Guest post from Lisa of About Proximity
In ten years of marriage, surprise bills have inevitably come up. Not only are these taxing on finances, they sometimes are very time consuming and life disrupting. A sampling of our surprises:
- An enormous tree root that backed up our sewer pipes – $500
- A late fee for license plate renewal – $20 times 2
- A minor furnace repair of a pump cleaning (the house was 50 degrees for two days in the dead of winter) – $100
- Washing machine beyond repair – $100 for attempted repair and $150 to replace it
- Annual library late fees – $10
- Drain back-ups in the upstairs bathroom sink (Drano) – $75
- Difficulty finding warranty information when the microwave shorted out – $60 replacement
While working on overhauling our finances this year we realized many of these bills might have been avoided had we done better preventative maintenance. While sometimes these extra bills are unavoidable, we set a goal to have intentional preventative maintenance in our home. Here’s the calendar we follow:
Preventative Maintenance Calendar
January
- Run a bottle of Drano through upstairs bathroom sink
- Oil change for vehicles
February
- Complete Tax Forms
- Complete license plate renewal forms by mail (to avoid lines at Secretary of State)
- Change the furnace filter
March
- Furnace clean and check — $79 (A $50 rebate from Consumer’s Energy available in our area.)
- Annual physical for adults in the family
- Annual eye examination
April
- Run a bottle of Drano through upstairs bathroom sink
- Run root kill through sewer pipes ($13)
- Oil change for vehicles
- Change the furnace filter
May
- Dentist check-ups for the family
June
- Change the furnace filter
July
- Run a bottle of Drano through the upstairs bathroom sink
- Annual well-check for the children
August
- Vehicles in for an oil change
- Change the furnace filter
September
- Flu shots for the whole family
- Replace smoke alarm batteries, go over fire escape plan with family
October
- Run a bottle of Drano through the upstairs bathroom sink
- Run root kill through the sewer pipes ($13)
- Change the furnace filter
November
- Dentist check-ups for the family
- Oil change for the vehicles
December
- Change the furnace filter
- Review the preventative maintenance checklist. Add any new ideas. Prepare the list for the coming year
Weekly
- Keep library books in the same spot in a hallway closet. Drive through the library return weekly on the same day
- When completing our weekly money meeting, choose a home improvement project to complete in the week ahead. This project can be small or large depending on the obligations the coming week holds.
Ongoing
- Keep an up-to-date binder to organize warranties, receipts, and product information brochures.
- When service techs visit, ask questions! They are a wealth of information and can help identify preventative measure.
What preventative maintenance do you schedule regularly?
Lisa Van Engen is a freelance writer from Holland, MI. Her family seeks to be good stewards of the gifts God has given them. Lisa writes at About Proximity about placing yourself in the proximity of renewal.
We used to be in the Drano game until my husband came home with a 30″ white plastic wand with a jagged edge along one side of it. I asked him what in the world it was for and he said, “It cost $2 and I think it will fix the continual problem we’re having on the slow drainage in the sinks upstairs.” He was absolutely right! I use it only when the sinks are clogged up and it is long enough to reach down there and get out all the nasty “junk”. He purchased it at Lowes! I have no idea what it’s called but it’s saved us alot of money not buying Drano for the past three years. I have seen them available at Lowes recently.
It’s a type of “snake” 🙂
Thanks for all the great advice!
Oil changes – when we first got our cars, we put them on an oil change schedule of every 5000 miles, when the odometer hits 20K, 25K, 30K, etc. Its too difficult to remember to change it at 27343 miles and the sticker they give you often falls off.
Home – first day of the month, we:
1. throw out old sponges and replace with new ones
2. throw out old razors or heads and replace with new ones
3. put stuff for our septic system down the toilet
4. check furnace filters and replace if necessary
5. run espresso machine cleaner through
Hope this helps!
I might suggest getting your carpet professionally cleaned. You can often find great deals through sites like groupon. We are needing to replace our carpet very soon but as a last ditch effort to stretch its life out a little longer we found a good deal on carpet cleaning. We were amazed at the difference it made even on our old carpet. The carpet tech said that carpet manufacturers often suggest cleaning carpet professionally ever 6 months to 2 years depending on the carpet style/brand. This was the first time we had cleaned ours in 8 years! I bet if we were cleaning it regularly all along we would have added a few more years to its life. We have a Hoover steam vac, however, we noted that its cleaning ability did not even compare to the professional job.
good article, I agree there needs to be a printable of this article for our home management binders.
