How To Spend Less Money On Home Repairs

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One of the biggest costs of being a homeowner is home repairs. If you’re not careful, you can end up pouring hundreds and even thousands of pounds into your home each year in repairs. Below are a few tips that can help you to reduce this cost. 

Don’t ignore problems that will likely get worse

There are some home problems that are likely to get worse over time – and ultimately more expensive to repair. For example, a leak in the roof is likely to get worse over time and could cause extended water damage in the process. 

By getting such damage fixed early, you can reduce the overall repair costs. Don’t wait until it is an emergency as repairs will usually need to be more extensive (and expensive) by this point.

Know when to do it yourself

You can save a lot of money on various household repairs by doing them yourself. Common examples of home repairs you can do yourself include unblocking a kitchen sink u-bend, repainting walls/exterior timber, sealing drafting windows, repairing sticking doors, caulking cracks and even fixing leaky pipes. 

Just make sure that you have the right tools and that you know what you’re doing. There’s no point buying expensive tools to do a job yourself if you’re unlikely to use those tools again. Similarly, you don’t want to attempt something you have no understanding of as you could end up botching it up and causing costly damage (plus it may even be dangerous in some cases). 

Buy parts and materials yourself

If you don’t feel confident taking on a repair task yourself, you can still save money by buying parts yourself.

For example, appliance repair is something that may require specialist appliance knowledge. Consequently, it’s often better to hire an appliance technician. However, you may be able to reduce the cost of the service by sourcing your own part. You can find many parts such as this Westinghouse spare part online. Just make sure that you know exactly which part you need to be buying. 

Shop around for contractors

You can save money on home repairs by also shopping around for quotes. Different contractors are likely to charge different rates – don’t go with the first contractor you can find. Many will offer free quotes (especially if you know exactly what the problem is).

Just make sure that the contractor also has good reviews or comes recommended. Some contractors may charge cheap rates to make up for a bad reputation. 

Invest in appliances and fixtures that last

The temptation when repairing something is often to replace it with something cheap. For example, you may be tempted to replace an old broken oven with a cheap new one to save money. However, this could cost you more money in the long run – that cheap oven will likely not last as long, and you’ll be spending money on repairs a lot sooner than if you had invested in a higher priced oven.

Material and build quality matters. That isn’t to say that you should always buy the most expensive premium quality materials, however you should be wary of the cheapest options.