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Manufactured Home Maintenance
Annually maintaining your manufactured home is a good way to protect your investment! Summertime is a great time for getting the outside work done around the home. Maintaining your manufactured home is important for many reasons (such as pride in ownership, lower costs in the long run, etc.). Two other important reasons come to mind:
- Keep your home value up -Home maintenance helps keep the value of the home high to build equity for the future. Great-grandma used to say, a stitch in time, saves nine!
- Safeguard yourself and your family -Keeping your home in good shape also helps ensure the safety and comfort of your home year-round.
Maintenance isn’t always enjoyable or exciting, but it is an important responsibility as an owner (or even renter) of a manufactured home.
Important Tasks
These are important tasks for manufactured home maintenance but many only need to be done once a year. They do take a little of your time each year. But! They go a long way toward preserving the comfort and quality of your home for years to come. Why do this? Because the lack of maintenance on your home builds up, resulting in more costly issues down the road. Avoid frustration and expense. This helpful annual Manufactured Home Maintenance Checklist includes 7 items to review every year. Address these areas annually and you’re on the path of long-term happy home ownership.
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Annual Home Maintenance Checklist
What are the 7 outdoor items you should check and maintain yearly on your manufactured home?
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Foundation
Make sure the home structure is solid and level.
Check your foundation or support structure for any cracks or imbalances caused by potential settling. This is one of the most important items to check each year. It’s especially important for the first few years of the home in a new location. Just like site-built homes, mobile homes can start to sink and settle over time. A manufactured home should be releveled on a regular basis to correct any shifting. Homes with more complicated or permanent foundations should be checked professionally at least once a year for the first few years to ensure that settling or shifting hasn’t occurred.1
Why be concerned about the foundation? A cracked foundation or unlevel home can cause a whole host of other problems if not tackled. Like what, you ask? Doors and windows start not shutting or sealing properly. Leaks or cracks in the walls start appearing. Drafts of air or humidity begin entering the home. Stress on one small part of the home structure can impact your entire home. It can cause it to age quicker (potentially even leading to warping or bowing). You can check to see if your home is level using a standard carpenter level or water level. Visually inspect more permanent foundations such as crawl spaces, slab foundations, or basement foundations. You’re checking for the biggest indicators of damage: visible cracking, sagging or shifting.
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Skirting
Look for holes, avoid excess moisture.
The skirting around the bottom of your manufactured home helps keep unwanted moisture from getting into your home from underneath. It’s the perimeter enclosure. Check it regularly because you want to make sure there are no holes, cracks or damage. damage of your solid skirting could allow moisture to get in (or even rodents)!
While you don’t want the solid portion of your skirting damaged, you still want to make sure it’s properly ventilated. Rule of thumb: good skirting ventilation involves having approximately one square foot of venting for every 150 square feet of space under the home. Proper ventilation helps avoid the collection of too much moisture beneath the home. Too much moisture in the home leads to problems with too much humidity and difficulty regulating temperature. Too much moisture under the home, whether from holes in the skirting or from lack of ventilation, leads to issues with foundation and flooring.
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Roof
Check for damage, reseal or recoat.
Check your roof regularly (twice a year at least) to make sure there is no debris and no broken or missing shingles on the roof. Look over the flashing to make sure it’s in good condition (helps ensure there aren’t any cracks or soft spots in the roof caulking). Imperfections or weaknesses in the roof lead to moisture, air, and other problematic elements (or even critters) getting into the roof cavity of the home.
[Flashing: thin piece of waterproof material, typically metal, installed around areas where the roof meets other surfaces like walls, chimneys, or vents.]
Resealing or recoating the roof of your manufactured home every year is a good idea – especially for flat roof manufactured homes. The roof coating is essential to keeping your indoor temperature regulated and keeping your home dry. The type of coating you need depends on the type of roof or roof cap installed on your home; be sure you are using the right coating for your specific roof material.
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Gutters
Clean them out regularly.
Checking and cleaning your gutters frequently is one of the easiest ways to prevent damage to the roof and exterior of your manufactured home. Clogged gutters can cause leaks and water damage to the home. If ignored for too long, clogged cutters can become heavy with debris and break or fall off the house which causes even more damage to the home and property. For those living in areas where rain or snowfall or common, check and clean at least twice every year, ideally once in the spring and once just before winter.
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Siding
Clean it, don’t ignore it.
Clean your siding regularly to avoid mold and mildew growing on the exterior paneling. Siding is one of the most commonly ignored parts of a manufactured home. However, it should definitely be on your list of items to address each year. If your home has vinyl siding, the most common type of siding, water with detergent is a very effective cleaning solution. There are also many different special cleaning products designed to cut through mold, mildew and rust on the exterior of a home.
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Window and Vent Caulking
Review, reseal, and repeat.
Check the caulking around your windows and vents is always a good idea, especially before the winter months. Extreme temperature changes cause caulking to shrink, split or break down, which can result in cracks, gaps, or warping in the seals that protect your home’s indoor climate. When airflow enters through damaged seals around windows or vents, your home is less comfortable, plus heating/cooling demands increase (which means you pay more).
Pro tip: Many people think to check their window seals before wintertime but often forget about other seals around vents, ducts, and other systems that are sealed from outside exposure with caulking or sealant. Check these seals once a year too. This helps keep unwanted air and moisture out to keep your energy bills lower and make your home more comfortable all year long.
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Heating and HVAC Systems
Clean your filters frequently, vacuum annually.
Clean out your air ventilation and heating systems filters frequently (at least every 3 months) to improve the air flow and quality in your manufactured home. It’s a good idea to fully vacuum out these air systems periodically also. This type of maintenance helps the heating, cooling and HVAC systems last longer which saves money in the long run.
Indoor Smart Cleaning Tip: Use gentile products and solutions.
Wipe walls, surfaces and fixtures with a gentle detergent annually. Regardless of how frequently you’re cleaning indoors, it’s important to remember to not use harsh chemicals. Using abrasive cleaning products or harsh chemicals can actually cause certain items in the home to appear yellowed, faded, or discolored. Avoid using abrasive solutions like pure bleach in the house whenever possible, especially on fiberglass fixtures like sinks, tubs and showers. Down the road, it makes them appear older than they really are.
Home Maintenance Pro Tip: Watch out for warranties with maintenance requirements.
Buyer beware: some warranty programs may list specific maintenance or cleaning requirements that you must complete for the warranty to stay valid. For example, certain carpet manufacturers require professional carpet cleaning at least once a year to keep the warranty in effect. Failure to do so voids the warranty. Knowing this, review the warranties on your home, appliances, heating/cooling systems, carpet and furniture noting any requirements to uphold the warranty. Keep the receipts!
Maintain your Manufactured Home for peace of mind
Manufactured home maintenance may seem like a lot. It can help to keep in mind that site-built homes require even more expensive cleaning and maintenance to stay nice. It is worth completing things each year in order to avoid potential bigger problems in the future. Plus, you’ll feel good knowing your home is in the best shape it can be. Creating a simple calendar that lays out maintenance tasks for the year ahead can be a great way to get organized and make sure you don’t miss out on these important annual activities. Take these simple steps to avoid costly repairs and stressful damage in the future. Help keep your family comfortable and your home happy.
Sources:
- Manufactured Homes Installation and Setup (by mobilehomeliving.org)
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