Proactive Home Stewardship Yields High ROI

By Guest Contributor:

Alex Stadtner

Healthy Building Science, Inc. healthybuildingscience.com

Our home is one of our greatest assets, but for many of us, it is more than a financial investment. We pour sweat equity and emotion into creating a safe and healthy place for our families to shelter and rest. We build a sanctuary.

There are chronic and acute threats to every building, yet very few devote the necessary budget or planning for the proper maintenance of a home. To stay ahead of expensive and stressful setbacks, there are significant benefits to regular inspections, proactive home maintenance, and emergency preparedness.

A good home stewardship program covers hundreds of items that should be inspected and serviced every year. A rule of thumb for budgeting is to allocate between 1–4% of the home’s value for annual home maintenance. For a $1 million house that is $10-40K/year on maintenance. This percentage may sound exorbitant, but this also considers the cumulative impacts of big projects like deck replacements, painting and new roofs (not to mention the unexpected). ››

Acute Threats

These are threats we cannot prevent, but we can mitigate their harm and be prepared. The difference between quickly responding after a flood and waiting a week can result in significant mold growth, additional structural damages, and literally hundreds of thousands of dollars in mitigation expenses. Just like having a fire evacuation plan for your family, you should also have an emergency response plan for your home.

To minimize the risks of fire, home hardening is a valuable proactive step. A good general contractor can provide an expert assessment and detailed estimate for upgrading attic and crawlspace vents, adding gutter guards and exterior sprinklers, thinning vegetation, and more.

Earthquakes are included in acute threats and may include both flooding and fire. Include a kit of tarps and duct tape, have your home insurance contact info onhand, and identify best-in-class remediation contractors beforehand. Seismic upgrades and installing an earthquake shutoff valve also mitigate risk of catastrophic loss.

Chronic Threats

Sun, water, temperature swings, debris accumulation, termites, and normal wear and tear all take a toll. These slow-moving threats may cause enormous damage over a building’s lifecycle. Good waterproofing details on new construction, and maintaining existing coatings and watercontrol systems on existing buildings, help minimize longterm expenses. Cleaning gutters and regularly testing downspouts and site drainage is a classic example. Enlisting a professional to proactively inspect and service these water control systems greatly reduces your risk of flooding and water damage. Touch-up paint, replacing old caulk and weather-stripping, power-washing, staining old wooden decks and stairs are a few common maintenance items that go unnoticed until a significant (and expensive) problem develops.

There are financial and emotional benefits to proactive home stewardship, too. Keeping your #1 asset in top condition allows you to take pride in your home and not worry about all the lengthy “to-do” lists that plague many of us. And should you have to sell your home unexpectedly, you will earn the highest return possible and be sale-ready immediately.

As Industrial Hygienists and general contractors we regularly determine the cause and extent of damages to buildings. We see the difference in projects that were prepared vs. unprepared, and more than half of the identified problems can be traced back to deferred maintenance. By keeping your home in top condition through regular, proactive maintenance, you’ll yield the greatest financial and emotional rewards – the last of which can be priceless.

About the author: Alex Stadtner is President of Healthy Building Science, Inc., specializing in quarterly home maintenance and specialty contracting. www.healthybuildingscience.com

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