Our plumber is a good friend he said never use Drano it just eats through your pipes. Instead go to Lowes or a hardware store and they sell this little plastic tool called a zip strip- it is a 2 foot long plastic strip with teeth- run it through each drain and shower- it is easy anyone can do it- you don’t have to take the drain apart. I wouldn’t use straight bleach either also very corrosive- use baking soda, vinegar and hot water.
If you have a septic tank, it should be pumped every 12 to 36 months depending on the size of your family. Where we live, that costs $250 to $300 per tank.
We use the allergen filters in our furnace/air conditioner. They are supposed to last for 3 months, but we check it every month and depending on the pollen, change it every 1-2 months.
For slow drains, I use baking soda and vinegar and while this is bubbling, I put water on to boil. After the bubbling stops, I pour about a quart of really hot water through the sinks.
I also feed my septic tank about once every month or two. It likes old buttermilk. The buttermilk helps to keep the good bacteria growing and alive. You can feed it some Rid-X, but I prefer using all natural as much as possible. Don’t much like harsh chemicals.
Depending on your driving habits, you may be wasting money by getting an oil change every three months. Current recommendations are to get one every 5000-7000 miles. With my driving habits, that comes out to less than one every six months.
And ditto everyone else on the Drano. It is super-harsh, and putting it down your drain every three months, problem or no, is crazy. You are going to end up having to re-pipe your house. It would be much better to purchase a snaking device from a home improvement store and run that down your sink every few months.
I like the seasonal checklists at this site (full disclosure: I used to be a moderator here back when it had forums) but these lists are great:
http://organizedhome.com/articles/cleaning-checklists
Another vote not to use toxic chemicals – lots of info on the internet using vinegar/baking soda for drains.
I had tree root problems and put the rotor rooter type person out to cut/clear the main sewer line on a schedule before I finally had to get the tree removed. It wasn’t too costly, worked better, and again no toxic chemicals.
I miss the organized home forums.
Skip the Drano in favor of opening up the elbow pipe under the sink. It took me about 5 minutes to do this and reattach the pipe. The culprit was an entire toothbrush. Easily removed by hand, very expensively and inconveniently disintegrated by Drano.
I second the dental check-up’s. We went 10 months between my son’s appt’s because I got busy with the holidays and forgot to schedule. He went from no cavities to many the second time. The work cost us a LOT. If I had gone four months sooner, it could have been a lot less stress, money, and trauma. 🙁
Drano is a no-no…
But this list is awesome!
Yay for RENTING! 🙂
I love reading all these lists of preventative maintenance though! Good insight for the future.
I went through our townhome over the past week and anything I noticed that needed repair I added to a list. I’m dropping it off at the lease office tomorrow morning and by tomorrow afternoon almost all of it will be completed. These aren’t big issues either, just those pesky little wear and tear things that happen when you live in the same home for almost five years.
One tip I would suggest to other renters is to watch what your maintenance person actually does to repair the problem. I just kindly ask, “Do you mind if I watch you so that I’ll know what to do when we have our own home one day?”
I’ve never been told no, and even if they seemed skeptical at first, because I stood quietly out of the way or handed them anything they might need, they eventually warmed up to my watching and learning. I now know quite a bit about the little repairs around a home, and when my husband gets home from work I show and tell him exactly what I learned. Not only does it help him learn, but it cements the steps in my mind!
We do need to work on a maintenance list for our vehicles though. I’m adding that to my “to do” list for this evening. 🙂
Great post and thank you for sharing, Lisa!
There is no need to pay for Drano. A hair trap for tubs costs next to nothing and will stop the source of blockage. For all other drains a monthly/bi-monthly cleaning with baking soda and vinegar will remove the mold slime that builds up and can slow drains down. Put a couple tablespoons of baking soda in the drain and then 1/4 to 1/2 cup of plain old cheap vinegar. The chemical reaction will clean you pipes. I also follow it up with really hot water to wash the loosened slime from the pipes. Cheap, easy, eco-friendly and safe for pipes!
