A house is more than a home, it’s also an investment. Whether or not you’re thinking of selling your home in the near future, it’s important to keep up with maintenance in order to protect your investment and ensure it will continue to hold its value for you. If you let your home’s maintenance slip, the small problems it has today can become big, costly ones in the future. Although inspecting your home for structural issues is something that is best handled by professional inspectors, you can help prevent a lot of minor issues in your home by performing a home inspection yourself. By catching many of these small problems sooner, you’ll be able to identify problem areas before they become more serious and save yourself a significant amount of money — either by spending less on professional repairs or repairing them yourself. In many cases, some home improvement projects also can significantly boost your home’s value.
Nothing can replace a professional home inspection by a seasoned professional, but a DIY home inspection is your first line of defense against major problems inside your home. Beginning in your basement, you can look for any cracks, crumbling concrete or water damage in the foundation. Because the foundation is one of the most important elements of your home, catching these warning signs early means you can bring in a professional early, before the repair costs can get out of hand.
Other warning signs to look for during a DIY home inspection are cracks in your walls, doors and windows that don’t close properly, and insufficient insulation in your attic. Some of these issues can be repaired easily if you know what you’re doing, others will require professional intervention. In all cases, however, identifying these issues ASAP can mean the difference between protecting your investment and watching it depreciate right before your eyes.
Perhaps the most important piece of advice regarding DIY home inspections is to walk through the home as if you were a prospective buyer. If by the end of the walkthrough you’re unsure if you would buy your own home again in its current condition, you may need some help. The following DIY home inspection checklist should give you a good idea of all of the main inspection points you will need to know about to protect your biggest investment.
Author bio: Brandon Cartee is the owner of Foundation Repair Services: A full-service specialty contracting company that helps both residential and commercial buildings throughout North and South Carolina.