Deferred Maintenance - The Good News

How Deferred Maintenance Costs You?

There are two main components to deferred maintenance at your home. First, there's things that could impact the sale of the property and then, there are things that effect your enjoyment of the home.

The reason this is important is that if you are selling, you could receive only lowball offers. This is because a future homeowner will not make a full price offer on a home that needs upkeep that they consider to be major in scope. This would be driveways in bad shape, roofs in obvious need of repair, broken windows or shingles, damaged or broken appliances, and are not the sort of thing new homeowners want to deal with on their own past the closing date.

They will lower the offer. But, that's not the only reason to take care of deferred maintenance. Studies show that every $1 not spent on maintenance costs $4 later. Avoiding regular upkeep can reduce the lifespan of all sorts of things around the house significantly. This means they have to be replaced earlier. Perhaps more importantly, letting some problems go leads to emergency repairs, or more serious repairs down the road.

(source: https://www.schooldude.com/community/discover/blogs/-1-deferred-maintenance-4-needed-later-in-capitalhow-does-that-math-work)

If you're living in the house with no plans to sell, there are still reasons to stay up with any emerging maintenance issues. For one, your enjoyment is at stake. Every time you see that crack, dent, hole, or broken thing, your frustration emerges, or your thoughts turn to the dilapidated. Focusing on what's broken without fixing it is most likely a cause of stress, anger, helplessness, or anxiety — all of which are negative influences on your well being. The simplest way to look at it is that every second you spend thinking about a repair, that's a second you aren't thinking about making money, making healthy choices, or relaxing. There's no doubt, that's a cost.

Asphalt Driveway Maintenance in Texas

There's no perfect solution for Texas roads and driveways. The hard-hitting storms combined with regular wind, rain, and temperature extremes breaks down all surfaces over time. Water can erode underneath, and our soil can heave and fall. In the end, if you keep a driveway or any sort long enough in North Texas, you'll be fixing it up at some point.

Sealcoating a Texas Driveway

So, what you can do with asphalt to protect it is seal coating. It's got a good cosmetic purpose being that it gives a driveway a nice deep black look, but it also serves as a protective layer which repels water. If the water takes longer to penetrate into the asphalt, the driveway lasts longer.

Hot Rubber Crack Repair

Next, if deep cracks do appear, they can be filled with hot rubber through a process called hot rubber crack repair. This really is the last line of defense. If you fill the deep cracks, you'll add years to the driveway.

Hot Asphalt Patching

In some cases, you can do what we call a hot asphalt repair or hot asphalt patching. This involves taking out damaged areas, fixing any problem under it, and adding new hot asphalt to recover the damaged area.

So, what happens when none of these things are done to extend the life of the road or driveway? Well, they can degrade pretty far. Don't be surprised to find cars bottoming out or worse. 

Here's where it gets good. 

There is a point somewhere along the line where a driveway has to be taken out in order to be fixed. That could mean starting over from scratch completely. That would cost a homeowner more — a lot more! (See photo below.) This rural driveway had worn to the point where none of the regular maintenance listed above would be able to fix or extend the life of the driveway any further. 

Believe it or not, we could still fix this long driveway affordably! Now, instead of bottoming out on a bouncy ride to the house, it's smooth as butter. So, if you need some good news and you're living somewhere around North Dallas (from Frisco, McKinney, or Allen north all the way to Whitesboro, or Sherman, we'll come see what we can do for you too.  Contact Us