Maintaining

Keeping a house working — upkeep, inspections, defects and repairs.

Maintenance is the cheapest work you will ever do on a house and the easiest to defer. Almost every expensive failure — rot, structural movement, mould, termite damage — begins as something small, visible and cheap to fix.

This pillar covers keeping a house working: what to check and when, how to identify substandard work before it causes damage, and what to do when something has already gone wrong.

Topics in this pillar

Seasonal Maintenance

What to check each season, and what each check is looking for.

Preventative Maintenance

The work that stops problems forming, before they cost real money.

Recent Field Notes

All articles

What to ask a builder's previous clients

The list matters more than the questions. Ask for the three most recent completed jobs, call all three, and ask how the relationship ended rather than how it began.

What is practical completion?

Practical completion is the point the work is finished enough to use — not the point it is perfect. It triggers the final payment, starts the defects liability period, and hands risk back to you.

Why renovations run late

Most renovation delays come from a short list of repeatable causes, and most of that list is foreseeable. Here is what actually pushes a program out, why a one-week slip is never one week, and what you can control.