Before you make plans for an exterior home repair or an interior one, you’ll need to assess what types of repairs would make the most sense for your goals as a homeowner. Although you might be a seasoned homeowner who knows everything that you need to facilitate home repairs, it never hurts to go back to the basics and pick up some suggestions that you might not have thought about before. While we can’t give you advice for your specific situation, we can give some tips that would benefit any homeowner who is considering calling contractors to help with a repair or attempting to do a repair as a DIY project.

Check Septic Tank

Your septic tank is a crucial part of your home. After all, it filters out the waste that could be toxic to you and your loved ones. It also properly processes that waste so it doesn’t seep out into your community and create health issues for you. When your septic tank is broken, it can cause issues for your family, your guests, and your community as a whole. A faulty septic tank not only puts you at risk, but it can also lead to damage to your property that is difficult to fix. When you’re planning on selling your home at some point, having a septic tank that functions properly is a must-have.

While it’s easy to forget about maintaining your septic tank when you don’t see it every day, you should regularly schedule a septic repair or inspection as needed. Most septic professionals recommend calling your septic repairs company once a year at least to schedule an inspection. If your team of septic contractors determines that you need to include fixing your septic tank on your list of exterior home repair projects, you should listen to them. Even if it’s expensive, it will be less costly than losing your home due to hazardous waste flooding the area or missing out on a potential buyer purchasing the home because of septic concerns.

Install a Fence

For many folks, having some semblance of privacy in your own home can be a priority. Whether you have young children playing outside that you want to protect from the eyes of strangers or you have a dog that you need to keep inside your yard while he or she plays outside, calling a fence installer to discuss your options is a wise idea. Sometimes, you may be able to install your own fence if you have access to the right materials and knowledge. For those who worked in the fencing industry, it would be more realistic to expect yourself to be able to complete this exterior home repair. Unfortunately, if you don’t know the first thing about installing fences, you might end up doing more harm than good if you try to create a fence on your own.

When you’re debating what type of fence you should buy, there are a few different materials that would be good to consider. For those who love the idea of a classic white picket fence, you could choose a wooden fence that’s been painted white to fulfill your fantasies of that suburban fairytale. If you need a fence that doesn’t limit your visibility to the outside world, you can get a metal fence with chain materials. You can also opt for hedges if the idea of a fence feels too sterile to you. If you decide to get a set of hedges instead of a traditional fence, your local landscapers might have a better idea of how to help you than your average fencing company.

For dog owners, having an invisible fence can be the most practical solution. These kinds of fences will keep your pup contained without an unsightly demarcation in your yard or an obstruction of your view of the road near your home. To determine whether you would be a good fit for this kind of fence, you’ll need to contact companies that specialize in this sort of fence.

Exterminate Pests

Nothing gets in the way of your home repairs like a pest problem. Whether you keep finding mice droppings in your kitchen drawers or you notice a cockroach problem developing in your home, you’ll want to call a qualified animal exterminator to handle the issue. While there may be some steps you can take to reduce pests in your home, the truth is that some of the DIY pest control suggestions on the internet might not be safe for you to use. Without proper training, it’s all too easy to hurt the pests while also hurting yourself with unsafe chemical combinations or makeshift traps. If you have small children or pets at home, you’ll want to make a plan for how you will keep them away from any hazards associated with exterminating pests.

While the inside of your home is being subjected to pest control, you can complete other tasks on your to-do list that don’t interfere with it like an exterior home repair. If your exterminator wants you to go somewhere else like a hotel until the pest control measures are done, you should listen to this advice. Although it can be inconvenient to lose ground in your home repairs or feel like you’re wasting money on hotels, it’s ultimately for your own good.

Once the pests in your home have been exterminated, you should ask your pest control team what you can do to prevent the problem from happening again. Making sure that you properly store and dispose of food can play a huge role in preventing a pest problem. Additionally, it’s a good idea to make sure that your home is properly insulated so that pests have a harder time finding their way to your home.

