How often do things break on your property?

OnlyOneKenobi

OnlyOneKenobi

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We've been living in this house for a few years now (first we've ever owned), and I'm just curious - how often does everyone else experience random things breaking down?
I've determined that the house isn't particularly old, but perhaps not maintained very well. A few shortcuts were certainly taken with regards to extensions that were made to the house, but It doesn't look run down or neglected at face value. Over the course of a typical year, it seems to be luck of the draw that one thing breaks, I fix it and then the next thing goes, then I fix that... a nice game of whack-a-mole, it seems. In the total time we've lived here, It's been all types of components from garage doors to gate motors to sliding doors, carpeting, tiling, plumbing issues, roofs and ceilings and so on.
Some would say it's normal wear and tear, but I don't remember so many things breaking down so often in any of the houses we lived in during my childhood or any of the properties where I was renting later in life.
 
Guest toilet every two months.
 
I would say 1 thing every 6 months.

There is 1 big thing I fear is the electricity in my house. When you go to the DB board and switch all light switches off, half my lights still stay on. Same with plugs and their respective switches. One day that is going to break.

Harmonic said:
Just curious, would you apply the same logic to the doctor treating your illness, or engineer verifying the safety of your home?
Click to expand...
 
Define breaking down, do you mean things like appliances or rather e.g. Crack in the wall or mold?

Here in the last year and a bit, two light bulbs I was too lazy to swap out that I eventually did as they were halogen but in rooms I didn't use (storage closet, basement srorage), else nothing.

In South Africa, within the last 5 years, fridge that was 15 years old, motherboard on a PC (ended up replacing the mobo and cpu), and some mold issues so redid the shower.

I remember growing up having issues with things like toasters, think we went through 4 of them in the span of a year before we got one that's basically lasted about 18 years now.

Kettle similar, about ten years ago that one broke, then swapped it twice in the span of a year before having one that's probably around 6 years old now.

TV is still the same as 11 years ago, was a flagship at the time, and since content is still all 1080p generally and viewing distance is far enough to not notice and brightness is good, that will swap when it dies.

So no, stuff doesn't really break that much, but there is a lot of preventative stuff done for the house itself (e.g. Swap all the lights to led, painting walls and filling cracks every second year about, actively swapping old wooden window frames since they started to warp at 30 years, hinges for all cupboards and doors oiled, etc.).

A house is work, you can neglect it for a while, but then the issues will pile up and often be more difficult to fix.
 
It is important to distinguish between maintenance and repairs.
Repairs are generally carried out when something has already broken, often it is the failure of something small, which resulted in something bigger failing. Or neglected maintenance.
Maintenance is something that you do to prevent things from breaking down in the first place. It's usually a cost effective exercise, and sometimes it could just involve opening something up, cleaning it, and inspecting it for wear. This is then an opportunity to identify something small that might need replacing, or to budget for an imminent repair. Or it could be simply painting a wall every two years instead of waiting 4 years for the paint to peel off.
 
Johnatan56 said:
Define breaking down, do you mean things like appliances or rather e.g. Crack in the wall or mold?
Click to expand...
The latter, but sometimes it happens that appliances and gadgets want in on the breakdown party ;)

*looks angrily at fridge*
 
It helps a lot if you're a handyman type and know one end of a screwdriver from the other.

Only time in 25 years in this house I've ever had guys in was a gas guy to install the gas system for hot water and stove, and at the same time an electrician to move and replace and reconfigure the DB for Gas certificate requirements. I did all the prep work for that: tracing and labelling all my circuits, running new conduit with wiring to supply an outbuilding so the sparky only had to inspect and connect, cutting holes in the wall for the new DB, running wires through the wall for new plugs in the kitchen.

We have bad limescale issues with our water so tap washers, shower roses and toilet cisterns need the occasional cleanout.

If you stay on top of maintenance items you shouldn't ever have any dramas.
One thing I am paranoid about, though: that bloody washing machine hose, from the tap into the machine. That gets replaced every couple of years now after having two of them fail and flood the place. They would be about the only 'breakdowns' I can think of in 25 years.
 
Feels like all the damn time. We moved in in October last year. I've had to replace like 4 LED lights (as in, light units, not light bulbs), 1 extractor fan in the bathroom died last week, the other sounds like it is on its way out.

Had to fix blocked drain pipes, and currently trying to figure out where the leak on my shower's drain pipes are, because apparently that's also a thing.

Had to repair the JoJo tank tap (my own fault, but it broke due to brittle plastic) as well as the heating element in the jacuzzi.

One garage door and motor was broken, new motor but the door is still not working correctly, need to find the money to get someone to come look at it since the motor installers basically gave up after a month of not getting it right,

Leaky roof in a couple of places that also needed fixing.
 
Grouter said:
that bloody washing machine hose, from the tap into the machine. That gets replaced every couple of years now after having two of them fail and flood the place.
Click to expand...
Indeed, a PITA, and often overlooked. Once again, a small thing that could be inspected when moving the machine to whip the covers off. Inspect and check belt tightness, remove spiderwebs, clean dust and try to spot bulging / leaky capacitors. Also perhaps a chance to find mates for all of those socks that came out without any.
 
Hellhound105 said:
I would say 1 thing every 6 months.

There is 1 big thing I fear is the electricity in my house. When you go to the DB board and switch all light switches off, half my lights still stay on. Same with plugs and their respective switches. One day that is going to break.
Click to expand...
How did the CoC pass? :ROFL:
 
Luckily, not much this year yet. Last year was a whole different story
 
Had it very, maybe once a week, last month. Ramped up very quickly once they knew ther e was were nice stuff to grab. Most people felt save on the property hardly locked the cars, including my self so everything was easy pickings.

Landlord stepped up security, now have double eletric fencing(which still got over btw) and now added bard wires, so the place basically look like a prison. No issues after installing barb wire.
 
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