13 Home Maintenance Tasks You Can Do in Just Five Minutes
Beyond paying your mortgage, owning a home comes with a host of other responsibilities, from keeping it clean and presentable to maintaining all the infrastructure that makes it livable and safe. It can all be overwhelming : According to one survey, 68% of homeowners feel seriously stressed about home maintenance tasks.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. One of the reasons house cleaning feels like such a dreaded chore is because most of us approach it, assuming that the only way to “get it done” is to dedicate an entire weekend (or more) to a massive project. This approach turns house cleaning into something to be avoided, a weekend-ruining nightmare. There’s a much better approach: Instead of putting it off and dedicating entire days or weeks to cleaning your house, do it for just five minutes every day.
Quick checks
First, a word of warning: Some home maintenance jobs take much longer than five minutes. Five minutes is not enough time to recaulk your bathtub or stain your deck.
But by spending five minutes a day on home maintenance, you can accomplish a number of small but important tasks that will reduce the frequency of bigger problems. Small repairs can prevent major problems, and regular maintenance of appliances and HVAC systems will prevent breakdowns and extend their life.
The secret is to set aside five minutes each day to clean your home, and start with a five-minute home assessment . Walk around your home and take note of anything that needs attention: loose items, stains, scratches, things that no longer work or don’t work properly. Occasionally, use those five minutes to inspect specific areas—the roof, the basement/crawl space, the yard—that need more attention. Doing a quick inspection when you have nothing to do will help you spot small problems early, rather than discovering much bigger problems weeks or months later.
Five minute solutions
If a five-minute inspection reveals a problem, fix it tomorrow in five minutes. Here’s a list of home maintenance tasks that take just a few minutes but have a huge impact on the health of your home and the frequency of larger repairs and maintenance:
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Tighten the screws on your cabinet doors. Kitchen and bathroom cabinet doors are frequently opened and closed. The constant opening and closing can loosen the screws on the hinges, which can affect their functionality. In five minutes, you can inspect the hinges on your cabinets and tighten any loose screws you find. Suddenly, your doors won’t open on their own or they rub against each other when they close, which will reduce wear and tear and extend their life.
You can also tighten loose door hinges by standing with a screwdriver in your hand.
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Repairing Dents in Walls. If you have a dent or small hole in your drywall, it’s very easy to fix with a repair kit that you can buy at most hardware stores. Of course, the entire repair will take more than five minutes, but it can be broken down into two five-minute steps. First, apply the patch and apply spackling compound as directed. The next day, lightly sand it. Finally, paint the patch. Five minutes a day for three days, and the hole will be gone.
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Touch-up. Painting an entire room is a big project, but covering up a small scratch or repair only takes a few minutes, unless you need to trim around trim or other obstacles. If you have a section in the middle of a wall that needs touch-up, this is the perfect five-minute fix.
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Cleanliness of household appliances. Maintaining the serviceability of various devices is the key to success, because replacing them is an expensive matter. Cleaning the heat exchangers of the dishwasher , washing machine , dryer and refrigerator takes only a few minutes, and this will significantly extend their service life.
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Clean/Replace Filters: Many things in your home have filters , and replacing/cleaning them only takes a few minutes. Do this once a day for a week, and your home will smell better, the air will be better, and everything will last a little longer.
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Lubricate the windows. If your windows are a little sticky, don’t just wait for them to become stiff over time. Lubricating the tracks will loosen them up and keep them running like new.
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Seal the wallpaper seams. If you have wallpaper with loose seams, ignoring it will lead to what scientists call a “wallpaper failure.” To prevent this, grab a bottle of seam adhesive and apply it—just a few minutes and your wallpaper will be as good as new again.
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Unclog your drains. Waiting for dirty, gray water to gush out of your drain isn’t the answer (but it is a way to raise the bar for an expensive plumber’s visit). A drain cleaning kit can clear a clog in minutes, long before it gets so bad that it causes damage.
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Bleach Ceiling Stains. If you have a small leak that has left a stain on your ceiling, you may look at it every day and imagine how much work it will take to fix it. But it can be fixed in just a few minutes. Mix one part bleach with five parts water in a spray bottle, pour it on the stain , blot, and repeat. If you don’t want to go through that much effort, you can buy a can of “Up Shot” sealant , which will do a great job of covering up stains on a white ceiling in about two minutes.
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Clean the aerator. There’s a round device called an aerator at the end of your faucet. It mixes water with air, creating a smoother stream (and reducing flow). Over time, the aerator can easily become clogged, limiting the flow of water (or causing it to flow unpredictably). Cleaning it only takes a few minutes during the day. Simply unscrew it (often by hand, but you may need pliers), soak it in vinegar overnight, scrub it lightly with a toothbrush in the morning, rinse, and replace it.
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Replace the weatherstripping. The weatherstripping is the seal around the entire perimeter of the doorway that provides a tight seal when the door is closed, preventing drafts and cold/warm air loss. Like everything else, it needs to be replaced periodically (especially if it’s visibly worn). The job can take as little as five minutes, as you can see here .
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Remove mold and mildew. If your bathroom caulk has become a breeding ground for mold and mildew, replacing it can be a daunting task. But you can clean it in just a few minutes with this product. Apply the product after a few minutes, let it sit on the caulk for a few hours, and then go back and wipe it off with a damp sponge.
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Perform inspections. If there are no other items on your five-minute fix list, check something. Sump pumps, alarms, rarely used outlets—checking everything in your home properly takes just a few minutes and can tip you off to bigger problems that may be brewing right under your nose.