Home Maintenance

The maintenance of a house carries as much importance as the construction, if not more .If proper practices are not carried out, maintaining a house can prove an expensive and extended job. Some tips for renovation and maintenance are given below: Do your own renovation: Ensure that the roof is leak-proof. Use a mixture of concrete or broken brick or waterproofing compound. Old houses need rewiring once and change of switchboards to plug modern electrical appliances. Replace corroded pipes in old buildings with ultra-violet resistant plastic pipes. Alternatively water can be rerouted into separately fixed plastic pipes, fixed an inch away from the wall. Apply water-repellent compound to walls and fill cracks with silicon sealant. Preventing seepage: In old houses, it is necessary to rewire and change electrical switchboards at least once. Houses that were built decades ago were designed to support just a few electrical appliances and overloading these old electrical lines with modern day equipment such as refrigerators, air conditioners and television sets could cause short-circuiting and fires If removing and replacing the pipes is not feasible, the water can just be re-routed into the plastic pipes. However, it is important to make sure that new water pipes attached to the outside of a building are at least an inch away from the wall surface, so that water does not seep through the wall. Combating termites: Termites are any homeowner's nightmare, especially in old houses that have a lot of wood furniture. There is no way to reverse the termite damage, but escalation of the problem can be prevented by first applying termite-proof solution and then painting the wood surface. To prevent future termite problems, holes can be dug around the house and filled with anti-termite solution. Other tips: A new coat of paint, in a light colour, along with some new light fittings will illuminate the room and give it a fresh and spacious look. Emulsion paints are the best bet, as they can be wiped clean and come in a variety of hues. Retiling the floor with easy-to-maintain vitrified tiles or simply re-polishing the floor along with your old furniture