Don't be a DIY dodger: Skimping on regular maintenance could cost you a sale

Your flooring in the kitchen will catch the eye. Consider an economic replacement like LVT where it's really stressed. Picture: Pergo

Maintaining a house properly is important, and yes, sometimes it’s an expensive, weekend-devouring nuisance. In the big picture, it’s easier and less stressful to address problems head-on as soon as you have the time and money to afford a fix. Careening around in the final weeks before bringing a house to market, is stressful enough without facing a laundry list of repairs, some of which may have advanced from a DIY project to hiring in a trade to shore up the damage.

Speaking from personal experience, this loving, steady care is something that never seems to end if you’re in a dilapidated old pile. Approaching a home to buy, your viewers want to know that you’ve been kind to this house and you’ve taken its welfare and upkeep seriously. Further to that, where there’s been a chance for an upgrade, and I’m thinking particularly of inexpensive energy upgrades, your efforts will really count on those specs. Weeds waving from an uneven gutter, flaking paint admitting rain to a timber front door, dripping taps, skinny loft insulation and cracked tiles — it’s not a good look. A viewer’s mind can leap from the simplest repair issue or dated bit of décor, to presuming the house has serious structural issues, verging on subsiding.

Cleaning windows offers the opportunity to check the condition of the frames and reveals inside and out. Karcher window vacuums from €60.

Let’s go room by room and look at some of the common things that can imply a property is beyond jaded. Again, even if you’re not moving, these are things to keep on top of during your stewardship of your home.

Kitchens

Starting in the kitchen — our favourite room to just hang around in in Ireland for centuries. Ripping out a reasonable kitchen and replacing it is unlikely to earn you a better price at sale. However, the room should be crisp, with clean surfacing, no breaks or odd angles to the cabinet doors, and any damage to the carcasses repaired. Even a new kitchen is deemed “older” at four to five years. If the floor is torn, lifting, or otherwise worn, it might be worth investing in some LVT or other affordable flooring, a paint job to cabinetry and a change of hardware. There are firms who can take the doors and drawers away and re-spray them for a fraction of the cost of even an economy kitchen. Dripping taps? A couple of washers or a whole new tap comes in between €5 and €150 with the plumber. New laminate counter starts at €60 per square metre, and tile paint at €35 for 750ml (Ronseal One Coat).

Conduit areas

In conduit areas (halls and corridors) as well as bedrooms, your floor will have taken a beating, and in intense traffic areas this will be visible after a few short years of inattention to detail. Carpets are damaged not by your tread, but by the largely invisible grit that gets into the surface and saws at the pile under the pressure of everyday walking. Few vacuums really get down and dirty. Together with twice weekly vacuuming, consider deep cleaning your carpets every six months in a busy household with pets, and yearly with standard use. You would be horrified to know just how filthy most bedroom carpets really are. Penetrating the carpet fibres, a dedicated clean can lift the colour by several shades, removing dirt that can wear the carpet down to the backing.

Second up is skirting and window-boards. Every five years or so, a light sanding and refresh will bring those boards back to near as new. Choose a water or solvent-based product with scratch and impact resistance and protect your flooring as you work with tape or a hand-held blind if you are more experienced. Look up, noticing any spider cracks in the plaster and discolouration of the walls showing damp staining. Small cracks under 5mm can be easily filled, sanded and repainted. Don’t attempt to just block grey blooming areas with a brush on product — trace the cause. A simple drip of rain getting past your soffits can accumulate into damage that a survey will gleefully reveal.

Living-rooms

We all love to spruce up our slouch spots, but when re-painting, repaint the entire room. Even if your walls are pure brilliant white as mine are, over the years, the surface will change, oxidise, and darken. If you slap a coat over stains and dings or cheer up one wall, if the original paint has been up there for even two to three years, it will show. Sticking doors? Small adjustments to the hinges or removing and planing the door may be all you need. Everything that moves in the house, should move easily.

If you take further measures from replacing a chronically sticking French door to replacing even one window or installing a more efficient wood stove — keep your receipts, certification, and specs. A buyer will value them.

Bathrooms

Tiles and tanking should be your main concern. Tiles should be kept in good order and (where possible) replaced if they chip or crack. Always hold a few tiles after a renovation. Grout requires cleaning from time to time as soap scum accumulates, and silicone seals are not forever. The suite may last 15 years, but the surrounding surfacing will certainly need cleaning and occasional fixes. Be especially diligent around the edges of your bath and shower — they must be watertight. A change of taps (just match the type for example in a one-hole mixer) can really ring the changes. Yellowing loo-seat. Do I have to say it? If you don’t have mechanical ventilation — install it now. Damp and condensation can slowly destroy even a lovely bathroom.

Outside. Presuming the envelope of your home is in structurally good order, the places to focus during, say a winter check, are the rainwater system, your drains, and of course windows and doors. We can’t all rip out an old wood door and throw in a new €3,000 composite model, but we can mind what’s there with regular repairs, filling, painting, resealing, and simple insulation additions in foam roll products, and screw-on brushes to keep on top of creeping energy loss. Do not attempt high work to a two-storey home when it comes to your gutters. It’s not worth the risk. Wait for the first big leaf fall of autumn to end and have a professional wash the system out and check it right down to the waste traps annually. Slipped tiles, damage to fascia and soffits, growth and listing to chimneys should never be ignored. Up on the roof, even for a soft wash from the ground, we want a trusted, reputable firm with proven reviews. Don’t engage cold callers who have “just done your neighbour’s roof”.

Finally, even if you cannot afford to proceed with energy upgrades, I would encourage everyone to get a BER assessment. Today, energy improvements are regarded as standard home improvements. The good old BER process remains the cheapest form of energy assessment, and with a valuable advisory report attached, for a couple of hundred euro you have a map in hand to improve the performance of the house in incremental stages using DIY techniques and professional skills and using SEAI grant aid in many instances.

You don’t have to get to the end of the journey to make your BER worthwhile. A potential buyer will see the effort, the promise and the results, and can continue to retrofit this home after you’re handed over the keys. For a full register of BER assessors in your area visit seai.ie.