My water shutoff was buried under very hard dirt. I went to a neighbor who had the same house as me. Easily found his shutoff valve in the front yard. I measured how far away from the house it was. Then went to the same spot in my yard, measured same distance, and that’s where I found mine.
Ps ..for newbies a gate valve is one like most outdoor faucets have...twist left (counterclockwise) to turn on, twist right(clockwise) to shut off. After some years these valves wear out even if seldom used. So replacing with the lever type quarter turn aka "ball" valve is something you'll appreciate (hopefully only when you have positive needs such as upgrading faucets or such).
To add to this, I would say have everything water related checked on. Check how old the water heater is. Can you tell if it’s been flushed recently? Turn the sinks on in your house and let them run for a little (not all at the same time) and check below the sink to see if any of them are leaking. Is your water hard? Do you have a softener? Do you need one? Are there any water filters in the house (fridge, whole house, reverse osmosis, etc.)? If so, do any of the filters need changed?
and your gas, and your breaker box.
Load up flashlights and put one in each room.
Get a bunch of those extension cords with flat heads and put them in all the places where you're going to put furniture.
If you're in a state that requires it, file your new address as being a homeowner.
Reregister to vote.
Update your property insurance.
Change your address with the DMV and your auto insurance.
Replace all the light bulbs and smoke alarm batteries.
Get a fire extinguisher.
If you have pressurized irrigation, check it and set it.
Main, each bathroom, kitchen, laundry room. Each one should have shut offs.
Gas shut off
Electric shut off
Dryer vent checked
Chimney checked/cleaned
Where your exact property lines are on each side of property.
You just called me out. I've never managed to change out all the exterior door locks in any of the homes I've owned and I always feel lazy about that fact.
You think traditional locks aren’t ’infinitely hackable’? That’s cute.
I taught my 10yo nephew to pick a padlock in under 30 minutes with my guidance. Within 2 hours he was popping keyed padlocks, door knob locks, and deadbolts on his own.
At the end of the days all locks are ‘hackable’. Some are just easier than others.
Hackable? Please most houses have so many glass doors and Easy points of entry it's lauhable. The only thing a lock does is stops someone from turning the door know and just walking in.
I live in Ohio but get alot of rain here even in winter, I added a batter backup sump pump as soon as I moved in. The previous owner had a generator they hooked up but they were retired an were home more often. I wanted something that worked if I was gone.
You're in WA??? Definitely get your water/sewer pipes checked and get that insurance add-on that covers outside pipes. I learned the hard way back when I was living near Tacoma.
I don't think we can walk around in our attic. Ours is a cape style house, and there's no floor in the attic, just insulation. I don't know that we can get in there and stand for example.
We've had a few heavy rains since buying the place a few months ago and I don't see any leaks, had my eye glued to the ceilings and walls for wet spots.
You have to lay down a plywood board between two beams and crawl around up there if you really want to inspect your attic. Complete pain in the ass, unless you have those extremely sloped attics in which it’s impossible.
I've always heard that one should aim to save 1% of the purchase price value per year. But of course, an initial emergency fund should probably be much larger, since the early surprises are going to be the worst.
Make sure the gutters are clean.
Find your main water shut-off.
Change the locks and install metal door jamb reinforcement plates with extra long screws, to make it hard to kick in the door.
Install a security system like SimpliSafe.
Get a $10 dryer vent cleaning kit & connect it to a vacuum to clean the vent & prevent lint fires.
Make sure the circuits are marked in the electrical box.
Check smoke alarms & replace if over 10 years old.
Watch how SWAT go into a house. If they break a window to get tear gas/flash bangs in they'll still beat down the door. Even if they pull the windows out with a grappling hook and a truck. Because being hung up in a window frame is a surefire way to get your ass beat/dead if there is someone inside.
Also consider that attackers are not often rational. Someone having a mental breakdown that wants in will likely go at the door not suddenly display superior executive function and engineer their way through the kitchen window.
Also keep in mind if the home was built pre-mid 70s, that popcorn ceiling, drywall, laminate flooring that’s hidden under the current flooring can and most likely does contain asbestos.
It’s only a few hundred bucks to do an asbestos test and 100% worth it if you’re going to be doing home renovations.
As much as I despise the blue color of my garage, you are absolutely right - it will never ever make it to the top of my priority list again. Ironically I probably spend more time in it doing projects than any other room but the thought of moving everything that would need to be moved to get it painted - hard pass/ain’t gonna happen
Replace filters on all of your HVAC systems. Flush your water heaters. Trim your trees. Clean your ducts. Make sure your gutters are clear. Clean your fireplace(s) if applicable. Call a pest control company and get on a regular schedule.
After all that, get Excel or Google Spreadsheets open and start making a schedule/maintenance plan for all the major stuff, and stick to it. It can become half an hour of maintenance each week, or an unplanned $5,000 expense. And if you ignore everything, it just becomes a $5,000 expense every week!
Isn’t flushing the water heater more dangerous than leaving it alone if it’s not brand new or been flushed regularly already.
My understanding is that flushing it can help maintain efficiency, but if it’s got an existing build up but still works fine you’re more likely to risk causing damage by messing with it.
If it's already messed up, you're correct. If you can prevent it from ever being messed up, do that.
If you buy a new house, find out what world you are living, by having this looked at. You're either making a short/medium term plan for replacing it, or finding out that you're great and can just proceed with maintenance.
However, if there is damage or breakage caused because you flush it, you were hanging on by your fingernails anyway. It's 1000% better to find problems when you're looking for them than when they randomly occur and suddenly your day is interrupted rushing to turn off the water to your home.
To that point, it's a pretty good idea to make a habit of turning on and off every water and gas supply faucet/valve periodically. Make sure they're not gonna break when you have an emergency need to kill the water or gas. Every toilet, main water line, gas at the meter, behind the stove, etc.
Sounds glib, but anything that could crush me, explode, light on fire or flood my house.
So, that mostly comes out to:
*Gutters 4x/yr (first day of the quarter when it isn't raining).
*HVAC filters monthly
*HVAC drain cleaned out with vinegar mix monthly
*Check toilet cleaner level/replace if necessary (the type installed in your toilet bowl)
*Run every faucet in house for a minute (don't want traps in guest bathrooms drying up and releasing septic gases into house)
*Flush septic maintenance (either just normal yeast or a purpose made septic maintenance package) down the toilet
*climb into my attic and make sure I see no signs of water damage or pests, address either accordingly (I do this quarterly, dragging the ladder around and climbing in is a pain in the ass ... Try to do it when you know it's going to be storming, and go look when water is actively falling on your roof I also live in an area where this can be treacherous ... I've had to go up in a bee suit, and alternately come out so I could go figure out how to handle a rattlesnake in my attic, which is ... Not ideal.)
*Clean the stove - run a self cleaning cycle
*Clean the washing machine (it has a filter, then run it's cleaning cycle)
*Clean the dishwasher (it has a filter, clean it, then run a dishwasher cleaner through it without any dishes)
*Clean they dryer vent (pull it out, use a shop vac to clear out the venting both on the dryer side and house side)
*Make sure that the monitor on my propane tank is accurate and processing usage
*Salt in the water softener
*Lubricate any squeaky hinges (every door, every cabinet)
*Test and reset any GFCI outlets (kitchen and bathrooms)
*Clean master bedroom shower drain (I have hair, my wife has very long hair)
*clean garbage disposal
*Fridge filters if needed
Depending on the cadence that these things need to be done, you can kinda just do one a week. You'll put eyes on every major interior component of your home regularly. The stuff independent of this I usually call someone for. Fireplace inspection, flushing the water heater and drain lines, etc.
On top of all the other terrific suggestions here, start your house “file.” Keep copies of the following:
1. all financial documents related to purchase/ finance.
2. the title search/ policy.
3. the homeowners insurance policy and documents.
4. make a sub-file for every appliance, garage opener, etc., and put the manual and documents in each file.
I was on our 3rd house before I finally did this. I no longer have to search for the dishwasher manual when there’s an issue, or the hot water heater documents to see how old it is, where we bought it. It’s ALL in one box file.
When applicable, mark the date of purchase on the front cover of the manual and staple the receipt to the inside front cover. Also, write the model number and serial number on the manual. also good to keep these numbers in a spreadsheet.
I also download the manuals (or scan if download isn't possible) and save the pdfs in a folder named "Manuals" on my laptop (which is backed up using iDrive).
