HOME MAINTENANCE MADE EASY - THE BUILDING EXTERIOR

by Dwell Building Services | August 2020 | Building Inspections Tweed and Gold Coast

Onwards and upwards (or should we say outwards?)

Now that you’ve had a look around your property and make sure there’s nothing amiss with the site, move on to the house exterior. This bit is important, building inspection specialists would agree, because your homes’ #1 enemy is the environment.

This means having a close look at:

External Walls – If you’ve got a brick home, check for large cracks.  Smaller ones don’t usually mean anything – all houses “settle” but note where they are and keep an eye on them.  If they grow too much (10mm is too much) you need to take action.  Also, check the bottom of your walls to make sure none of your weep holes or inspection points are covered by garden beds – this is a beautiful way for termites to get in and an expensive lesson to learn.

Doors and Windows – The most common problem here are ripped and torn insect screens which are easy fixed with a kit from Bunnings.  It’s also common for the bottoms of timber doors to deteriorate as they catch more of the ‘weather’ than the tops of the doors do – they get the splash back from the rain and then get cooked in the sun as well, so if you can get to them before the paint’s all peeled off and the door has begun to separate, all the better.  If you’ve got timber surrounds to your windows, the same can happen to them.  If the paint has started to peel, do the same – sand it back and apply a fresh coat of weather resistant paint to stop the downward slide.

Our building inspection specialist identifies a damaged balustrade that could, if not repaired, cause someone to fall off an elevated veranda!

External Stairs – Steel stringer and timber tread stairs can suffer from weather damage – check the steel stringers for rusting and the treads for moisture damage.  Oil or stain your timber stairs to keep weather damage at bay.  If your stringers have just a bit of surface rusting, you can treat that with a paint, however if there’s serious rust damage you might need to replace the stringer.

Veranda/Patio & Balustrades – Decks fall victim to the same things as external stairs and for the sake of safety, need to be well maintained. You don’t want to realise that there was something wrong after someone goes through the deck or stair tread!  Oiling or staining your deck annually is a good thing just to maintain freshness and weather-proof it for longer.  Make sure the deck boards haven’t come loose from their nails and if they have re-nail them to keep them from popping up and tripping people.  Balustrades should be solid and able to take a person’s weight. If they’re starting to get wobbly, they need to be shored up as a matter of safety.

The outside of your house is your home’s first defense against the weather and also timber pest invasion, so it should be your priority.

The only thing that comes close to the sort of damage the weather can cause your home is the damage done by leaky wet areas inside – so next, we’re going in!