When discussing our personal health most of us would have heard the Chinese proverb, ‘prevention is the best cure’.
But how many of us would think the same for our home?
As more of us turn to living healthier lives to help reduce issues – eating the right food, exercising and generally looking after our body and mind, why don’t we do the same for our home?
Carrying out regular maintenance and upkeep of our home helps to reduce the chance of unexpected and costly issues.
According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS) report “Worries about the rising cost of living Apr-May 2022”, 82% of 30-49 year olds stated they were worried about costs within the home and having insufficient savings for unexpected costs.
So what proportion of households are on top of their everyday home maintenance?
Well, if the respondents to our recent poll are an indication, not many, as almost 90% stated they either did nothing, or very little.
So the question is why?
In this post, we’ll delve into three likely causes:
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- not understanding the financial implications
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- a lack of knowledge of what to do, or the confidence to carry them out
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- not being organised
The Financials
We know the rise in our household costs mean maintenance issues can put a huge pressure on our finances.
But as they aren’t an everyday occurrence, it’s equally not something we may think about too frequently. However, if you’ve been a homeowner for long enough you start to appreciate that small things have a tendency to become big problems a lot quicker, and more often than you care to remember.
To put this in context, Checkatrade in their Property Maintenance Cost guide July 2022, highlighted that 30% of homeowners are forced every year to complete an unexpected emergency repair on their home, costing on average £900.
That research was done almost a year ago, and in that time the cost of repairs have increased by over 19%, with some materials such as plasterboard now costing twice as much as it did a year ago, so today that’s looking more like £1,100.
If you consider that 26% of adults in the UK don’t have any savings, and a third have less than £1,000, even the thought of something going wrong must be extremely stressful for those households.
The Knowledge
Of our respondents, 41% of them fell into the ‘don’t know what to do’ camp.
The B&Q Slice of Home Life report 2022 suggested that 66% of households lacked confidence or understanding to carry out work on the home.
As a young or inexperienced homeowner, there is no user manual for a home, no course at school to prepare you, and unless knowledge is bestowed on you from relatives, you invariably have to educate yourself.
Coupled with the result of poorly made actions creating an entire TV genre of Home maintenance disasters, it’s not unsurprising to find many deferring to not doing anything. Yet there are loads of small, simple things around the home that can make the biggest difference. There are also some tasks which should be exclusively done by a professional.
Knowledge isn’t just about how to maintain or care for your home, but being aware of the financial impact of not carrying out routine maintenance.
A really good example is boilers. Most come with a warranty, that can be up to 10 years, but forget to get your boiler serviced annually, just once, and that is often voided. That may not seem like a big deal at the time, on average an annual service costs £75 according to Which?, but when you consider that the service not only improves the efficiency of your boiler saving on your energy bills, it also validates your warranty which if you work on the average boiler repair costing £300, now makes the initial cost seem like a good investment – but how many households actually know this?
Getting Organised
Almost a quarter (24%) of all respondents highlighted time, and a lack of organisation as a key factor behind why they don’t stay on top of household tasks.
Just being on top of household tasks can also deliver cost savings for households. If you have oil or LPG heating and need to periodically arrange delivery of oil to your tank. If left to the last minute, not only can it risk running out of oil and leaving the household without heating it can cost up to £80 more (depending on the amount and size of the tank) as a result of not being able to negotiate or find a better deal.
Our previous research has highlighted that often the task of running and maintaining a home sits with an individual within the household, causing a huge dependency on them, and adding to the mental load. Creating a situation where this is shared, visibility of tasks is known to everyone in the household is a way of stopping it falling by the wayside.