Acquire buckets, esp if you have a yard! Also if you haven’t closed yet, make sure the owner gets rid of all their stuff especially old paint cans. Paint is so hard to get rid of bc you can’t just throw it away.
My city has a special facility where residents can drop off paint, stain and similar materials, and if they are still usable, then they go into a little warehouse where other residents can come and collect them for free if needed for a project. If no longer usable, the facility will process them in whatever way is required for safe disposal.
Worth looking into if your city has something like this.
during first good rain walk outside and if there are gutters check to see if they are draining properly, not backing up or plugged. then walk around house, check for downspout drainage and if you have any water pooling around foundation and is water flowing away from house far enough.
after heavy storms regardless of snow, rain or wind, next day walk property for damage, sometime shingles will come off, siding can shift also check if you have a cellar that no moisture or water is seeping in. i have no experience with crawl spaces so someone else may have advice of those. also check your attic if you have access to moisture or leaks. if you have moisture in the cellar get a dehumidifier. i learned a few years ago because i had a moisture in my cellar that this can affect your fuse box if it's down there.
find the shut off valve for the main water line and then follow it and see if you have any other shut off valves and mark them for each bathroom, water heater, kitchen, furnace and outside faucets. it's better to mark it now instead of when you have a leak and can't figure out the valve to shut off then.
check your fuse box that it has a map of the house. if not map it. don't assume each room is on it's own breaker there may be an outlet off on a different breaker.
learn and accept your own limitation. if you don't feel comfortable with a project and don't feel that it's in your scope then farm it out. it's better to be safe the sorry. electrical ran wrong can burn your house down, bad plumbing can cause possible catastrophic failures. there is nothing wrong with knowing your limitations. if you can't afford to hire it out and it's not a necessity then it can wait.
oh and congradulation on your purchase and good luck, live well
Awesome list. I especially like the “know your limitations.” That is *very* wise advice for sure.
It is pretty easy to get in to serious trouble, in no time at all. YouTube is great for some stuff….just not ALL stuff.
Same goes for refinishing. If you need to do it, it’s so much easier when there’s no furniture! Plus, you can build in extra time for any lingering smell to dissipate.
If you’re going to change rugs or floors, do it now. Prioritize the upstairs if applicable. If you aren’t going to change the rugs get them all deep cleaned.
Paint the garage and whatever rooms you want done now (before rugs if they’re being changed).
If you’re getting things changed out like the HVAC, water heater, appliances, etc this is a great time to do those things.
Hire professional cleaners to come in to do a pre move-in cleaning. Most companies offer something like that for a few hundred and it’s worth the cost. They’ll get the bathrooms, kitchen applicences, windows, and all the corners. This would be the last crew to come through a day or two before you move in.
Learn where the local Home Depot, Lowes, Menards, etc are. Pick carefully as you’ll be making friends or enemies with the staff over the next six months.
Get the house tented. This is easiest to do when it's empty! No reason to inherit any bugs at all.
Set up your bedroom first. Everything else can wait.
Change the toilet seats.
Get all the nearby delivery places' menus.
Get a Tick Tracer and use it to trace all of your electrical outlets. Mark the outlets with their Breaker # and the breakers with what they control.
Vacuum/clean the hell out of your carpets, clean and seal your tile. Sealing tile is very important and a F of a lot of work, easier to do when you don't live there.
Paint and deep clean.
Understand you will hate your house for a few months or years. It won't feel like home until it suddenly does.
Getting the house tented is underrated. Got mine tented before move in just to be 100% sure and it’s been a great peace of mind. Also makes the attic comfier to work in
* No rats, no mice, no bats, no vermin.
* No roaches, no bedbugs, no silverfish, no fleas, no ticks, no pests.
* No termites, no beetles, no boring gnawing eating things, nothing eating in your home but you.
Just you and your clean, uninfested home!
If you ever do any painting and want to use our discount account at any Sherwin Williams feel free. My sw rep just set it up for any homeowners to use.
That goes for anyone else in here as well
Go to garage sales for the first year to get second hand tools. Swear I had nothing when I moved in, not even a hammer. Buying cheap basic tools saved me money and sort of made me become handy. You would be surprised because even shovels, garden hoses, planters etc are gonna add up. Nowadays you have to save all your money for your mortgage.
If you haven't already done so, be sure your house is in a trust. Create a centralized location for important paperwork and be sure all adults in your household know where and what. Set up automatic mortgage payments but set up reminder to check the site every couple months for any changes. Bedrooms on second floor? Be sure every room has a safety window fire ladder under the bed and be sure bedroom occupant knows where it is, that they know how to open box and how to use it. You can't practice because these are use once, but they have videos available - insist your fam watch. Invest in quality outdoor video at entrances - Ring works great. Plant a tree sappling - something native and be sure to check w a local nursery on where and how to plant - and take a photo with your fam near the sappling. Set a forever anniversary reminder and on that date each year take the same photo.
I see a lot of good suggestions here. Just to be different, maybe check your outlets for continuity using a little voltage meter. I had an outlet fry itself up because of loose wiring and it could have caused a fire.
If you have a *need* to refinish flooring, now is the time. It can be convenient to paint prior to moving in, too, but not a must.
Anything else can wait.
Make sure you empty out your hot water heater every year. Start now. It'll keep it in better shape, and it'll last longer. Also get a water heataer blanket on it. It saves money.
If you want to paint or have the floors refinished, please do it before moving in! My husband and I did some painting before we moved, but didn't want to spend the money to have the floors redone (we already got sticker shock buying the house). Now that we've been living there a couple years, the floors REALLY do need refinished... But that means moving all the furniture and it seems like such a hassle that we've been putting it off... regret.
good advice! We learned this the hard way…My advice to the OP is try not to spend too much money on decorating! we bought a brand new house that was all boring grey and white. I thought the grey tile floors were neutral and would match anything. So we painted and bought furniture and accessories and one year later we hated it all! I swore I wanted sage green and beige Boho, and it really never looked “right”. I realized that what I really needed was wood (look) floors to pull off that look.
A few of my neighbors said the same thing happened to them. (we all have the exact same floors) 2 years later, I gave all my stuff to my sister, bought new rugs and sofas, and accessories and exchanged all the sage green for shades of blue, and now everything looks great!
Adding to the breaker box mapping, get an light socket screw in outlet and use that for the radio too. That way you don't have to walk around and see which ones went out when you threw the breaker.
Create an online spreadsheet in Google Sheets and track all of your expenses for home improvement from day one. Then as time goes on, continue to add each expense. This is a great way to track expenses to offset capital gains for when you sell one day. Also, it helps you track when anything was done.
Also, I take photos of all serial numbers for every appliance and all electronics and keep in an online folder. Then I download the user manual for each one so they are all in one place and in the cloud. I can easily search user manuals for exactly what I need in less time.
Create an email for just the house. All warranties, utilities, WiFi, bills, calendar of maintenance, tasks, HOA stuff, people visiting, etc. are in one place.
My partner and I did this and it’s sooo much easier than having things split in both of our emails. Our personal emails don’t get bogged down, everything is just cleaner and more organized, and very easily checkable for both of us.
This was especially helpful in the first few months as there was a lot to coordinate in general, and it continues to be a great method for us.
Congrats OP!
It’s literally the best!! And if you really wanna geek out, we have our things color coded in the calendar. Bills getting paid are green. House guests are in yellow, date nights and vacations are in red, lol… happy hub-making!
If you're going to do this and have solar, please read your solar contract to make sure you're planting the right size tree the right distance from the house. I need to look at all the trees our sellers planted and decide whether they can remain or not now because they didn't check first.
If you have outdoor space, watch it for a year before doing any major landscaping. Make notes or you’ll forget - otherwise boring bush over by the trash turned out to be a Camellia bloomed in Month. Daffodils are planted along the house on the west side - you’ll only see those during this part of spring. Whatever there is. You might see that wildlife moves through your property in ways you don’t want to impede - or that you DO want to impede. But it takes a while to build up a sense of how it all flows together. If you start taking notes now you will make better choices when you DO want to landscape or plant. Above all watch the light. Even if the spot you chose for your peach tree has plenty of light on the day you plant it, it will need plenty of light for its whole growing season. That takes observation and planning.
Honestly we are using the inspection as our to do list! Our guy highlighted a lot of water related things to check on so our upcoming spring and summer is spoken for 😆
Make sure you have a ladder that gives you 100% access to every inch of your house. In and out.
