WHY MAINTAIN YOUR HOME?
Your home is your most valuable asset – it’s where you live. But that dream can turn into a nightmare if regular maintenance is not done. You should maintain your home for the same reasons that you maintain your car. Without regular maintenance your home can be headed for trouble and costly repairs down the road – repairs that are preventable with routine maintenance.
The good news… unlike your car you do not have to take your home to the shop. Direct Service will come to you. The Direct Service preventive maintenance program lowers the total cost of home ownership, while enhancing your home’s value, safety, and appearance.
The choice is yours…spend a little to maintain your home now, or spend much more down the road on costly, preventative repairs.
The North American Society of Home Inspectors advises homeowners to budget 0.75% of a home's value for annual maintenance for homes less than 10 years old. That jumps to 1.5% for homes in their second decade and 3% for homes in the third decade. For a $1 million home, that is $7,500 a year set aside for maintenance if it is new, $15,000 if it is greater than 10 years old, and $30,000 if it is over 20 years old. Direct Service Maintenance Programs will help the homeowner keep these significant maintenance costs under control and within budget.
WHAT CAN HAPPEN IF YOU DON'T MAINTAIN YOUR HOME?
Sometimes the difference between life and death for you or loved ones is regular home maintenance. A properly maintained smoke detector alerts you and your family to get out of the house alive. Far too often we see the results of the alternative on the nightly news. Here are a few sobering home safety statistics:
- 15,600 dryer fires occur each year resulting in property damage exceeding $75 million dollars. The leading cause? LACK OF MAINTENANCE!*
- 20,000 people are treated in hospital emergency rooms for injuries related to unmaintained garage doors.*
- 15,260 injuries and 2,660 deaths occur annually due to smoke alarm, sprinkler and fire extinguisher failures or malfunctions problems with smoke alarms, sprinklers and fire extinguishers.*
- 38,300 reported home electrical fires, including 120 deaths and 390 injuries associated with electrical wiring, circuit breakers, fuses and meters.*
- 49,200 heating equipment- related home fires.**
- 14,000 deaths occur from radon each year, as estimated by the EPA.
* - Source: North American Consumer Product Safety Commission
** - Source: North American Fire Protection Association
Not only can a Direct Service Maintenance Plan save you time and money, but it can reduce the risk of you and your family being counted in one of the above statistics. A home in disrepair decreases safety and increases health risks. It also runs inefficiently increasing utility costs requiring greater expenditure for maintenance and repair costs, not to mention the negative impression it gives to potential home buyers when it comes time to sell.