3 weeks after we bought and moved into our house our air conditioning (a must in South Florida) blew a fuse and needed to be replaced. Since we bought the house as is and there was no longer a warranty, that was quite an unexpected expense.
We immediately signed up for the yearly maintenance plan. It’s $99 a year for them to come out every six months and check our air and gas furnace and do any preventive maintenance or minor work that needs to be done. Having these things taken care of on a regular basis can save us from a $700 surprise in the future.
There is an added bonus too, if we ever do need major repair work done we get a 20% discount on labor and parts as members of the service plan.
This would make a good printable
After doing apartment maintenance and rentals for four years and learning from a guy who’s done it for over 20 full time, Drano is not a good idea. It may get some of the initial junk, but can actually make the problem worse and deteriorate your drains. Instead, get a “snake” for your drain and learn to use it. Use it when a drain gets slow. Check every 3-6 months by plugging your drain, then running a sink full of water, unplug the drain and see how fast it goes down. It should go down fairly quickly. It will be cheaper in the long run because Drano is expensive.
Draino is expensive and damaging to pipe and connectors. I do preventative maintenance quarterly. Monthly is too much. For sinks, use 1/2 box of baking soda (the stuff you might use to keep a refrigerator fresh.). Pour on drain, using only enough water to allow it to enter drain pipe. Follow with 1/2 bottle vinegar (the no name stuff from Aldi is fine). It will fizz. Once done, pour a teakettle of very hot water down the drain. Eco-friendly, inexpensive and easy.
This is an excellent article because the best and biggest money-saving tactic I know is to take care of what you already have! 🙂
A family friend and A/C person told us to stop using the more expensive allergy filters that are supposed to last longer in out A/C. He said they were a waste of money since you should replace them every 30 days (because we have two dogs) anyway. He also said that the more expensive ones we were using was actually helping to clog the airflow going in since the filter system was smaller. We saved a lot of $ buying the cheaper large packs and changing them out monthly instead of bimonthly. Another thing to add is to clean out the a/c outside drain system yourself. We learned to have one person put a hose into the outside pipe while the other person used a shop-vac to suck the water through the pipe at the other end. Doing this 2 times a year kept us from having any clogs in our system.
Our AC person told us the same thing! We’ve been using the cheap filters & changing them frequently ever since.
There are three things we “Spend to Save” on…Our Car, Our Health, and Our Home.
That includes things like replacing AC/heat filters every season, checking fire and carbon monoxide alarms frequently, eating healthy food, having yearly check-ups, keeping our car up to date with maintenance, and constantly checking things like water bills, gas bills, etc for issues that might signal a leak.
We have had a high water bill since we moved to this home 5 years ago, and never thought twice about it. Just last month we decided to have a plumber take a look at it, and found a crack in our main line that was wasting us $30 a month on water! $30/month for 5 years…I wish we would have checked it out sooner!
It’s cheaper to fix small problems or avoid problems altogether than it is to put it off and risk a small problem degrade into a large one.
You could also add to that list (if you own a home):
Clean/check gutters twice yearly.
Clean/inspect chimney & cap at least twice yearly. ( I am from Michigan but live in Connecticut where natural gas is NOT found. We burn wood in our fireplace insert & supplement w/ oil.)
Check all sink traps monthly for hair/objects. (instead of running toxic Drano, try hot boiling water w/ vinegar.)
Run mixture of ice cubes/lemon peels in your garbage disposal weekly.
Vaccuum refrigerator coils and dryer vents twice yearly for dust bunnies/extra lint.
On Oil changes – you do not need to change your oil every 3 months or 3ooo miles. You could bump that up to every 5000 miles. The oils that are manufactured today are of quality. Ideally, you should be running full synthetic through your vehicles and changing that every 8k to 10k miles. Yes, it is initially more costly but synthetic oils are superior to regular. (We have 6 vehicles(including a diesel engine) and all are run on full synthetic.) One car has 224k, another 187k, and 2 w/ 100k!) These 4 vehicles are our daily drivers & the other two are “fun/collector” cars.
