10 Things I Wish Someone Told Me
When I Bought My House

Your home has 4 critical shutoffs: main water valve, main gas valve, main electrical panel, and individual shutoff valves at every toilet and sink. Find them all this weekend. Walk every family member through them.

Main water valve is usually in the basement, crawl space, utility room, or outside near the water meter. It turns clockwise to close. Know where it is right now — not when water is spraying.

A clogged air filter makes your HVAC system work harder, drives up energy bills, reduces air quality, and can cause the furnace to overheat and shut down. It's the most neglected maintenance task in most homes.

Buy 4 filters right now. Write the replacement dates on each one. Put a reminder in your phone. Do it quarterly. That's it — seriously.

Spring: Inspect roof, clean gutters, check AC, fertilize lawn, caulk windows and doors.

Summer: Check exterior paint, seal driveway cracks, service AC, trim trees away from house.

Fall: Winterize outdoor faucets, clean gutters (again), reverse ceiling fans, check furnace, mulch garden beds.

Winter: Know your pipe freeze risk, keep cabinet doors under sinks open on cold nights, have a plan for ice dams on the roof.

Anywhere water meets a surface joint — bathtub, shower, kitchen sink, window frames, door frames, exterior trim — caulk is what keeps water where it belongs. Most homeowners never check it.

Walk your home twice a year and look for caulk that's cracked, peeling, moldy or pulling away from the surface. Re-caulking takes 30 minutes and costs under $10. Water damage from a failed caulk joint can cost thousands.

• Bathroom = 100% silicone (white or clear)
• Kitchen = silicone or tub & tile caulk
• Windows & exterior = paintable latex caulk

Most home repairs don't require specialty tools. This kit handles 90% of what comes up in the first 5 years of homeownership. Buy quality once — cheap tools break at the worst moment.

Your electrical panel is a box of breakers (switches) that control power to each circuit in your home. When a breaker trips, it automatically goes to the middle "tripped" position — not fully on or fully off. You reset it by pushing it to OFF, then back to ON.

Label every breaker. Spend 30 minutes flipping each breaker off and walking through the house to see what loses power. Write it on masking tape inside the panel door. This map is invaluable during repairs or emergencies.

The vast majority of expensive home repairs trace back to water getting somewhere it shouldn't. Mold, rot, foundation damage, peeling paint, ceiling stains — all water. Your job as a homeowner is to be water's adversary.

Walk your home after heavy rain and look for wet spots, stains, or musty smells in the basement or crawl space. Check around windows and doors for interior condensation or staining. Check under sinks monthly. These small checks catch problems early — before they become expensive.

• Keep gutters clear (water overflows and runs down siding to foundation)
• Grade soil away from foundation (6" drop over 6 feet minimum)
• Check roof flashing around chimney, vents, and valleys yearly
• Know where every shutoff valve is (see Lesson 1)

Gutters channel thousands of gallons of roof runoff away from your foundation. Clogged gutters overflow and pour that water right down your foundation wall. Clean them every spring and fall — it takes 2 hours and a ladder.

Grading is the slope of the soil around your house. It should always slope away from the foundation. If soil or mulch has settled or been added to create a flat or inward slope, water will pool against your foundation and eventually find a way in. This is a shovel-and-work task anyone can do.

Adding a deck, finishing a basement, adding a bathroom, moving walls — these require permits in most jurisdictions. Permits exist to make sure work meets safety codes and gets inspected. Skipping them is common, but comes with real risks.

When you sell your home, any unpermitted work may need to be disclosed, torn out, or remediated. Insurance may not cover damage from unpermitted structures. And if something goes wrong with unpermitted electrical or structural work — it's entirely on you.

A $300,000 home should have $3,000–$9,000 per year set aside for maintenance and repairs. This isn't optional — it's the basic operating cost of owning a home. Most homeowners learn this the hard way when a $12,000 HVAC bill or $8,000 roof appears.

Keep the money in a dedicated "home fund" savings account. In good years you won't touch it much. After 5–7 years, something major always needs attention — and you'll be ready instead of panicking.

• HVAC system: replace every 15–20 years (~$6,000–$12,000)
• Roof: replace every 20–30 years (~$8,000–$20,000)
• Water heater: replace every 10–12 years (~$900–$1,500)
• Appliances: average 10–15 year lifespan each
• Exterior paint: every 7–10 years (~$2,000–$6,000)