In Windsor, Ontario, buying a home can be a tremendously exciting time, and there is nothing more exhilarating than finding the perfect home. Perhaps it’s in the perfect neighbourhood or has that kitchen you’ve always dreamed of. So you’ve found the perfect home, and you’re ready to buy it. But, on the other hand, perhaps you’re looking to buy a fixer-upper, save yourself some money, and build your blank canvas into your dream home. Unfortunately, when you are a quick house buyer because you want the house so bad, it doesn’t guarantee the house will be a quick fixer. So to make your life easy and to keep you from being an anxious waiting quick house buyer, here are some tips to help you fix your future home!
Beware of Hazards
While buying a fixer-upper can be a great idea from a financial perspective, some hidden health dangers could be lurking inside your newly purchased home. Many older homes are filled with structural, electrical, plumbing, or air quality problems that can be lurking behind the walls. Any hazards mean you might need to call a contractor or a handy home fixer in Windsor. Luckily a home fixer in Windsor is not hard to come by so you’ll have many people to choose from.
Just because you’ve watched several home renovation shows and are handy with a hammer doesn’t mean you’re going to be fully prepared to deal with some of the complex issues that could be hidden beneath the surface.
Update the Electrical System if Needed
Home renovations for the kind of people who like buying fixer-uppers are exciting and fun. But there are some less glamorous parts to home renovations that you certainly don’t want to overlook.
Ensuring that your home’s electrical, heating, cooling, and ventilation systems are all up to code can seem mundane, and even worse, expensive. However, failure to do so can have severe implications.
Electrical fires alone account for billions of dollars in damages, countless deaths and are almost always preventable if standards are followed. So while we understand that there is a tremendous cost with fixing up a home, remember today’s shortcut and savings could cost you your home. Codes are there to protect you, not merely for the hassle.
Plumbing Issues
While nowhere near as lethal as an electrical system issue, old plumbing is still a potential headache for you down the road. Lead-lined pipes, expensive leaks that can be highly destructive if they’re not caught early, and the build-up of harmful gases are just a few of the issues that can crop up from an older home.
One of the ways to protect yourself from the pitfalls of an older home that might seem perfect as a fixer-upper is to have a home inspection done. A home inspection is the proverbial look under the hood of a home and will give you an accurate lay of the land. In addition, this will help you to understand where potential problem areas might be.
A potential problem that many first-time homebuyers encounter when buying a home that’s been vacant for a while with the utilities turned off is cracked pipes, burst toilets, and shattered drains. When purchasing an older home, you need to plan for contingencies like updates to plumbing and other integral home systems that you may not have thought about prior.
All of this being said, these potential problems shouldn’t dissuade you from buying a fixer-upper. On the contrary, these are issues that can be dealt with and become nothing more than additional projects in your list of things to do when fixing up your new home. But planning goes a long way towards making your dream home a reality.
In other words, fixer-uppers don’t need to be avoided, merely planned for.