How to Save $1,000 a Year (On Average) on Home Maintenance Costs

Do you own your home?  How often do you have to think about painting it?  Here in the south, we have to paint about every seven years.  It doesn’t matter what kind of paint is used.  15 year or 20 year paint, doesn’t matter.  At most a paint job lasts about seven years.  The main reason the paint won’t last here is mold.  Our air is so humid that mold grows on everything. Everything!  Mold can completely destroy a paint job, making it necessary to paint again and again.  The owners of a house in my neighborhood have painted their house twice in the time they have owned it.  And that doesn’t count when the builder painted it.  I moved into this neighborhood before that house was built. 

I have lived in my house for 11 ½ years. How many times have I painted my house? Zero. Why not? Pressure washing. I have my house pressure washed each year in the spring.  I have used the same company each year.  B & M Pressure Washing.

B & M Pressure Washing is owned by Bryant Holloway.  Bryant serves the Tampa metro area, Orlando metro area, Miami metro area and the Atlanta metro area. It doesn’t take him more than 1 ½ hours to wash my house.  The key is he uses bleach.  A note of warning, water your landscaping well the night before you have your house washed with bleach.  The bleach can burn tender or young plants.  I water my landscaping two nights in a row before Bryant is scheduled to pressure wash.  Rarely, have I had any landscaping damage from the bleach.

Now full disclosure here, I have spot painted sections of my house.  If the caulk breaks around the windows or trim, it needs to be replaced and then repainted. Also, the houses in my neighborhood have wood trim.  Wood trim doesn’t do well in high humidity.  It rots.  So, I have had to replace some wood trim with new composite pieces.  They are caulked in and then painted.  Still, the most I have spent on house maintenance dealing with paint is about $2,000 total over the life of the house. It is really just a couple of hundred dollars each year. And that includes the fee I pay Bryant every year.  It seems like a no brainer to me.

Planning to paint your house in a few years?  Pressure wash it every year and I bet you can skip that painting and save yourself the money!