My husband & I do all our own maintenance ourselves & the labor part is always the most expensive cost of any bill! I don’t know anybody who likes to “labor” but we sure hate to pay for it if we can do it ourselves!
Thanks for the vacuum vent reminder!!
Making a list is a great idea! I just made a list of big bills to pay by month, for example, life insurance premiums, car insurance, personal property taxes, etc… I should add maintenace schedules to this, too.
Great list! Those surprise problems are things that happen to us, too, and it always causes us to have to scramble to put together money. It’s a lot harder to prepare for problems and schedule maintenance when you don’t have any money to begin with, though 🙁
I agree with the preventative list. I made my own daily planner and have a “to-do-list” of monthly activities that I keep on my planner sheet to remind myself and/or to schedule or do for the month. I check them off as I get them done and put in my planner calendar.
I would add weekly/monthly pressure tire checks. Plus I put other car maintenance on my to-do list as a way to stay on top of my car maintenance. I do tire pressure checks with gas fill ups (single mom here!). I have reminders about taxes to help me stay on top so I don’t have to pay taxes and keep my records up to date. I also have physicals and vision screening as well as prescriptions lists on my list for May/June (before back to school season). I put many health maintenance items on my list (medical check up, dental check ups, immunization updates, prescriptions, blood pressure checks, asthma spirometer readings, vision and specialist appointments). Here is a sample for April.
APRIL MONTHLY TO DO LIST
Spring cleaning
Make a plan
Implement plan
Schedule physicals (May/June)
Schedule vision tests (May/June)
Prepare car for summer
File tax returns
Place deposits on summer camps
Prepare list for camp items (clothes, bathing suit, camp gear)
Celebrations
Easter celebration
Mom’s Birthday
Plan small party/activities
Take kids shopping
Plan Mother’s Day
Shop after-sales Mother’s Day
Plan Memorial Day weekend
__________________________________________
MONTHLY
Pay bills
Monthly menu
Monthly grocery list
Monthly grocery shopping
Freezer cooking
Prescriptions
Monthly filing
Flip mattresses
Check tires and fluids levels in car
Work on one new habit
__________________________________________
WEEKLY
Get newspapers
Check school assignments on website
Pick 5 out fits/person for week
Plan the week and fill out planner sheet
Identify 10 goals for the week
Review financial plan
Plan a declutttering project
Go to the library and return books/videos
Fill pill boxes
Implement house cleaning schedule
Oh, Anna, I love your lists! Seeing something like this – and feeling the immediate need to go update my own – lets me know just how much of a list addict I have become . . .
Great lists! Thank you for the inspiration. I need to work on our car maintenance lists and besides the most basic things I’m not sure what all needs to be done on a vehicle for ‘regular maintenance’.
We drain our hot water heater to prevent build up and rust at least twice a year. With a little maintenance, we hope to keep our hot water heater for a long time without the bottom rusting out.
Other maintenance items are our annual termite check and our A/C and furnace inspection. Our technician caught a crack in our furnace fan. The replacement was covered under our warranty, but we were never without our heater since the repair occurred prior to the arrival of cold weather.
Great article! We work to keep our home maintained.
Thanks for the reminder! Our hot water heater is fairly new and I’d like to keep it running correctly!
Andrea,
Just don’t run your washing machine (on warm or hot) or your dishwasher when you drain the hot water heater. The noise might scare you to death. 🙂
Great list! I just scheduled an tune up and check of our AC unit. We are supposed to hit 90 degrees this weekend (I’m in Arizona), and after spending over $6000 a few years ago for a new unit (ours was 25 years old), it is well worth the cost of maintaining it every year so that it will last.
The only other thing I would add to the list is to check clothing often. You can often repair small tears or holes (especially in pants/jeans) before they become large and the item is beyond repair.
In regards to the flu shot, you can request a thimerasol-free version! Most flu shot still contain this mercury preservative: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/thimerosal.htm
It has been proven that children who have a pre-existing neurological predisposition to autism cannot handle the very small amount of mercury still in some vaccines, even though for most people it is safe: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20015982-10391695.html
My youngest is autistic, and I am a registered nurse. I know there is some controversy surrounding vaccines and autism, and I’m not sharing this to debate, just thought it was worth mentioning…if you can get the flu shot without the thimerosal, why not do it 🙂
Dental cleaning twice a year.
