Home Upkeep Every 5 Years
While you should always keep an eye out for problems in and around your home, at the five-year point there are some major components that might need attention. Every home is different, so the tasks will vary.
The five year maintenance items below assume your home is in good shape. If you’ve been extremely diligent about monthly and yearly maintenance, you’ll have less to do at five years. However, if you haven’t had time for upkeep or you’ve purchased a home that wasn’t well maintained, you’ll have more to do. Use these checklist items as a guide and add any additional tasks that are necessary for your home.
While this article calls out five-year maintenance, you should be checking some of these items, such as your dryer vent, smoke detector and carbon monoxide (CO) detector, more frequently. Five years simply gives you a good point to make sure you haven’t missed anything.
5-Year Maintenance Checklist for Home Exteriors
Key home upkeep items include work that ensures the exterior of your home is in good shape. Catching problems now can prevent costly damage from moisture, can keep insects and animals out and more.
Priority 5-Year Exterior Maintenance
At the five-year point, key areas to consider include the roof, exterior façade and the foundation.
- Repair any damaged siding.
- If you have a shingle roof, have it inspected for missing, damaged or loose shingles.
- If you have a metal roof, have it inspected to ensure any roof coatings are intact and protecting the roofing.
- Repair gutters that are leaking or sagging, sections that aren’t draining properly and any that have pulled away from the house.
- Have your foundation inspected for cracks and to ensure it’s not sinking.
- Inspect your exterior paint, including door and window trim, railings, porch stairs, etc. and repaint the exterior or touch up as necessary.
- Recaulk windows and doors.
- If you haven’t had your septic tank pumped and the system inspected in the last three years, set it up now, depending on your family size and the size of your system.
- If you don’t have a regular termite inspection plan, consider setting one up now.
Optional 5-Year Exterior Maintenance
Once you take care of critical items, you can focus on some optional exterior maintenance that makes your home more beautiful and more enjoyable. Here are some ideas:
- Update planting beds or consider adding a new planting bed.
- Consider lawn alternatives to reduce future maintenance.
- Look at our ideas for drought-tolerant plants to reduce upkeep and water usage.
- Pressure wash your driveway and seal the concrete to keep it looking clean.
- Consider planting a new tree or shrub.
- Upgrade your house number.
- Update your exterior lighting.
5-Year Maintenance Checklist for Home Interiors
Once the exterior of your home is sound and looking great, you can focus on the indoors.
Priority 5-Year Interior Maintenance
Many of these maintenance routines, like heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) service, are about efficiency and the longevity of equipment. But some, like electrical inspections, focus on safety for you and your family.
- Have your HVAC units checked and serviced.
- Have your HVAC ductwork inspected and schedule cleaning and sealing, if necessary.
- If you haven’t checked your dryer vent lately, make sure it’s clear and working properly.
- If your kitchen has a vented range hood, have the ductwork inspected and cleaned.
- Clean or replace your range hood filter.
- Repair broken grout and reseal grout around sinks, tubs, showers, etc.
- As part of annual maintenance, make sure your smoke and CO detectors are working correctly, have fresh batteries, etc.
- Check the expiration dates on smoke and CO detectors and replace them if they’re at the end of their lifespan.
- If you can’t remember the last time you checked your fire extinguishers, inspect them now and make sure they haven’t expired.
- Check appliance functionality and begin thinking about replacement.
- Have your electrical system inspected.
Optional 5-Year Interior Maintenance and Updates
Once you take care of safety and efficiency items, you can focus on comfort and enjoyment. Here are some comfort and décor ideas to think about.
- Install new flooring if your current flooring feels outdated or looks dingy even after cleaning.
- Repaint your interior or key areas like accent walls or door and window trim.
- Rearrange your furniture to create a new look or a more family-friendly layout.
- Replace your bedsheets, quilts, bed skirts, duvet covers, etc.
- Update your window treatments to create a completely new look.
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5-Year Maintenance as DIY Work
You may be wondering if you can handle these five-year maintenance routines yourself. Many of these make great do-it-yourself projects, depending on your skill level and comfort with tools and DIY work. Even if you’re new to home improvement, here are some relatively simple tasks you can try:
- Check your exterior paint job.
- Inspect the functionality of your gutters (from the ground).
- Clean your driveway.
- Recaulk your windows and doors.
- Check and replace smoke and CO detectors.
All of these can be good beginner projects if you follow the instructions and safety procedures for the tools and materials. Handling a few simple home upkeep tasks builds skills and experience that lets you take on more home improvement work.
However, if you’re not comfortable handling a task, leave it to a professional. And, in most cases, inspections and work on your roof and foundation or checks and work on your plumbing and electrical systems are best left to the pros.