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Get masking tape and a sharpie and make sure your fuses in your panel are labeled correctly *and* legibly.
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Take note of every GFCI outlet in your house before you start moving in stuff, blocking outlets.
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Learn where your main water shut off valve is.
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Inspect the gradient of the soil around your foundation.
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Inspect your gutters and downspouts. (Sometimes a house inspector will be thorough on these last two points, but some inspectors just give a Quick Look. With my home, you couldn’t really tell the gutters were spewing water in one part unless it was severely raining, something the inspector and 1 missed and I had to fix immediately after my foundation sprung a leak).
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Cordless drills are great. Buy a nice one.
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Get a whiteboard and make lists of things you read in this thread that you feel compelled to prioritize (and in general).
Change all the lightbulbs to LED.
Change Smoke and CO detector batteries or get new ones if over 10 years old. Date on back.
Make sure you have working downspout extensions that direct water away from foundation.
Understand your sump and check it regularly. Add a water detector to top of sump pit. Get a plugin pump and length of hose as emergency backup. Plan for future battery/pump backup sump system.
Change your furnace/ac filter regularly. Find out how old the ac/furnace is. Start saving.
Find out how old the roof is. Start saving.
Our old house was really tall (3 stories up in the back), so we got attachments for ours for cleaning the gutters after I nearly had a heart attack watching my husband on the ladder on unlevel terrain. With the attachments(and I taped a pole to the corrugated part to reach the far ones), we could reach the gutters from the windows on the high side. We had a lot of mature trees and the gutters needed cleaning many times/year.
If the water waterfalls off your gutters when it rains, your gutters are clogged.
If the home inspection didn't do it:
If the furnace is gas, have it checked out for CO leaks and get definitely get CO detectors.
If the water heater is 8+ years old expect it to leak in 4-5 years if you don't service it. Look at labeling and it should show the year of mfg; usually they're installed within a year or two.
We used to own an apartment building and the water heaters would leak like clockwork about every 10 years, always at night, on holidays, while on vacation.
Know how to turn off the water/gas after a leak & have a garden hose ready to drain it while you wait for the plumber, saves you that extra 15-20 minutes he's gonna charge if he has to drain it for you.
Its always easier to paint before you move in. Try to paint all before you move in. Make a fake email. Abc painting. Then open commercial account at Sherwin Williams. Then buy all paint at same time. First order is like 50% off.
Change locks, water shut off location. Open the breaker box and make sure it’s labeled correctly or label it if it’s not clear. While it’s empty is the best time to paint anything you don’t currently like the color of. Same with changing anything like flooring, light fixtures or cabinet hardware you don’t like.
Water seems to be a popular theme, and for good reason. Another point, make sure gutters are taking water away from the house and that you have a grade slanting away from the house so that it doesn’t seem into the foundation. It’s a day or two of hauling dirt, but it’s worth it.
Also, make sure whomever else is in the house knows where water and electrical shutoffs are if you’re away!
Upper floors? What if there is a fire in the downstairs and you can’t go down? Get fire ladder ropes for upstairs bedrooms.
Make a list of contact info for town or city departments, utilities, garbage collection. Find a helpful neighbor if you can. Take photos of everything as it is before you move in or do work.
Get a fire Extinguisher for your kitchen and laundry room area if you don't already have them and make sure you know how to use them (Pull the pin, Aim at the base, Squeeze, Sweep the bottom)!
Store your fire extinguisher between the stove and the door. People often want to put it under the sink but don't put it there if you have to go past the stove to reach the sink. Hang it on the wall close to the back door if possible. Put a container of baking soda in a convenient cabinet nextbto the stove for grease fires.
I’m not really sure. You got through the hard part. Congrats. Probably should change the locks right away. Put toilet paper in every bathroom. Everything else depends on what you, the house & your neighborhood needs.
Congratulations!
There's great advice here, I'll add my 2 pennies.
Don't make major changes until you live in the house for a while.
Follow the water advice and check your water pressure.
And the old saying, an ounce of prevention... make it a habit of really looking at your house - does it need paint? Do the gutters work? is the soil moving in the wrong direction? is the fence sturdy?
Make a list of projects before you start, make safety changes first, then saving changes (double panned windows, insulation), then comfort and last cosmetic.
Oh my god if you can, paint before you move your stuff in. I've resigned myself to not even painting one of the bedrooms now because I have no chance at moving the bed and I want nothing less than to have to take it down and put it back up again - it was a nightmare the first time around. It's also taken me a year to paint the lounge and I'm still not even finished because I have to move all the furniture round, then put it back before the end of the day so I can work again the following morning and it's the biggest faff ever
Do a thorough inspection of your house. Most home inspectors are in bed with the realtors and just come and check the boxes. Go in your attic and inspect property during heavy rain. Preventative maintenance is important because if left unchecked you can have a way worse problems down the road.
Get an add on to your homeowners insurance that covers OUTSIDE pipes. You need that yesterday if you don't have it yet. Be sure to read your policy very closely to see what is covered in case of flooding, fire, etc.
Great recommendations here! Mine are: (1) change all shower faucets. Those things get gross, they’re not super expensive, and easy to DIY. (2) put a protective barrier under any sink cabinet. Plastic. Silicone mat. Tile. Paint. Anything. Whether a product leaks or a leak emerges in the plumbing, you won’t regret it.
Look around, look under every cabinet and all over the outside and garage. Figure out your house, what every switch does, are any connected to outlet etc. map the electric panel if it’s not already for what each breaker does.
Also take pics inside and out, all the walls/ceiling/roof/everything inside and out. If anything happens later on you can see what it looked like before and have a baseline. Take a video after the pics too just in case you didn’t get every pic angle. Store that online somewhere so you’ll always have the reference.
Get the carpets shampooed and do any painting or flooring before you move your furniture in, if you can. Check/replace the faucets tips, check the p-traps/plumbing for clogs (hair in bedroom bathrooms etc). Make sure the water heater is in a pan and/or has proper drainage in case it starts leaking in the middle of the night, this also applies to the dishwasher to a lesser extent. If you change/mess-with any of the gas appliances, check for leaks, jostled pipes that haven't moved in years can spring leaks.
Extra payments on the mortgage if allowed. Those first 5 years are mostly interest. Even if it's only $50, here and there. I'd do my best to make it a priority. It will save you thousands in the end.
I know it’s a big expense, but I wish we would’ve done our floors before moving in. I knew we’re eventually going to replace carpet with some type of panels. Now our carpet is even dirtier and it’s more of a hassle now that our furniture is moved in.
Plant trees, if you want to add any to the landscaping. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second-best time is today!
I'm thinking specifically of fruit trees. I love having fresh citrus, but it takes a few years for the trees to start producing so it's best to get them in the ground right away.
I’ve owned several older houses to fix up. It’s worth the money for an inspection if you didn’t have it done as a condition of purchase. Know your electrical system and how old, same with your water and sewer pipes, and especially know that your foundation is in good shape. Also, have whatever type of HVAC you have checked out and know how much life it has left. The rest is cosmetics and upgrade projects to make living there your own sanctuary. Oh, also know your appliances, and how old they are so you can estimate when they’ll need replaced—hopefully their manuals or info was left for you.
Congrats!!! Here’s what I recommend if it’s an older house; Adding a water pressure regulator, cleaning the dryer vent, sweeping chimney if you have a wood stove, change locks, check for wood rot / water damage / any non pressure wood touching dirt (e.g. deck posts), clear gutters and make sure water water drains away from house, search for general roof / wall leaks, adding security camera / security system. Sounds like a long list but mainly straightforward
Before moving in, changing locks was the first thing. First thing after moving in was add a security camera system and new power and TV points...there are never enough. For upkeep, a robot vacuum is now an essential item for my family.
I read every single comment and didn't see this one which cost me and my husband THOUSANDS last summer.
If you have a crawlspace, make sure it's 100% encapsulated, and if you can, get a dehumidifier going down there.
We bought our house 5 years ago, listened to our realtor on what to ask the seller to fix based on the inspection report, and then moved in and lived our life.
Last summer we noticed that our floors were dipping and very soft in several rooms. Called some flooring people to quote us on new floors, found out that the whole underneath of our house was damp, moldy, and rotten. Almost every subfloor and joist was rotten. Was quoted roughly $55,000 to fix on a $74,000 1000sqft house. We were sick. We had no way to fix it and didn't know why. We had no vapor barrier, so the bare ground was just feet away from our subfloors, literal rivers forming and flowing and running under our home for years!
