Maintenance Tasks for Your Manufactured Home

Just like any traditional home, your manufactured home requires routine maintenance and upkeep to ensure that it stays in the best condition possible. Good maintenance is the best way to keep the value of the home high to build equity for the future. It also helps ensure the safety and comfort of the home year-round.

Important tasks for home maintenance isn’t necessarily done every day nor monthly, they only need to be done once a year and others do it only twice. These task may take a little of our time each year, however, the comfort and quality it brings to your home is all worth it. If these tasks aren’t completed each year, the lack of maintenance on your home can build up and result in frustrating and expensive issues in the future.

Here are some of the helpful maintenance tasks in taking care of your Manufactured home. If these tasks are addressed; it will surely help you maintain its value over time.

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, especially 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 semi-regular basis to account for 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.

A cracked foundation or unleveled home can cause a whole host of other problems if not taken care of, such as doors and windows that won’t shut or seal properly, leaks or cracks in the walls, and drafts of air and humidity entering the home. Stress on one small part of the home structure can impact the entire home, causing it to age quicker and 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. In more permanent foundations such as crawl spaces, slab foundations, or basement foundations, visible cracking, sagging or shifting is usually the biggest indicator of damage.

Take Care of the Skirting Around Your Home

One of the ways that manufactured homes differ from traditional on-site homes is that they are open underneath. Because of this feature, skirting has to be installed around the manufactured home to protect the plumbing, heating, and electrical systems that have been installed under the house. Maintaining the skirting around your manufactured home can also help discourage small animals from making their home under yours. Keeping pests out from underneath your manufactured home is important as they are known for damaging electrical and plumbing lines.

Maintaining the Roof

Check regularly, at least twice a year, to make sure there is no debris and no broken or missing shingles on the roof. You’ll also want to look over the flashing to make sure it is in good condition, and ensure there aren’t any cracks or soft spots in the roof caulking. Any imperfections or weaknesses in the roof could lead to moisture, air, and other problematic elements or even vermin getting into the roof cavity of the home.

Keep Your Home Clean

An easy but important step in caring for your manufactured home is to simply make sure that you keep it clean, both inside and outside. Try to limit the amount of dirt and debris that piles up around your home because debris can collect large amounts of moisture over time that can lead to significant water damage. Regularly take the time to clear the leaves, mud, and other waste from around your home to ensure that it stays looking clean and beautiful.

Check Your Utility Bills

If you find the amount of money that you’re paying every month for your manufactured home has increased, that might be a sign that something is wrong with the heating or cooling system. It is a good idea to perform regular maintenance on the heating and cooling systems in your home to ensure that they are working at their top condition and to reduce the amount of money you are spending on your utility bill.

Keep Your Owner’s Manual

The owner’s manual that came with your manufactured home can contain all of the information necessary in caring for your manufactured home. It will have all of the inside information on how the different systems work and ways to troubleshoot certain issues as they arise. It might also help you come up with a checklist of features to routinely check and maintain. So if you still have your owner’s manual lying around, keep it, because you never know how it might help you with maintenance on your home in the future.

Manufactured homes have the potential to be long-lasting and durable. Maintaining it isn’t always enjoyable or exciting, but it is an important responsibility as an owner or renter of a manufactured home.

It’s a good idea to protect your investment with an adequate insurance policy. Protect your Manufactured home now and contact or email Onyx Insurance Brokers. We are very willing to assist you.