24 Dec What to Look Out for in Maintaining your Building Exterior
How often do you inspect and make efforts to maintain the exterior of your property?
It’s usually easy to spot potential problems when you’re looking for them – a patch of damp here and some flaking paint there – and it’s important to dedicate some time to this at least once every season so that you can catch problems that could become more serious over time and get them fixed.
Over the course of 12 months the outside of a property is exposed to wind, rain, and hot sun, all of which causes damage and erosion that can be nipped in the bud with regular maintenance.
This is why an annual exterior service on your property is recommended, combining an inspection of the property with cleaning gutters, redecorating, and any other jobs that need to be done. Ultimately this saves money, makes your property more appealing, keeps the inside warmer and more comfortable, and avoids costly replacements.
Here are some of the things to look out for when inspecting the exterior of your property…
JOINERY AND WINDOWS
- Flaking joinery
- Damaged putty around window panes
- Cracked or rotten wood around windows, doors, facias and barge boards
EXTERNAL WALLS
- Shrubs or trees causing damage to the base of the building
- Blocked up air bricks, restricting ventilation under suspended floors
- Loose or damaged brick/stonework
- Areas where moisture is collecting (check cement-based pointing and renders)
THE ROOF
- Broken tiles on the roof or the ground
- Any leaks in the roof (it’s easiest to check from the inside of the building ie the loft)
GUTTERS, PIPES & DRAINS
- Cracks in your gutters or downpipes
- Rusting bolts on the gutter junctions
- Blockages in the drains (you may need to lift the inspection covers to get a good look)
- Water leaking or spilling with disrupted flow down the drains (take a look when it’s raining or pour water along the gutters and into the downpipes to check)
Once your visual inspection is complete, you’ll need to prioritise. Anything involving dangerous structural issues is your first port of call. It’s also vital to get to the bottom of any issues involving moisture and this is when you need to address the cause as well as the symptoms.
An annual exterior maintenance service should help to resolve and prevent many of these problems, but if you don’t want to get them all done at once then a list in order of priority can be converted into a schedule that you can implement over the coming years.
Talk to us at HRG Services if you need some help with this, and we will be able to help you work out where to start and create a plan of action that’s realistic and fits your budget.