acid down your drains on a regular basis. Clean the shower trap before it needs it.

If you don't do something straight away it will remain broken for the entire time you live there. (We had three bathrooms/toilets but one major thing not working in each. FOR YEARS.)

Tell me about it. I used to organise things for a living, and I was pretty good at it. So, the last thing you want to do when you get home is your job every evening and weekend.

O_O

You are my tribe !

Any maintenance costs double what you estimates.
Treating tradespeople well gets you far. But always pay a tiny deposit and full payment only after work is finished.
Dehumidifier is your best friend against mould.
Old houses are a money pit. Never again.
And yes, cleaning frequently is more effective than letting things get out of hand.

We've never had damp... ventilate and don't allow condensation to build up.

I've never had damp either, and I've lived in 3 places. But we don't save on heating, cook regularly and open windows everyday.

Declutter relentlessly. Have enough storage for anything you must keep.

sort little jobs as soon as you notice them.

use wipeable paint in high traffic areas

That the poo smell in the downstairs toilet, which you spent a couple of years trying to fix, bottles of bleach, resealing, and cursing the plumber who put it in, wasn't the toilet at all, but the sink, which was blocked down the outside pipe, causing a vacuum, which then went back up the toilet!!!

The toilet cistern also blew a bolt, because of all the bleach you poured into it, and flooded the floor. DH fault, not mine, I told him not to do it!!

Also, with cleaning, good enough is good enough. Doing anything is better than nothing.

I've been meaning to clean my kitchen floor by hand with a scrubbing brush. It's too hot for that so rather than put it off like I have been, I scrubbed the one area I wanted to then mopped that bit then the rest 🤷‍♀️

That the costs aren't necessarily just the mortgage. My mortgage is manageable. But the maintenance costs - I could do with a new kitchen and really need new windows as both are over 20 years old - are what hurts. Ditto my council tax and utilities.

Addendum to the cistern incident, that putting your finger into the gushing hole is not recommended, and that you should just use a penny to turn off he water on the inlet pipe. DH, again looking at you......severely bruised finger 😅

When you find good tradesmen hang onto them and treat them like the gods they are.

Been blessed to cross paths with one that we left to do a full refurb on our bathroom and kitchen while we went on our holiday. Daily photos, only one question in two weeks, I love him to death my dh understands completely.

We have others too, a drain guy (stores some gear here), a marble guy, a window guy, a painter/decorator guy (stores his steps here), a genius electrician guy. All gods.

This with bells on. I wish I'd never let myself be persuaded.

That victorian terraces were the crappy cheap housing of their day and will be a money pit.

We don't have condensation, we have damp no one can identify. It doesn't fit any type of known damp.

Its not penetrating as its internal wall, its not rising as its mid wall, its not condensation as its not high/external, not a roof leak as ground floor, no water pipes run there so no pipe leaks... appears on 4 different internal walls in different places.

Many a professional tradesman and damp roofer has scratched their head over it... no one can figure out cause so the advice is to just replacing the plaster (again) which is stupid as it will just come right back through.

House 'looked' like it had no damp until we started renovating the walls and took the paper off. You will be amazed the problems hidden beneath the surface of your house.

Yes. This is a lifetime relationship and nurture it.

That lovely neighbours are worth their weight in gold.

I wish I’d got stainless steel worktops. They still look amazing 20 years later.

My husband is trades... we've had our old (over 100 years) house back to the bare brick ... we have zero damp anywhere.....

My mum’s place was a ground-floor Victorian maisonette. She hung her washing on the radiators in the winter. It never got damp (although she did have heating on very high).
i live in a strange 1920s solid-walled flat and it does get damp.