Most of us know the expression ‘prevention is better than cure’, and yet the vast proportion of us ignore this advice in the vast majority of situations. The general idea behind this saying of course is that it’s better to prevent something bad from happening than it is to try and deal with that bad event retrospectively and this applies to almost any situation – not just actual illnesses with actual ‘cures’.
In particular, this term is highly relevant when it comes to maintenance around the house – in which case you could rephrase it as ‘maintenance is better than repair’. Rather than waiting for a crisis to happen in your home, the point is that you should be staying on top of work around your property and generally ensuring that it’s all in perfect working order. Read on and we’ll take a look at just why it’s so important to maintain every part of your home regularly rather than waiting for something to break down and go wrong.
Efficiency
The first point to bear in mind is that just because something is working, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s working well and it certainly doesn’t mean that it’s working optimally. There’s a very good chance that although your plumbing still heats up your water and gets it to your taps, it nevertheless isn’t doing quite the efficient job it could be.
Take a furnace for instance that heats the home up through a series of vents. This could be doing its job inasmuch as it’s keeping you warm, but if you haven’t had it maintained recently, then chances are that some of the filters and vents will be clogged with dust, dirt and grime. Over time this can prevent air from flowing freely which will mean you don’t get the full benefit of the heating and more energy is used to circulate it. Maintenance in this case could pay for itself by keeping your home without wasting the same amount of energy.
Health
Likewise it’s important to maintain and check your various utilities regularly in order to look after the health of you and your family. If you have a water well system for instance, then you need to maintain this regularly to make sure that the water is as clean as it can be. Again it might be storing your water perfectly well, but if you don’t maintain it you might not be getting the full benefits.
Crises
More to the point though, maintenance can spot the early warning signs of that something might go wrong in the near future. In the case of a water tank for instance this could be a hairline crack that could later evolve to become a full-blown leak.
If you catch this early through regular maintenance then first and foremost you’re going to save money – another way that this will pay for itself. More to the point again though, by catching a crack or leak before it becomes a big problem, you can avoid letting it completely ruin your evening by flooding your house/leaving you without cooker/heating/fridge.
Why subject yourself to that when regular maintenance can avoid the issue and save you money in the long term?