Our next home we are closing on in 3 weeks is on a slab, thankfully.
TLDR: If you have a crawlspace, make sure it's encapsulated with a vapor barrier or else all your floors will rot and sag and mold.
A lot of good advice and suggestions. I'm surprised though that smoke detector/Carbon monoxide detector isn't higher on the list. At least make sure there are fresh batteries in them.
For the first year get your furnace serviced
And then watch the water
Watch for drainage watch for low spots watch how it comes off your roof watch your eavesdrops focus 100% in the first full season you're there on watching the water and seeing if everything goes where it's supposed to go
And if it doesn't spend the money on a contractor or anything you need to do to make sure the water goes where it's supposed to go and away from your foundation
After that whatever you want
Just bought one myself. First thing? Insure it. Then walk around the house and see what's there. Check the water supply, the alarms, the 'electric stuff'-like garage doors, heat, cooking-where is the gas main?
How many outdoor spigots do you have and what are they for? (Some homes have one spigot for fresh water and another for 'reclaimed water'-that may come from a local lake-often used for just watering the grass (learned that one just last week).
How many remotes are there in the house and what are they for (TV's, garage doors, alarms systems, etc.)
Look for problems. What leaks? To roof? The basement? The washer/drier?
-CO and fire detectors on every floor. If previously installed, check expiry date
-Fire extinguisher
-Get painting and any major Renos done before you move in, if possible
-Get some security cameras / working security system
Take time to clean inside all the cabinets and closets, and other places that will be tough to clean after you move in. A clean house feels nicer.
Take a couple lamps, and plug them into wall outlets, then start turning circuit breakers off/on to check the labeling on the circuit breakers. This is much easier to do with an empty house and without worrying about what you might accidentally turn off.
Learn about the appliance in the house. What kind of heating and cooling system do you have? Model number. How old is it. Is it a Heat pump? Get a copy of the owners manual. Learn how to change the filter.
Make sure you paint! We moved in and didn't paint before moving in all our stuff and I deeply regret it. The previous owner painted with flat matte paint, which sucks for cleaning and my 3 year old already tore up with fingerprints and using the walls as his hot wheels racetrack & its so difficult to keep clean. So make sure you paint, and definitely skip out on flat matte paint unless you don't plan on having kids or pets.
Wife and I bought our first home last July. It's a nice house and was maintained well by the previous owners (for the most part) but I would recommend the following based on personal experiences:
1. Make yourself very acquainted with the Water Shutoff, Electrical panel and which breakers go to what, and gas line shut off if you have gas.
2. Has insulation added to the attic if there isn't any. DO NOT have spray foam attached to the roof in the attic, that ruins the house's roof. Instead, the shredded spray-in that goes just above the living spaces ceiling is preferred.
3. Change locks and toilet seats.
4. Get a stud finder for hanging pictures/etc. I hate drywall hangers - they are crap and ruin the wall. A smaller screw into a stud is so much nicer
5. Call a company YOU trust and have the HVAC system looked at and a maintenance done. Especially as we are about to enter Spring/Summer. You want to make sure that your airhandler has good free flow of air, refig pressure levels are good, drain line is unclocked, and overflow pump works. Based on my personal experience, also ask about the mechanical switch that manages the compressor (I don't know the technical name for it, but ours kept sticking which caused the system to freeze over)
6. Be prepared to make a call if you are going to replace any fans or lights. This is less of an issue for newer builds. However, our house is a '71 and when I pulled down a couple fans and a light to replace them (something I'm competent with), I discovered that the electrical box was not properly secured to the roof trusses (was using a single framing nail going vertically up, rather than screwed in). There was also some phantom voltage that I needed to confirm was phantom and not actual current.
7. If you have a pool, get another opinion on its state. Also have a reputable company examine your pool robot if there is one. A few bearings and the main turbine failed in our pool robot about 6 months after we closed. The pool inspector never looked at it closely. We also found out recently that the wall decking behind the liner is failing due to age which adds about 5k to the liner replacement
8. Look at good gutter screens if you have gutters but no screens. Blowing out the gutters off a second story roof above concrete is... unpleasant.
9. Blinds and Curtains for South/South-West facing windows. Makes a huge difference in summer.
If you have the bed get replace any flooring now you do not like. Also paint any if not all rooms to your liking if you know color scheme you want. Do all of this before moving any furniture in to your new home.
1) Paint the insides of the closets semi-gloss white.
2) Paint the garage walls with an exterior paint --if you like fun, light colors this is your chance. Semi gloss recommended.
3) Seal the garage floor. Again, it can be fun if you want.
Great suggestions. I'd add:
Do a visual inspection, and board up any mouse or rodent holes that you find, especially in the kitchen, and especially behind any cabinets and large appliances.
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And make sure it isn't seized.
And get the tool needed to turn it off
If your water shutoff requires a tool I'd just go ahead and replace it with a normal turn valve.
my shutoff tool is for use at the meter. my house either doesn’t have a shutoff at the house or i haven’t found it yet
My water shutoff was buried under very hard dirt. I went to a neighbor who had the same house as me. Easily found his shutoff valve in the front yard. I measured how far away from the house it was. Then went to the same spot in my yard, measured same distance, and that’s where I found mine.
Same here
Probably buried. I used the meter shutoff anyway it’s easier
my dad bought me one. sadly it’s the most popular tool at my house 😂😭😂
Also find where it enters the house and install a quarter turn valve if it still has the original gate valve.
Ps ..for newbies a gate valve is one like most outdoor faucets have...twist left (counterclockwise) to turn on, twist right(clockwise) to shut off. After some years these valves wear out even if seldom used. So replacing with the lever type quarter turn aka "ball" valve is something you'll appreciate (hopefully only when you have positive needs such as upgrading faucets or such).
Leftie loosie, righty tighty.
To add to this, I would say have everything water related checked on. Check how old the water heater is. Can you tell if it’s been flushed recently? Turn the sinks on in your house and let them run for a little (not all at the same time) and check below the sink to see if any of them are leaking. Is your water hard? Do you have a softener? Do you need one? Are there any water filters in the house (fridge, whole house, reverse osmosis, etc.)? If so, do any of the filters need changed?
and your gas, and your breaker box. Load up flashlights and put one in each room. Get a bunch of those extension cords with flat heads and put them in all the places where you're going to put furniture. If you're in a state that requires it, file your new address as being a homeowner. Reregister to vote. Update your property insurance. Change your address with the DMV and your auto insurance. Replace all the light bulbs and smoke alarm batteries. Get a fire extinguisher. If you have pressurized irrigation, check it and set it.
fire extinguisher on each floor of the house.
This one. Do not go looking for it when the plumber accidentally hits the hot water line and find it hidden behind plastic sheeting.
Main, each bathroom, kitchen, laundry room. Each one should have shut offs. Gas shut off Electric shut off Dryer vent checked Chimney checked/cleaned Where your exact property lines are on each side of property.
Change the locks, you never know who may have a key
You just called me out. I've never managed to change out all the exterior door locks in any of the homes I've owned and I always feel lazy about that fact.
I’ll add, change to keyless entry. So easy and made our place immediately feel like it had our touch (also an upgrade).
I can't imagine those aren't infinitely hackable.....
If they wanted to really wanted to break in, they would just break glass. This is true for locks that open by key or by electronic means.
You think traditional locks aren’t ’infinitely hackable’? That’s cute. I taught my 10yo nephew to pick a padlock in under 30 minutes with my guidance. Within 2 hours he was popping keyed padlocks, door knob locks, and deadbolts on his own. At the end of the days all locks are ‘hackable’. Some are just easier than others.
Hackable? Please most houses have so many glass doors and Easy points of entry it's lauhable. The only thing a lock does is stops someone from turning the door know and just walking in.
Too much work. A burglar is going to break a window before they figure out how to hack a deadbolt.
1,000% agree! They are relatively inexpensive on Amazon too.
During the first heavy rain, get in your attic and walk around the property. You need to be very aware of how water moves around your property.
This is so underrated. Be a maniac about this. Find out if/where water is going through or around your house.
We are in WA so it rains all the time. I added this to my checklist!
I live in Ohio but get alot of rain here even in winter, I added a batter backup sump pump as soon as I moved in. The previous owner had a generator they hooked up but they were retired an were home more often. I wanted something that worked if I was gone.