Very good article. My husband gets very stressed about household repairs and maintenance things that need to be done. Time to time I try to encourage him to set up a list or schedule like you’ve laid out. Maybe I need to be more forceful with my suggestion. 🙂
I also think it’s a good idea to get estimates of repairs and/or maintenance things long before you plan on doing them. We put off getting new windows for years because we thought it would be a huge expense. Then we got an estimate and discovered it’s actually much less than we thought so we can afford to get it done this summer. We also got an estimate for the foundation work (basement waterproofing). That’s not feasible this year but knowing how much it costs has helped us develop a specific plan and timeline. We feel much less stressed.
Of course, there is the matter of having to eventually replace our garage which I prefer not to think about right now. 🙂 My husband says I underestimate how bad it can get before it falls down. Ha ha. But it’s on our list for the next 10-15 years.
Beth,
You’re right about getting the estimates. We’d like to replace the windows in our house, too, but are assuming it will have to wait. Maybe we’d be surprised, too!
I know a lot of people who disagree with every 3000 mile oil changes, but if you have a warranty on a newer car, going too long without regular maintenance can actually void your warranty. Check into that before ignoring the oil changes.
I totally agree with this article…and as the old saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure! (and its cheaper too 🙂
We do ours every 5,000 miles or so. The owners manual for my car says it needs done every 7, 000, but I worry about pushing it that long.
I was just wondering the reason for doing the furnace checkup in the spring rather than in the fall? Is it less expensive then?
NO DRANO! NO DRANO! NO DRANO!
Drano will destroy all healthy bacteria in a septic tank which will cause the solids to build up and plug the leech field. It will sit in the nooks and crannies of the drainage pipes and detoriarate the pipes. After excessive use you will get pinhole leaks reglularly. It is also a harsh chemical that is being placed into the ground that will get into the water veins which will in turn end up in the drinking water.
The best thing to do to prevent backups is to run scalding hot water down the drain regularly but you should not have to if it is pvc b/c it self scours and you should not get back up. If you do in the rare cases call a plumber and they can snake it out but TELL them how much drano you have been using b/c it is dangerous for them when they open the pipes up. We know of a plumber who is actually blind b/c the homeowner did not tell them they used drano and when they opened the pipe the drano was backed up behind the area that was blocked and came out pouring all over his face and well… hes blind now. No good! Also try to stay away from thicker soaps. Drano is a very dangerous “bandaid” that will not fix a problem but will actually cause greater ones. Especially in the amount your using it. Sorry if this sounds in anyway condescending I DO NOT mean it that way AT ALL! This is just advice straight from my Husband who is a licensed plumber here on Cape Cod. Just want to protect you from even more money “down the drain” no pun intended.
You are SO correct though, preventitive maintenance is much less expensive in the long run! Good for you keeping up on it. I love that everything is planned out monthly, great idea to keep on top of it! Good Luck!
Oh yeah and not to drive you nuts but root kill is not good either. My husband said anything powerful to kill a root will for sure destroy your plumbing :). In his professional opinion he said that both drano and root kill are actually a waste of money. Just thought I would share. Again take it for what it is worth but like they say knowledge is power. May help in your decision process? Thanks for letting me share.
So for tree roots it’s pretty much, expect the professional bill every couple of years to dig out the roots?
Do you have pvc pipes or cast iron?
The tree roots cannot get into “a true fit system with glued joints and pvc pipes ” but they can get into cast iron. Cast iron pipes have mechanical joints with clamps and rubber gaskets so the roots can get in.
If you have cast iron pipes, unless your replace them you will have to continue to have the root removal, but that will just be a temporary fix.
Sorry, I am just transcribing his response over the phone so I hope it makes sense and hope it helps.
I bet we have cast iron, the house was built in the 1950s. The professionals who dug them out for us expected that we’d need them to keep digging the roots out. We have several large oak trees that give us lots of shade so they probably at least save us on air conditioning bills in the summer (and maybe more than pay for the cost of the rooter guys).
Just another poster chiming in on this.
