House maintenance

[Maistre Gracey]

How much do you budget for UNEXPECTED maintenance for your house??

I have read anywhere between 1 - 2 % per year of the value of your home.
I’m not sure how realistic that is. I’m a bit paranoid I’m going to get hit with a large unexpected bill, yet I have money, possibly not needed, accumulating in that budget over the years.

Thoughts??

 

[mom-2-3]

Just from my own experience, not any formula, think about what could go wrong, and start there. ie what is your HO deductible $500, 1000, etc. what appliances are aging and cost to replace; are you on well and/or septic, costs for repairs / pumping. In the wee hours of the morning, these are my thoughts. If I’ve misunderstood your question, sorry.

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

I worry about this all the time. We rent, but what happens if the fridge or stove or washer/dryer goes out? I know we have our $1k EF to be able to replace something like that, but is that really enough to go down to the local furniture store and buy a fridge or washer/dryer? Not really.

I'd like to start a sinking fund for home repairs. Like our landlord will fix a leaky faucet, a messed up water spigot outside or something like that. Like our toilet upstairs started leaking a few weeks ago, and he came and replaced the wax ring and tank lever (where it was leaking). But if our washer/dryer, stove, fridge goes out, that's on us.

 

[spol]

I worry about this all the time. We rent, but what happens if the fridge or stove or washer/dryer goes out? I know we have our $1k EF to be able to replace something like that, but is that really enough to go down to the local furniture store and buy a fridge or washer/dryer? Not really.

I'd like to start a sinking fund for home repairs. Like our landlord will fix a leaky faucet, a messed up water spigot outside or something like that. Like our toilet upstairs started leaking a few weeks ago, and he came and replaced the wax ring and tank lever (where it was leaking). But if our washer/dryer, stove, fridge goes out, that's on us.

If you rent, why are you responsible for the appliances in your house? Did you buy them and bring them in? When I was a renter, I wasn't responsible for any of those. Is this spelled out in your lease?

 

[Kestryl]

While we knew they were aging, it was sort of unexpected that we had to replace the roof ($12,000) and both our HVAC systems (split, $9000 and $12,000) in an 18 month period. Which was about 13% of what we bought the house for.

I know it’s unlikely we’ll deal with all 3 again for a while, but that’s kind of the baseline I try to keep in mind to make sure we have enough available. (That, and we have a septic system, so I live in fear of that failing…)

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

If you rent, why are you responsible for the appliances in your house? Did you buy them and bring them in? When I was a renter, I wasn't responsible for any of those. Is this spelled out in your lease?

It's spelled out in our lease that we're responsible. They're responsible for repairs (if repairs are possible), but we're responsible for replacing the appliances.

 

[spol]

It's spelled out in our lease that we're responsible. They're responsible for repairs (if repairs are possible), but we're responsible for replacing the appliances.

Oh my. I've never heard of that before!

 

[firefly_ris]

It's part of our general emergency fund. I look at what we replaced and when, life expectancy of each item and how much it would ballpark cost to replace each one and then make sure there is plenty in the general EF to cover.

For example our septic system is original to our 1963 home. It could go another 20 years, or it could need a new leech field tomorrow. Full-on replacement would run us about $11k in these parts. We put in a new water heater when we moved here in 2012 so that is coming up on its "expected" lifetime, it might not, but keep money in the EF to cover it. We do 99% of all home maintenance and repairs ourselves (except aforementioned septic!) so it's a little easier to predict, because I can just look up part costs and don't need to factor in how much labor could be. Long story short we keep 1 to 2 years worth of regular annual expenses in the EF and it's just generalized so we can cover things as they appear, which is usually at the most inconvenient time. If we have to pull a sum from the EF to pay for said thing then we just prioritize getting that money back into the EF asap.

There is probably a smarter way to keep that sorted, but I just try to keep a big pot to make sure we are good, has been working so far...

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

Oh my. I've never heard of that before!

It is what it is, and honestly, we're fine with it. We have the EF for those types of things should any issues ever arise. And we absolutely love our landlords. We've been here 3-1/2 years now. And DW and I were talking not long ago, and we decided we want to stay as long as they will let us. It's in a great location (35-minute drive to DW's work and 25-minute drive to my work), we're just down the road from a great church and we love our community. And our landlords will do anything we ask at the drop of a hat, even though they live an hour away.

 

[firefly_ris]

Oh my. I've never heard of that before!

We always supplied appliances to our tenants, with the exception of a washer/dryer -- we had a double and rented out the upper. We split our basement in half and so the tenants got the other half, to which we supplied a washer/dryer hookup, but if they wanted to utilize they had to bring their own machines (they did). We did the same thing at our college rental; we supplied a fridge and stove but washer/dryer were on them. If anything we supplied broke we were of course responsible for it, but if the tenant's washer broke they had to decide on its replacement.

However, I have definitely seen units in the area for rent that don't have any appliances provided at all, which was legal in our part of NYS. Rent price was typically reflected in that with a generally lower rent. It's been years since we've been landlords so not sure if it's changed since then.

 

[tx911]

I try to keep 3-6 months worth of monthly expenses in an emergency fund. If a sudden appliance issue or other problem arises, I’ll draw from that and then replenish when able.

 

[CallMeAFlower]

We always supplied appliances to our tenants, with the exception of a washer/dryer -- we had a double and rented out the upper. We split our basement in half and so the tenants got the other half, to which we supplied a washer/dryer hookup, but if they wanted to utilize they had to bring their own machines (they did). We did the same thing at our college rental; we supplied a fridge and stove but washer/dryer were on them. If anything we supplied broke we were of course responsible for it, but if the tenant's washer broke they had to decide on its replacement.

However, I have definitely seen units in the area for rent that don't have any appliances provided at all, which was legal in our part of NYS. Rent price was typically reflected in that with a generally lower rent. It's been years since we've been landlords so not sure if it's changed since then.

It's totally dependent on local laws. In my state it's required by the minimum living standard- a working stove, refrigerator, and cold water must be supplied by the landlord. In other states it's only required to provide working hookups.

When we were renting, any repairs or fixes not covered by our landlord came out of our emergency fund. Now that we own a fixer upper, we try to keep around 30k in a separate high-yield house fund. Considering we've already replaced the roof, the siding, the windows, the driveway, and one of the bathrooms... Old houses love to spring expensive surprises! It sounds like a lot upfront, but our mortgage is cheaper than the rent we were paying so that difference goes into the fund, same with what we were previously saving weekly for the initial downpayment. It took a few years to get to that number, but we feel safe with that based on the cost of the previous issues. This total to save may be different for you depending on where you live too- I live in a medium-high cost area so things are much more expensive!

 

[barkley]

we have 2 resources for these-

our sinking 'reserve' account which we put a set dollar amount into each month to cover all of our irregular non monthly expenses which include the known home maintainance-pest, yard (multiple acres), yearly generator service, biennial water filtration/softner service , HVAC service plan (has saved us SO MUCH over the years)... I plump the dollar amount by a few hundred a month to cover smaller unexpected expenses like the electricians who had to replace a couple of failing GFI outlets in the last few months. anything unused rolls over year to year so that helps,

and

our 'emergency/liquid savings' which is about 6+ months of household expenses or 5% of our home's approx. value.