Buying a house requires knowing how to manage all of the occasional small household maintenance duties right away. There are issues in even newly built homes. On occasion, homeowners may need to fix blocked sinks or noisy doors. Accidents happen, and the homeowner may need to replace broken floor tiles or patch a hole in their drywall.

There is always work to be done when you own a property. Even while many of those repairs can be finished quickly, there are numerous potential issues with a home that you might not know how to start addressing. Many problems, like a light bulb blowing out, can be resolved by figuring out what went wrong and how it happened. But how do you know where to begin when faced with an issue like a leaky sink fixture?

Even the most seasoned homeowner will occasionally encounter one or two of these difficulties, and as the house ages and the problems pile up, figuring out how to fix them is harder. The typical homeowner spends 1% to 4% of the value of their property each year on maintenance and repairs. The price of this increases significantly as a house gets older. A homeowner who has lived in the house for a long time and has grown accustomed to them may consider small annoyances like cold floors or an abundance of dust to be unimportant. A prospective buyer may just think about the 1 to 4 percent annual payment in their current home in comparison to the new one.

Whether a homeowner intends to live in the home for a very long time or wants to sell it at some point in the future, knowing what some of the most prevalent problems in a property are and how to fix them is essential. However, this isn’t always the case. In many cases, these problems seem to be major, underlying problems with the house that will require expensive repairs or reconstruction to fix.

For instance, a drafty room may seem to require an expensive furnace upgrade or perhaps a total rebuild to address issues with airflow throughout the space. On the other hand, a drafty room is typically brought on by little cracks or breaks near windows or doors, which may be quickly fixed by adding weather stripping insulation. This checklist may help you find solutions if you’re frustrated by some common household problems. Use this checklist as a starting point for repairs when something looks amiss with your home and you’re not sure where to look first. You will occasionally need to put on your work boots and solve a problem on your own as a homeowner. The accompanying resource is a great starting point to begin learning more.

David Jones