3 Ways to Effective Home Maintenance Record-Keeping

The key to cost-saving home maintenance is documentation. So often, homeowners believe that maintenance on their home or its contents ends when the work is completed. However, this way of thinking can prove expensive in upcoming months or years. Follow-ups are just as important as the maintenance itself. Take a simple remodeling job for example. Many times, homeowners will conduct some cosmetic maintenance by painting or wallpapering various rooms. Usually, once the work is done, the paint can or wall covering information is discarded, leaving no warranty information to refer to if problems, such as peeling or fading, occur in later months.

More costly mistakes occur with home repairs. For instance, a home's furnace is often taken for granted until something goes wrong. In most cases, the high-priced problem could have been prevented if regularly scheduled cleaning and maintenance were conducted and documented over the years. Whether it's painting a room in the house, repairing a clothes dryer or building an addition to the home, in order for the work to be efficiently and cost-effectively performed and maintained, record keeping is essential.

There are three ways that lead to comprehensive home maintenance documentation: a home maintenance journal, a household inventory checklist and a file box.

1. HOME MAINTENANCE JOURNAL. For easy reference, divide your journal into five separate parts. A 5-subject notebook is ideal and inexpensive for this type of record keeping. In the first part of your journal, list any maintenance done on the house, both inside and out. Include dates, names and contact information of contractors who performed the work or service and materials used. This information will prove beneficial if there are problems with the performed work or as a guide for how long the condition of the maintenance work lasted.