If you're a homeowner, then you know that the old adage "bad things happen in threes" is true. You wake up one morning and open your dishwasher. Although you started a wash cycle before you headed to bed last night, your dishes are still dirty. Later that morning, you toss a load of laundry in your washing machine and hit the start button. Ten minutes later, you're frightened out of your wits by a loud knocking noise. It's your washing machine, doing the laundry day boogie across the floor. You shut off the machine with your clothes still sopping wet. But that's not all. A couple of days later, in the midst of a hot summer afternoon, your freezer quits. Anyone who's survived a freezer outage in the summertime has an intimate knowledge of what spoiled meat smells like. It's a smell you won't soon forget, although you'd love to. You're faced with the chore of cooking as many thawing entrees as you can, or tossing them - and your hard-earned money - away.

Welcome to the wonderful world of homeownership. And yes, although such scenarios can and do happen to apartment renters, when disaster strikes, those folks need merely pick up the phone and call maintenance. In your case, it's your financial responsibility, which is tough transition for us first-time homeowners to accept.

Not all home catastrophes are this pressing, of course. Some are merely aesthetic in nature - for example, peeling paint on your French doors. Some are very important but not potentially catastrophic, such as a drafty window. When money doesn't allow you to address everything at once that needs repair, how do you decide what to repair first? Just as you prioritized your wish list of home improvements, you'll need to do the same with your home repairs. What must be fixed now, and what can wait? First of all, you can probably avoid this dilemma altogether if you tend to the ongoing maintenance needs of your home on a regular, seasonal basis. That includes such projects as having your chimneys cleaned and clearing your air conditioning unit of excess twigs, leaves and branches. But sometimes, even the most careful homeowners are faced with multiple repairs. And sometimes it's not a matter if what's most pressing; it's a matter of what's most expensive. Your budget tells you what comes now and what must wait until later.

At the same time, however, you'll need to run down a list of questions to determine if your problem is of such consequence that immediate action isn't an option, but rather a necessity. The first question you must answer is if the area of your home in need of repair is placing you and your family's safety at risk. The answer is "yes" not just to obvious problems like high readings on your carbon monoxide detector. It's also yes when the lock on your sliding glass door breaks, allowing the door to be shoved open with relative ease. Or when electrical outlets are broken or damaged. Or when the padlock on the backyard gate is missing. Or when the fence begins to lean slightly. These are all problems that demand your immediate attention.

You'll also need to consider if the source of the problem is isolated, or if it involves a larger system or area; for example, a crack in your foundation, leaky pipes, electric sockets that don't work in one room, an air conditioner that seems to work hard but leave you and your home overheated, or a roof that seems to leak in various spots throughout your home on a frequent basis. You can't ignore your foundation; its integrity is vital to your home's health. And although you might be tempted to ignore that constantly running air conditioner, you're wasting a considerable amount money on electricity without enjoying the benefits. In this case, it's a quality of life issue, too, if the temperature of your home is uncomfortable.

Another important question to ask yourself: Are you either experiencing water damage, or do you have reason to believe you could be risking water damage? Cracks in your foundation and brown spots on the ceiling are dead giveways of either hidden damage or the potential for further water damage. If you suspect this could be a problem, the time to respond - in other words, call a professional to survey your home - is now. The longer you wait, the more damage the water could cause your home, and the more expensive the consequences.

A drafty window may not bother you at first; after all, you can just put on a sweater and forget about it ... until your heating bill arrives, that is. A drafty window or door (a very common household problem which is easily and typically inexpensive to repair) is more pressing than you might think because it's forcing your home heating system to work longer and harder to compensate for cold-air entry. Merely caulking around your doors and windows could produce significant bottom-line savings for you.

So which repairs are considered aesthetic? It's ironic that these less vital repairs are the ones that command our attention as homeowners. They're usually the ones we can see - the ones that "bother" us and call for our attention now. But if you're on a limited budget, you'll want to place on the back burner such projects as a chipped doorframe (unless it's an exterior doorframe), a scratched or burned countertop, a coil on your stove that stops working, or sheetrock in your skylight that's beginning to exhibit the first signs of peeling. These projects are important, to be sure, but when you're attempting to prioritize your home repairs, you'll want to keep these jobs at the bottom of your list - for the time being, at least.

It's easy to put off vitally important home repairs when the problem isn't constantly staring us in the face (for example, a crack in your home's foundation). We don't witness the consequences immediately, and so it's easy to procrastinate calling a professional and spending the money to rectify the problem. But putting such repairs off can be costly not only because they compound with time, but also in the sense that such problems as leaning fences, roof leaks and electrical shortages could in fact be indicative of serious safety issues. Repairs never come at a good time. So after resigning yourself to that fact of life, create your priority list and open your wallet now ... reminding yourself that you're probably saving money in the long run by addressing the problems now.

Published: September 20, 2000

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