Clean Drains

Before you complete other parts of your exterior home repair to-do list, we would recommend clearing out your drains. If you put off calling a drain cleaning company until you’re done with other projects, you might find that waste from the drains and other unpleasant substances might ruin other aspects of your home repairs like an exterior paint job. Once your drains are clean and clear, it will be easier to drain other fluids that may build up as a result of completing home repairs in areas of the home that are connected to the drains. While you’re clearing out your drains, you can also clean out gutters and other areas where debris collects for a fresh start in your home.

New Driveway

The part of your home’s exterior that gets the most use over the course of a year might be your driveway. Whether you have a gravel driveway or your driveway is paved with concrete, there may come a time when you need to tear it up for replacement. Although this exterior home repair can take a lot of time and money to complete, it will feel worthwhile when you pull into a fresh driveway for the first time.

When you have an asphalt or concrete driveway, you shouldn’t attempt to do this job on your own. Instead, it’s a good idea to call a concrete company and ask them for a quote. Once you know how much a new driveway would cost, you can budget for it. Depending on the terms of your home insurance and the reason why you’re replacing your driveway, you may be able to get some help with covering some or all of the costs associated with this project. Even if your home insurance can’t help you pay for it, you might be able to take out a loan for this repair to make it more manageable on a financial level.

Install CCTV

The best repair you can do for your home involves protecting your family from thieves, robbers, and other threats with a CCTV installation. While this exterior home repair might not seem intuitive at first, you should know that protecting your family with a security system might be a good idea in this day and age. Since you never know what threats may confront your household, it’s always better to have a security system or plan in place to protect them before something happens than wait for tragedy to strike to amend your blind spots.

To keep your family safe, there are plenty of options for security cameras nowadays. You can either order a few security cameras off of the internet and install them yourself or you can get a company that specializes in residential security solutions to help you. For those who don’t need a lot of security cameras, a few cheap or moderate ones might be sufficient. Still, you sometimes get what you pay for with security measures, so you shouldn’t choose the least expensive one on the market if it doesn’t get decent reviews.

When you call a security solutions company, it can be helpful to have a list of questions and needs prepared before you speak with them. This will save them time while saving you the hassle of coming up with your security goals on the spot. They might also have security options that fit everything you want if you approach them from a place of being organized. Even if you don’t know the first thing about home security, you can always ask plenty of questions and try one security system to start. If that doesn’t work for you, you can upgrade to another system that offers more security or you can choose a security system that is less intensive if your current one is too much for you.

Check Plumbing

Since the pipes in your home lead to outside, you could count plumbing projects as exterior home repair. When you need a sewer and drain service, you should schedule it as soon as you notice a problem coming up. Plumbers can be in high demand in certain areas. During the winter when some people suffer through their pipes bursting, it can be a nightmare to try to get your plumbing project completed immediately if you can wait for it to get done.

Still, if you sense that your plumbing problem is urgent, you might be able to contact a plumber who specializes in emergency help. Even if you can’t get an appointment right away with one plumber, they may be able to refer you to someone who can get the job done in a shorter timeframe than they could. Overall, this is better than trying to do it yourself and ending up with a more severe plumbing problem as a result.

Install New HVAC

You don’t just need to call HVAC services to inspect your HVAC system. They can also perform an exterior home repair and install a new system. This might be the best option if your system is outdated.

Check Furnace

To heat your home properly, you may need to schedule a furnace repair. When it’s too cold outside to do an exterior home repair, you can fix things inside the home. Still, you don’t want to wait until the temperatures drop below zero to repair a furnace.

New Windows

For those who are interested in window tinting, it’s wise to call in the professionals for this job. While you could try to do this exterior home repair on your own, it’s best to have people who know what they’re doing get it done. If you’ve replaced windows before, you might be able to get away with doing it yourself. As with any home improvement project, you should make sure you have support if something goes wrong with it.

Sometimes, the best tip we can give to someone who wants to make an exterior home repair is to take stock of one’s priorities. If the most important thing in your family’s home repair budget is replacing a roof or addressing another structural issue, you may need to hold off on cosmetic repairs. What’s more, it’s a good idea to ask contractors when they’ll be able to complete certain projects. If a construction company can’t guarantee that they’ll be able to squeeze you into their schedule for months, you might want to hold off on completing the repairs for which they’d be responsible and put other repairs that you can do yourself first.