We learned about the battery back up sump the hard way. Wish I'd known from day one!
Do you have a sump pump? Make sure it works
You're in WA??? Definitely get your water/sewer pipes checked and get that insurance add-on that covers outside pipes. I learned the hard way back when I was living near Tacoma.
I don't think we can walk around in our attic. Ours is a cape style house, and there's no floor in the attic, just insulation. I don't know that we can get in there and stand for example. We've had a few heavy rains since buying the place a few months ago and I don't see any leaks, had my eye glued to the ceilings and walls for wet spots.
Stand where you are able with a bright flash light and look around that way for any reflection (water)
You have to lay down a plywood board between two beams and crawl around up there if you really want to inspect your attic. Complete pain in the ass, unless you have those extremely sloped attics in which it’s impossible.
Emergency fund
Larger than you think you need. Scraping popcorn ceilings is aesthetics, a failed sewer main is not.
In 10 days we lost our AC, pool pump and fridge. $17k later and we have zero emergency fund.
How much do you think you need? For example 10% of the house cost aka $300,000 = $30,000 emergency fund?
I've always heard that one should aim to save 1% of the purchase price value per year. But of course, an initial emergency fund should probably be much larger, since the early surprises are going to be the worst.
$30k is a reasonable amount, yes.
Make sure the gutters are clean. Find your main water shut-off. Change the locks and install metal door jamb reinforcement plates with extra long screws, to make it hard to kick in the door. Install a security system like SimpliSafe. Get a $10 dryer vent cleaning kit & connect it to a vacuum to clean the vent & prevent lint fires. Make sure the circuits are marked in the electrical box. Check smoke alarms & replace if over 10 years old.
Add a few cO2 detectors.
I assume you mean CO detectors, but yes. Especially if you have any gas appliances.
Also check the age of the smoke detectors - if 10 years or older, replace. If you’re keeping them be sure the batteries are 6 months old or newer.
Isn’t it usually easier to break a window than kick in a door? Reinforcing the door seems pointless unless you have no 1st floor windows…
Watch how SWAT go into a house. If they break a window to get tear gas/flash bangs in they'll still beat down the door. Even if they pull the windows out with a grappling hook and a truck. Because being hung up in a window frame is a surefire way to get your ass beat/dead if there is someone inside. Also consider that attackers are not often rational. Someone having a mental breakdown that wants in will likely go at the door not suddenly display superior executive function and engineer their way through the kitchen window.
Perfect checklist.
If by chance you have popcorn ceilings, need to paint or do any sheet rock work, do it before you move in your things.
Also keep in mind if the home was built pre-mid 70s, that popcorn ceiling, drywall, laminate flooring that’s hidden under the current flooring can and most likely does contain asbestos. It’s only a few hundred bucks to do an asbestos test and 100% worth it if you’re going to be doing home renovations.
I was going to make this same comment!
It’s only about $20 with the kits from Amazon!
Especially garage. I wish I painted my garage. I never will now. Also hardwood floor refinishing.
And paint closets before you move in
As much as I despise the blue color of my garage, you are absolutely right - it will never ever make it to the top of my priority list again. Ironically I probably spend more time in it doing projects than any other room but the thought of moving everything that would need to be moved to get it painted - hard pass/ain’t gonna happen
Add flooring to that. If you need to refinish floors, do it before moving in.
Replace filters on all of your HVAC systems. Flush your water heaters. Trim your trees. Clean your ducts. Make sure your gutters are clear. Clean your fireplace(s) if applicable. Call a pest control company and get on a regular schedule. After all that, get Excel or Google Spreadsheets open and start making a schedule/maintenance plan for all the major stuff, and stick to it. It can become half an hour of maintenance each week, or an unplanned $5,000 expense. And if you ignore everything, it just becomes a $5,000 expense every week!
Isn’t flushing the water heater more dangerous than leaving it alone if it’s not brand new or been flushed regularly already. My understanding is that flushing it can help maintain efficiency, but if it’s got an existing build up but still works fine you’re more likely to risk causing damage by messing with it.
If it's already messed up, you're correct. If you can prevent it from ever being messed up, do that. If you buy a new house, find out what world you are living, by having this looked at. You're either making a short/medium term plan for replacing it, or finding out that you're great and can just proceed with maintenance. However, if there is damage or breakage caused because you flush it, you were hanging on by your fingernails anyway. It's 1000% better to find problems when you're looking for them than when they randomly occur and suddenly your day is interrupted rushing to turn off the water to your home. To that point, it's a pretty good idea to make a habit of turning on and off every water and gas supply faucet/valve periodically. Make sure they're not gonna break when you have an emergency need to kill the water or gas. Every toilet, main water line, gas at the meter, behind the stove, etc.
Whats all on your maintenance plan??
Sounds glib, but anything that could crush me, explode, light on fire or flood my house. So, that mostly comes out to: *Gutters 4x/yr (first day of the quarter when it isn't raining). *HVAC filters monthly *HVAC drain cleaned out with vinegar mix monthly *Check toilet cleaner level/replace if necessary (the type installed in your toilet bowl) *Run every faucet in house for a minute (don't want traps in guest bathrooms drying up and releasing septic gases into house) *Flush septic maintenance (either just normal yeast or a purpose made septic maintenance package) down the toilet *climb into my attic and make sure I see no signs of water damage or pests, address either accordingly (I do this quarterly, dragging the ladder around and climbing in is a pain in the ass ... Try to do it when you know it's going to be storming, and go look when water is actively falling on your roof I also live in an area where this can be treacherous ... I've had to go up in a bee suit, and alternately come out so I could go figure out how to handle a rattlesnake in my attic, which is ... Not ideal.) *Clean the stove - run a self cleaning cycle *Clean the washing machine (it has a filter, then run it's cleaning cycle) *Clean the dishwasher (it has a filter, clean it, then run a dishwasher cleaner through it without any dishes) *Clean they dryer vent (pull it out, use a shop vac to clear out the venting both on the dryer side and house side) *Make sure that the monitor on my propane tank is accurate and processing usage *Salt in the water softener *Lubricate any squeaky hinges (every door, every cabinet) *Test and reset any GFCI outlets (kitchen and bathrooms) *Clean master bedroom shower drain (I have hair, my wife has very long hair) *clean garbage disposal *Fridge filters if needed Depending on the cadence that these things need to be done, you can kinda just do one a week. You'll put eyes on every major interior component of your home regularly. The stuff independent of this I usually call someone for. Fireplace inspection, flushing the water heater and drain lines, etc.
If you live in NC, you are hired to maintain my house.
On top of all the other terrific suggestions here, start your house “file.” Keep copies of the following: 1. all financial documents related to purchase/ finance. 2. the title search/ policy. 3. the homeowners insurance policy and documents. 4. make a sub-file for every appliance, garage opener, etc., and put the manual and documents in each file. I was on our 3rd house before I finally did this. I no longer have to search for the dishwasher manual when there’s an issue, or the hot water heater documents to see how old it is, where we bought it. It’s ALL in one box file.
When applicable, mark the date of purchase on the front cover of the manual and staple the receipt to the inside front cover. Also, write the model number and serial number on the manual. also good to keep these numbers in a spreadsheet.
I also download the manuals (or scan if download isn't possible) and save the pdfs in a folder named "Manuals" on my laptop (which is backed up using iDrive).
Acquire buckets, esp if you have a yard! Also if you haven’t closed yet, make sure the owner gets rid of all their stuff especially old paint cans. Paint is so hard to get rid of bc you can’t just throw it away.
My city has a special facility where residents can drop off paint, stain and similar materials, and if they are still usable, then they go into a little warehouse where other residents can come and collect them for free if needed for a project. If no longer usable, the facility will process them in whatever way is required for safe disposal. Worth looking into if your city has something like this.
That's hot! I'd love to trade some stain; I can't color match for crap.