Please heed this advice about tree roots. Chemicals will not help tree roots. When we had our roots hydro jetted out, we received a 1 year warranty. The wonderful technician said to write the date on our calendar and on day 364 call and have them come out and re-clean the sewer line.
I also am one that uses boiling water and bleach on our sink drains. I am not a fan of Draino.
You can use any root kill product which says that it is safe for septic tanks. Any product safe for septic tanks is safe for your pipes and the environment.
You cannot use any root kill product that says it is safe for septic tanks. Not all products advertised this way are honest. I know this because my husband is a plumber as well and I cannot tell you how many jobs we have worked on where someone said, “well the writing on the product says…” I say this because the price to update your pipes to or remove a tree in the long run are much cheaper.
Drano is not recommended. Bleach and hot water down pipes work great.
You can use Rid-X (or any other microbial agent you put in your septic tank) to keep your pipes clean and it is safe for the environment. http://www.mosbybuildingarts.com/services/question.php/rid-x-recipe-to-clean-plumbing-fixtures-530
Yes, exactly. There are a number of products (can’t remember the names of them and I’m not home so can’t check under our sink) that are sort of equivalent to the Bio-Kleen Bac Out – they use citrus and other stuff in very hot water rather than harsh chemicals. We have pipes with a lot of T-joints – the original owners designed our house and obviously weren’t plumbers – and the amount of hair, soap residue, etc., that gets stuck in those joints is ridiculous. Pouring some of that cleanser down the drains and then running hot water for awhile saves a LOT of heartache and cost. (It’s also easier than convincing my daughters to cut their hair . . .) My husband can’t quite give up his Drano and keeps a bottle on a high shelf in the garage “just in case,” but knowing we have something that toxic with a little one in the house worries me a lot.
As far as tree roots go: we just budget it in; the tree whose roots are the problem doesn’t belong to us, so that seems like the best solution. For us it’s about $150 every 15-18 months. We set the money aside and remind ourselves that it’s a lot cheaper than replacing the pipes, especially since our sewer pipe connects with the city pipe more than 200 feet away, across a street, and we’d be responsible for the whole length of it. We’re talking $100K or more to rip the street up, replace the pipe, replace the street, etc. $10 per month in the savings account seems like a bargain in comparison.
I’ve heard the same thing about Drano- so I began running boiling water (I let it boil for 10 min first) down the drains every Saturday afternoon while I tend to plants and clean the bathroom. Since I’ve been doing it about a year I have had no more drain problems! 🙂
I have a septic tank and use baking soda and vinegar to clean out my pipes!! Works great and we never have to worry about chemicals!!
I do this also for my septic. I follow up with hot water. It works great.
My plumber & friend told me to pour 1/3 bottle of bleach down every sink once a month and that I would not see him again for clogs. I’m on my 12th year since I’ve needed him and that’s why I stocked up on cheap bleach in January from Walgreens!
I agree with the not using drain cleaners, especially not as frequently as you are, because they destroy your pipes. A plumber’s snake is cheap and easy to use. You can also clean out the trap in the drain beneath the sink yourself quite easily.
If you keep getting roots in your pipes, consider cutting down the trees that are causing the problem.
I am very interested in the root kill through sewer pipes. We had to pay for tree root removal a month after moving into our house and the guys who did it said it would probably be something we’d have to have done every year. They never mentioned root kill. What do you do?
You can read my crazy long comment below but root kill is not recommended. Replacing plumbing is usually much more expensive than tree removal. Just something to think about 🙂
We just spent 5000 on total basement pipe repair which included drilling up foundation and new flooring all because of roots. Drano had been used for years on the pipes and completely ruine the pipes so all that tr rock surrounding tr pipe wa exposed. Drano is not good for long term use!
A couple of thoughts–
Late fees are like burning money. Stay on top of payments, returning books/movies, using up medical coverage/FSAs, etc.
I put ALL of the owners manual/warranty information for anything we have purchased in one wicker box that goes in the upstairs closet, no matter what it is. If something breaks, I KNOW that the owners manual is in that box, and no where else.
I tried to stash owners manuals in different spots, but have wasted so much time trying to locate it when the time comes, so I just went around the house, found them all, and put them in one binder… But then the warranties/mauals outgrew the binder. A big box works for us beautifully.