Maintain your single-family home: the right reflexes
When the keys are handed over, you receive your home with a guarantee that the appliances and devices installed by your builder are working properly. To keep them in good condition, and ensure that they operate at optimum efficiency, you must then take care of their maintenance. This will ensure the longevity of your home and protect your insurance policy. To help you maintain your new home properly, follow Polimmo La Maison's advice.
Well-maintained house, guaranteed longevity
To preserve the technical equipment and materials, you need to carry out maintenance from time to time. In your CCMI (Contrat de construction de maison individuelle), you'll find a notice describing the equipment installed in your new home. You can use these instructions as a basis for compiling a file listing the equipment that needs to be maintained, and the equipment that should be checked regularly by a professional. Regular maintenance protects you from costly work, accidents and damage.
Polimmo La Maison provides you with the maintenance booklet for your home when it is delivered. This is a password-protected online space that lists all the documents supplied or used since the beginning of the project, including those needed to maintain your home, such as operating instructions for your appliances. Very useful: you'll also find reminders of their maintenance dates. Don't forget that if your home is well maintained, you can take full advantage of the guarantees offered by your damage insurance.
Guide and tips for maintaining your home
Here's a list of the installations and equipment that need to be maintained in a modern home.
- Sanitation: every 6 months, you should check the drainage at the inlet and outlet of the all-water septic tank, and clean the grease trap. The bacterial filter in the all-water septic tank should be cleaned once a year, and the correct drainage of rainwater checked. Finally, the septic tank should be serviced by a professional every 5 years.
- The hot water tank: remember to activate its safety valve every three months, and have it checked by a professional every two years.
- Sanitaryware: once a year, check the seals and clean the drains and traps in your bathroom. Shower trays, baths, sinks and washbasins should also be regularly maintained.
- The roof: check the condition of the roofing regularly, especially after gales. Clean or have cleaned the gutters and downspouts twice a year.
- Openings: once a year, check that water is running out of the openings in French windows and doors, seal the joints, oil the mechanisms and clean the joinery.
- Heating: Your boiler should be serviced by a specialist company, your chimney flues swept and your radiators purged. These operations should be carried out every year. Don't forget to dust your radiant panels, radiators and convectors before you switch on your heating.
- Ventilation and CMV: once a year, you need to clean the air vents in your toilets and bathrooms, as well as the air inlets in the window frames.
- Smoke detectors and switches must be checked every year.
- The ceilings must be repainted every three years.
- The exterior of the house: after three years, it is recommended that the woodwork be varnished, and the walls cleaned of lichen and moss. Facades can be renovated every 10 to 15 years.
Polimmo La Maison advises you to entrust any maintenance work involving gas or electricity, as well as any work requiring you to be at height, to specialist companies. That way you can avoid any accidents and be sure of a job well done.