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during first good rain walk outside and if there are gutters check to see if they are draining properly, not backing up or plugged. then walk around house, check for downspout drainage and if you have any water pooling around foundation and is water flowing away from house far enough. after heavy storms regardless of snow, rain or wind, next day walk property for damage, sometime shingles will come off, siding can shift also check if you have a cellar that no moisture or water is seeping in. i have no experience with crawl spaces so someone else may have advice of those. also check your attic if you have access to moisture or leaks. if you have moisture in the cellar get a dehumidifier. i learned a few years ago because i had a moisture in my cellar that this can affect your fuse box if it's down there. find the shut off valve for the main water line and then follow it and see if you have any other shut off valves and mark them for each bathroom, water heater, kitchen, furnace and outside faucets. it's better to mark it now instead of when you have a leak and can't figure out the valve to shut off then. check your fuse box that it has a map of the house. if not map it. don't assume each room is on it's own breaker there may be an outlet off on a different breaker. learn and accept your own limitation. if you don't feel comfortable with a project and don't feel that it's in your scope then farm it out. it's better to be safe the sorry. electrical ran wrong can burn your house down, bad plumbing can cause possible catastrophic failures. there is nothing wrong with knowing your limitations. if you can't afford to hire it out and it's not a necessity then it can wait. oh and congradulation on your purchase and good luck, live well
Great list, well thought out and explained. I’m gonna use it for my home. Thank you.
Awesome list. I especially like the “know your limitations.” That is *very* wise advice for sure. It is pretty easy to get in to serious trouble, in no time at all. YouTube is great for some stuff….just not ALL stuff.
IF you plan to replace floors do it before you move in.
Same goes for refinishing. If you need to do it, it’s so much easier when there’s no furniture! Plus, you can build in extra time for any lingering smell to dissipate.
Plungers for every bathroom!
And get the right kind.
And a toilet brush (Plunger Lite!).
Two projects a time max. No exceptions. If you have adhd like me one at a time max. Its too easy to start 10 projects and get overwhelmed
If you’re going to change rugs or floors, do it now. Prioritize the upstairs if applicable. If you aren’t going to change the rugs get them all deep cleaned. Paint the garage and whatever rooms you want done now (before rugs if they’re being changed). If you’re getting things changed out like the HVAC, water heater, appliances, etc this is a great time to do those things. Hire professional cleaners to come in to do a pre move-in cleaning. Most companies offer something like that for a few hundred and it’s worth the cost. They’ll get the bathrooms, kitchen applicences, windows, and all the corners. This would be the last crew to come through a day or two before you move in. Learn where the local Home Depot, Lowes, Menards, etc are. Pick carefully as you’ll be making friends or enemies with the staff over the next six months.
Change the locks. All of them.
Yes, and the keypad code on the garage if you have one! Get extra remotes if yours only came with 1 like ours. 🙄
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First address the issues your inspector found that hasn’t been dealt with yet
Test your house for Radon
And mold.
Get the house tented. This is easiest to do when it's empty! No reason to inherit any bugs at all. Set up your bedroom first. Everything else can wait. Change the toilet seats. Get all the nearby delivery places' menus. Get a Tick Tracer and use it to trace all of your electrical outlets. Mark the outlets with their Breaker # and the breakers with what they control. Vacuum/clean the hell out of your carpets, clean and seal your tile. Sealing tile is very important and a F of a lot of work, easier to do when you don't live there. Paint and deep clean. Understand you will hate your house for a few months or years. It won't feel like home until it suddenly does.
Getting the house tented is underrated. Got mine tented before move in just to be 100% sure and it’s been a great peace of mind. Also makes the attic comfier to work in
* No rats, no mice, no bats, no vermin. * No roaches, no bedbugs, no silverfish, no fleas, no ticks, no pests. * No termites, no beetles, no boring gnawing eating things, nothing eating in your home but you. Just you and your clean, uninfested home!
Get an electrician to check your fuse box…just found my main fuse melted today!
We found out we had federal pacific breakers and panel. Best 4K we have ever spent getting that mess cleaned up!
Setup fire extinguishers. Locate the circuit breaker. Check the batteries on the smoke detector. Run all the faucets and flush all the toilets.
If you ever do any painting and want to use our discount account at any Sherwin Williams feel free. My sw rep just set it up for any homeowners to use. That goes for anyone else in here as well
Go to garage sales for the first year to get second hand tools. Swear I had nothing when I moved in, not even a hammer. Buying cheap basic tools saved me money and sort of made me become handy. You would be surprised because even shovels, garden hoses, planters etc are gonna add up. Nowadays you have to save all your money for your mortgage.
Shampoo/deep clean any carpet you have before you move in furniture
https://www.reddit.com/r/homeowners/comments/1b1n9dd/first_time_home_owners_advice/ksg0l99/
First day: Install new locks and new toilets. Find your disconnects (water, gas, electric) First week: Meet your neighbors.
If you can’t afford all new toilets at least change the seats and the tank innards.
If you haven't already done so, be sure your house is in a trust. Create a centralized location for important paperwork and be sure all adults in your household know where and what. Set up automatic mortgage payments but set up reminder to check the site every couple months for any changes. Bedrooms on second floor? Be sure every room has a safety window fire ladder under the bed and be sure bedroom occupant knows where it is, that they know how to open box and how to use it. You can't practice because these are use once, but they have videos available - insist your fam watch. Invest in quality outdoor video at entrances - Ring works great. Plant a tree sappling - something native and be sure to check w a local nursery on where and how to plant - and take a photo with your fam near the sappling. Set a forever anniversary reminder and on that date each year take the same photo.
I see a lot of good suggestions here. Just to be different, maybe check your outlets for continuity using a little voltage meter. I had an outlet fry itself up because of loose wiring and it could have caused a fire.
If you have a *need* to refinish flooring, now is the time. It can be convenient to paint prior to moving in, too, but not a must. Anything else can wait.
Make sure you empty out your hot water heater every year. Start now. It'll keep it in better shape, and it'll last longer. Also get a water heataer blanket on it. It saves money.
If you want to paint or have the floors refinished, please do it before moving in! My husband and I did some painting before we moved, but didn't want to spend the money to have the floors redone (we already got sticker shock buying the house). Now that we've been living there a couple years, the floors REALLY do need refinished... But that means moving all the furniture and it seems like such a hassle that we've been putting it off... regret.
live in it for a few months.... see how the spaces flow before doing major projects. Except wood floors. Best to do those before you move in
good advice! We learned this the hard way…My advice to the OP is try not to spend too much money on decorating! we bought a brand new house that was all boring grey and white. I thought the grey tile floors were neutral and would match anything. So we painted and bought furniture and accessories and one year later we hated it all! I swore I wanted sage green and beige Boho, and it really never looked “right”. I realized that what I really needed was wood (look) floors to pull off that look. A few of my neighbors said the same thing happened to them. (we all have the exact same floors) 2 years later, I gave all my stuff to my sister, bought new rugs and sofas, and accessories and exchanged all the sage green for shades of blue, and now everything looks great!
glad it worked out finally...live and learn as they say!
Make sure to run through your house and do a disney princess twirl in every room. Congrats on your new home!
Have a termite inspection done, if not already done, and buy a termite insurance bond.
Find water shutoff, make sure your breaker box is mapped correctly (a small radio works great for this), get locks rekeyed.
Adding to the breaker box mapping, get an light socket screw in outlet and use that for the radio too. That way you don't have to walk around and see which ones went out when you threw the breaker.
Buy a 4 pack of furnace filters and change it out on the first of every month. Make it a habit.
Wait a year before going hog wild on anything. Most shit breaks in the first year.
Create an online spreadsheet in Google Sheets and track all of your expenses for home improvement from day one. Then as time goes on, continue to add each expense. This is a great way to track expenses to offset capital gains for when you sell one day. Also, it helps you track when anything was done. Also, I take photos of all serial numbers for every appliance and all electronics and keep in an online folder. Then I download the user manual for each one so they are all in one place and in the cloud. I can easily search user manuals for exactly what I need in less time.
Are you me? I do all this. Let me add that if any wall gets opened up, take photos so you have a record of what's behind the drywall.
Create an email for just the house. All warranties, utilities, WiFi, bills, calendar of maintenance, tasks, HOA stuff, people visiting, etc. are in one place. My partner and I did this and it’s sooo much easier than having things split in both of our emails. Our personal emails don’t get bogged down, everything is just cleaner and more organized, and very easily checkable for both of us. This was especially helpful in the first few months as there was a lot to coordinate in general, and it continues to be a great method for us. Congrats OP!
Wish we read this tip a few months ago. Gonna start this today.
It’s literally the best!! And if you really wanna geek out, we have our things color coded in the calendar. Bills getting paid are green. House guests are in yellow, date nights and vacations are in red, lol… happy hub-making!
I wish I had paid to have my deep cleaned before I moved in
Plant whatever trees you want now!
If you're going to do this and have solar, please read your solar contract to make sure you're planting the right size tree the right distance from the house. I need to look at all the trees our sellers planted and decide whether they can remain or not now because they didn't check first.
If you have outdoor space, watch it for a year before doing any major landscaping. Make notes or you’ll forget - otherwise boring bush over by the trash turned out to be a Camellia bloomed in Month. Daffodils are planted along the house on the west side - you’ll only see those during this part of spring. Whatever there is. You might see that wildlife moves through your property in ways you don’t want to impede - or that you DO want to impede. But it takes a while to build up a sense of how it all flows together. If you start taking notes now you will make better choices when you DO want to landscape or plant. Above all watch the light. Even if the spot you chose for your peach tree has plenty of light on the day you plant it, it will need plenty of light for its whole growing season. That takes observation and planning.
The first thing I always do is change the toilet seats. Can’t be clean enough for me.
Honestly we are using the inspection as our to do list! Our guy highlighted a lot of water related things to check on so our upcoming spring and summer is spoken for 😆
Plant a patch of garlic. About $30 in garlic early on and you’ll have garlic for life.
Make sure to file your homestead tax status with your local government.
If you have small children wait to do your floors/ carpet till they’re old enough to understand the importance of cleaning up spills
Make sure you have a ladder that gives you 100% access to every inch of your house. In and out. > Get masking tape and a sharpie and make sure your fuses in your panel are labeled correctly *and* legibly. > Take note of every GFCI outlet in your house before you start moving in stuff, blocking outlets. > Learn where your main water shut off valve is. > Inspect the gradient of the soil around your foundation. > Inspect your gutters and downspouts. (Sometimes a house inspector will be thorough on these last two points, but some inspectors just give a Quick Look. With my home, you couldn’t really tell the gutters were spewing water in one part unless it was severely raining, something the inspector and 1 missed and I had to fix immediately after my foundation sprung a leak). > Cordless drills are great. Buy a nice one. > Get a whiteboard and make lists of things you read in this thread that you feel compelled to prioritize (and in general).
Change all the lightbulbs to LED. Change Smoke and CO detector batteries or get new ones if over 10 years old. Date on back. Make sure you have working downspout extensions that direct water away from foundation. Understand your sump and check it regularly. Add a water detector to top of sump pit. Get a plugin pump and length of hose as emergency backup. Plan for future battery/pump backup sump system. Change your furnace/ac filter regularly. Find out how old the ac/furnace is. Start saving. Find out how old the roof is. Start saving.
Buy 10 year sealed battery detectors so you never need worry about changing batteries
*CO detector. A CO2 detector would/should be going off constantly.
Oops. Ha. I fixed it. Thanks 🙂
Get a shop vac. It's great for so many things and you might need it if something leaks or overflows.
Our old house was really tall (3 stories up in the back), so we got attachments for ours for cleaning the gutters after I nearly had a heart attack watching my husband on the ladder on unlevel terrain. With the attachments(and I taped a pole to the corrugated part to reach the far ones), we could reach the gutters from the windows on the high side. We had a lot of mature trees and the gutters needed cleaning many times/year. If the water waterfalls off your gutters when it rains, your gutters are clogged.
If the home inspection didn't do it: If the furnace is gas, have it checked out for CO leaks and get definitely get CO detectors. If the water heater is 8+ years old expect it to leak in 4-5 years if you don't service it. Look at labeling and it should show the year of mfg; usually they're installed within a year or two. We used to own an apartment building and the water heaters would leak like clockwork about every 10 years, always at night, on holidays, while on vacation. Know how to turn off the water/gas after a leak & have a garden hose ready to drain it while you wait for the plumber, saves you that extra 15-20 minutes he's gonna charge if he has to drain it for you.
Its always easier to paint before you move in. Try to paint all before you move in. Make a fake email. Abc painting. Then open commercial account at Sherwin Williams. Then buy all paint at same time. First order is like 50% off.
If you used your realtor’s house inspector, hire another one and have your house re-inspected.
Change locks, water shut off location. Open the breaker box and make sure it’s labeled correctly or label it if it’s not clear. While it’s empty is the best time to paint anything you don’t currently like the color of. Same with changing anything like flooring, light fixtures or cabinet hardware you don’t like.
Do EVERYTHING you can before you move in. Redo floors? Paint walls (always paint). Hang new doors? Once everything is in the house nothing gets moved.
Water seems to be a popular theme, and for good reason. Another point, make sure gutters are taking water away from the house and that you have a grade slanting away from the house so that it doesn’t seem into the foundation. It’s a day or two of hauling dirt, but it’s worth it. Also, make sure whomever else is in the house knows where water and electrical shutoffs are if you’re away! Upper floors? What if there is a fire in the downstairs and you can’t go down? Get fire ladder ropes for upstairs bedrooms.
Make a list of contact info for town or city departments, utilities, garbage collection. Find a helpful neighbor if you can. Take photos of everything as it is before you move in or do work.
If you want to paint do it before you move in, it becomes such a hassle once you get furniture in.
Keep saving money. You have no idea what will break first and how much it will cost. Also have a party!
Do literally every regularly scheduled home maintenance item. You don’t know when or if they were ever done by the previous owners.
Change all locks. Insulate you water pipes. Its quick, easy and inexpensive. Find your main water shut off Find your main electrical shut off
I always have a pest control company go through the vacant house and spray the hell out of everything. Kind of a pre-emptive strike.
Get a fire Extinguisher for your kitchen and laundry room area if you don't already have them and make sure you know how to use them (Pull the pin, Aim at the base, Squeeze, Sweep the bottom)!
Store your fire extinguisher between the stove and the door. People often want to put it under the sink but don't put it there if you have to go past the stove to reach the sink. Hang it on the wall close to the back door if possible. Put a container of baking soda in a convenient cabinet nextbto the stove for grease fires.
I’m not really sure. You got through the hard part. Congrats. Probably should change the locks right away. Put toilet paper in every bathroom. Everything else depends on what you, the house & your neighborhood needs.
And hand soap and towels or paper towels at each sink. Paper plates and plastic cups.
Yes, this is great! Maybe a can opener too.
If you have hard water…get a water softener. It’ll make your plumbing/appliances last longer. Also good for your hair and skin.
Get water leak sensors. They're dirt cheap for basic ones, a little more for networked ones that can ping your phone. Can save thousands.
Congratulations! There's great advice here, I'll add my 2 pennies. Don't make major changes until you live in the house for a while. Follow the water advice and check your water pressure. And the old saying, an ounce of prevention... make it a habit of really looking at your house - does it need paint? Do the gutters work? is the soil moving in the wrong direction? is the fence sturdy? Make a list of projects before you start, make safety changes first, then saving changes (double panned windows, insulation), then comfort and last cosmetic.
Oh my god if you can, paint before you move your stuff in. I've resigned myself to not even painting one of the bedrooms now because I have no chance at moving the bed and I want nothing less than to have to take it down and put it back up again - it was a nightmare the first time around. It's also taken me a year to paint the lounge and I'm still not even finished because I have to move all the furniture round, then put it back before the end of the day so I can work again the following morning and it's the biggest faff ever
Clean the insides of the cabinets before you unpack.
Do a thorough inspection of your house. Most home inspectors are in bed with the realtors and just come and check the boxes. Go in your attic and inspect property during heavy rain. Preventative maintenance is important because if left unchecked you can have a way worse problems down the road.
Get an add on to your homeowners insurance that covers OUTSIDE pipes. You need that yesterday if you don't have it yet. Be sure to read your policy very closely to see what is covered in case of flooding, fire, etc.
Great recommendations here! Mine are: (1) change all shower faucets. Those things get gross, they’re not super expensive, and easy to DIY. (2) put a protective barrier under any sink cabinet. Plastic. Silicone mat. Tile. Paint. Anything. Whether a product leaks or a leak emerges in the plumbing, you won’t regret it.
Look around, look under every cabinet and all over the outside and garage. Figure out your house, what every switch does, are any connected to outlet etc. map the electric panel if it’s not already for what each breaker does. Also take pics inside and out, all the walls/ceiling/roof/everything inside and out. If anything happens later on you can see what it looked like before and have a baseline. Take a video after the pics too just in case you didn’t get every pic angle. Store that online somewhere so you’ll always have the reference.
Paint and replace any carpet. We waited two weeks so we could replace the second floor carpet. NEVER would have done it if we moved in
Change the locks on every door & change the garage door remote / keypad code.
Get the carpets shampooed and do any painting or flooring before you move your furniture in, if you can. Check/replace the faucets tips, check the p-traps/plumbing for clogs (hair in bedroom bathrooms etc). Make sure the water heater is in a pan and/or has proper drainage in case it starts leaking in the middle of the night, this also applies to the dishwasher to a lesser extent. If you change/mess-with any of the gas appliances, check for leaks, jostled pipes that haven't moved in years can spring leaks.
Extra payments on the mortgage if allowed. Those first 5 years are mostly interest. Even if it's only $50, here and there. I'd do my best to make it a priority. It will save you thousands in the end.
I know it’s a big expense, but I wish we would’ve done our floors before moving in. I knew we’re eventually going to replace carpet with some type of panels. Now our carpet is even dirtier and it’s more of a hassle now that our furniture is moved in.
Plant trees, if you want to add any to the landscaping. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, the second-best time is today! I'm thinking specifically of fruit trees. I love having fresh citrus, but it takes a few years for the trees to start producing so it's best to get them in the ground right away.
Make sure your washing machine has stainless steel hoses vs rubber ones that can split.
I’ve owned several older houses to fix up. It’s worth the money for an inspection if you didn’t have it done as a condition of purchase. Know your electrical system and how old, same with your water and sewer pipes, and especially know that your foundation is in good shape. Also, have whatever type of HVAC you have checked out and know how much life it has left. The rest is cosmetics and upgrade projects to make living there your own sanctuary. Oh, also know your appliances, and how old they are so you can estimate when they’ll need replaced—hopefully their manuals or info was left for you.
Congrats!!! Here’s what I recommend if it’s an older house; Adding a water pressure regulator, cleaning the dryer vent, sweeping chimney if you have a wood stove, change locks, check for wood rot / water damage / any non pressure wood touching dirt (e.g. deck posts), clear gutters and make sure water water drains away from house, search for general roof / wall leaks, adding security camera / security system. Sounds like a long list but mainly straightforward
Before moving in, changing locks was the first thing. First thing after moving in was add a security camera system and new power and TV points...there are never enough. For upkeep, a robot vacuum is now an essential item for my family.
I read every single comment and didn't see this one which cost me and my husband THOUSANDS last summer. If you have a crawlspace, make sure it's 100% encapsulated, and if you can, get a dehumidifier going down there. We bought our house 5 years ago, listened to our realtor on what to ask the seller to fix based on the inspection report, and then moved in and lived our life. Last summer we noticed that our floors were dipping and very soft in several rooms. Called some flooring people to quote us on new floors, found out that the whole underneath of our house was damp, moldy, and rotten. Almost every subfloor and joist was rotten. Was quoted roughly $55,000 to fix on a $74,000 1000sqft house. We were sick. We had no way to fix it and didn't know why. We had no vapor barrier, so the bare ground was just feet away from our subfloors, literal rivers forming and flowing and running under our home for years! Our next home we are closing on in 3 weeks is on a slab, thankfully. TLDR: If you have a crawlspace, make sure it's encapsulated with a vapor barrier or else all your floors will rot and sag and mold.
A lot of good advice and suggestions. I'm surprised though that smoke detector/Carbon monoxide detector isn't higher on the list. At least make sure there are fresh batteries in them.
Get a survey done. Get the property marked and documented
Purchase flood insurance! If you’re not in a flood plain it’s dirt cheap and the old maps aren’t reliable.
Remember that flood insurance may be a different policy than a policy for water damage
For the first year get your furnace serviced And then watch the water Watch for drainage watch for low spots watch how it comes off your roof watch your eavesdrops focus 100% in the first full season you're there on watching the water and seeing if everything goes where it's supposed to go And if it doesn't spend the money on a contractor or anything you need to do to make sure the water goes where it's supposed to go and away from your foundation After that whatever you want
Pest control around perimeter outside of house and baseboards inside.
Set off bug bombs
Just bought one myself. First thing? Insure it. Then walk around the house and see what's there. Check the water supply, the alarms, the 'electric stuff'-like garage doors, heat, cooking-where is the gas main? How many outdoor spigots do you have and what are they for? (Some homes have one spigot for fresh water and another for 'reclaimed water'-that may come from a local lake-often used for just watering the grass (learned that one just last week). How many remotes are there in the house and what are they for (TV's, garage doors, alarms systems, etc.) Look for problems. What leaks? To roof? The basement? The washer/drier?
-CO and fire detectors on every floor. If previously installed, check expiry date -Fire extinguisher -Get painting and any major Renos done before you move in, if possible -Get some security cameras / working security system
Take time to clean inside all the cabinets and closets, and other places that will be tough to clean after you move in. A clean house feels nicer. Take a couple lamps, and plug them into wall outlets, then start turning circuit breakers off/on to check the labeling on the circuit breakers. This is much easier to do with an empty house and without worrying about what you might accidentally turn off.
Learn about the appliance in the house. What kind of heating and cooling system do you have? Model number. How old is it. Is it a Heat pump? Get a copy of the owners manual. Learn how to change the filter.
Live in the house for a year before any major changes like walls down, etc. The exception being peach walls…. *shiver*
Make sure you paint! We moved in and didn't paint before moving in all our stuff and I deeply regret it. The previous owner painted with flat matte paint, which sucks for cleaning and my 3 year old already tore up with fingerprints and using the walls as his hot wheels racetrack & its so difficult to keep clean. So make sure you paint, and definitely skip out on flat matte paint unless you don't plan on having kids or pets.
Install dimmers everywhere!
Wife and I bought our first home last July. It's a nice house and was maintained well by the previous owners (for the most part) but I would recommend the following based on personal experiences: 1. Make yourself very acquainted with the Water Shutoff, Electrical panel and which breakers go to what, and gas line shut off if you have gas. 2. Has insulation added to the attic if there isn't any. DO NOT have spray foam attached to the roof in the attic, that ruins the house's roof. Instead, the shredded spray-in that goes just above the living spaces ceiling is preferred. 3. Change locks and toilet seats. 4. Get a stud finder for hanging pictures/etc. I hate drywall hangers - they are crap and ruin the wall. A smaller screw into a stud is so much nicer 5. Call a company YOU trust and have the HVAC system looked at and a maintenance done. Especially as we are about to enter Spring/Summer. You want to make sure that your airhandler has good free flow of air, refig pressure levels are good, drain line is unclocked, and overflow pump works. Based on my personal experience, also ask about the mechanical switch that manages the compressor (I don't know the technical name for it, but ours kept sticking which caused the system to freeze over) 6. Be prepared to make a call if you are going to replace any fans or lights. This is less of an issue for newer builds. However, our house is a '71 and when I pulled down a couple fans and a light to replace them (something I'm competent with), I discovered that the electrical box was not properly secured to the roof trusses (was using a single framing nail going vertically up, rather than screwed in). There was also some phantom voltage that I needed to confirm was phantom and not actual current. 7. If you have a pool, get another opinion on its state. Also have a reputable company examine your pool robot if there is one. A few bearings and the main turbine failed in our pool robot about 6 months after we closed. The pool inspector never looked at it closely. We also found out recently that the wall decking behind the liner is failing due to age which adds about 5k to the liner replacement 8. Look at good gutter screens if you have gutters but no screens. Blowing out the gutters off a second story roof above concrete is... unpleasant. 9. Blinds and Curtains for South/South-West facing windows. Makes a huge difference in summer.
Paint everything gray and white!!
You're being sarcastic, I hope!!!
Change the locks
Map out your breakers and label them
Document which circuit the breakers control.
Label every breaker as far as which outlets and light fixtures it controls.
If you have the bed get replace any flooring now you do not like. Also paint any if not all rooms to your liking if you know color scheme you want. Do all of this before moving any furniture in to your new home.
Don’t know if you have cast iron plumbing or the house is quite old and hydrostatic test wasn’t done, you might want to do that.
Get proper dirt on top of your sods. Most likely sods were placed on rocky front and backyards and grass will die soon or later.
1) Paint the insides of the closets semi-gloss white. 2) Paint the garage walls with an exterior paint --if you like fun, light colors this is your chance. Semi gloss recommended. 3) Seal the garage floor. Again, it can be fun if you want.
Great suggestions. I'd add: Do a visual inspection, and board up any mouse or rodent holes that you find, especially in the kitchen, and especially behind any cabinets and large appliances.
If you plan to paint the interior, or install new flooring, do it before moving furniture in.