Ep 031 - The Seasonal Guide to Home Maintenance

In this episode of the Be a Smarter Homeowner podcast, co‑hosts Beth Dodson and John Bodrozic (co‑founders of HomeZada) explain what home maintenance is, why it matters, and why spring and fall are the optimal seasons for most tasks. They describe how a home is a collection of building materials and equipment that, like a car, requires regular servicing to prevent wear from weather, climate, and usage. The hosts discuss the benefits of a maintenance calendar—providing reminders, organizing tasks, and enabling shared responsibility between partners—drawing an analogy to a car’s dashboard alerts. They categorize maintenance into energy‑efficiency (HVAC filters, refrigerator coils), safety/health (air quality, dryer vents, mold prevention), and inspections (roof, gutters, windows, foundation). Real‑world anecdotes illustrate the cost of neglect, such as a mulberry‑tree‑induced roof leak and clogged gutters leading to foundation damage. The conversation then explores DIY versus hiring professionals, weighing cost savings against skill, safety, and time considerations, and emphasizes that certain trades (plumbing, electrical, HVAC) are best left to experts. Regional climate differences (desert heat, coastal humidity, harsh winters) are highlighted as factors shaping specific maintenance needs. Throughout, the hosts advocate for proactive, scheduled upkeep to extend equipment lifespan, reduce utility bills, and keep families safe and healthy, urging listeners to use HomeZada’s tools for tracking and reminders.
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Welcome to Be a Smarter Homeowner Podcast, where you'll discover strategies to save money, save time, and be better organized in managing your largest financial asset and biggest expense, your home. Your hosts, John Bodrozic and Beth Dodson, who are co-founders of HomeZada, have been supporting homeowners for over 20 years. They are here to share with you their tips and suggestions, as well as interviews with industry experts, with the goal of helping you become a smarter homeowner. Now here's your hosts, John and Beth.
Hi everyone. Welcome to Be a Smarter Homeowner Podcast. My name is Beth Dodson and I'm one of your hosts, and I'm here with John Bedrosian, another host. We talk about all things home and we're excited today to talk about home Maintenance. It is springtime. People are really getting excited to do their home maintenance. It's generally a time when people do that. But John, let's talk about one, what it— what is it that we define as home maintenance? And then two, I want to talk about why most people do home maintenance in the spring and in the fall, because it's sheer coincidental that that's what happens.
Yeah, good questions. In terms of, well, I think your first question with different kinds of maintenance. Yeah.
What is home maintenance?
What is home maintenance?
Yeah.
Your home is a physical structure that's composed of lots of building materials, equipment, fixtures, furnishings. So everything from your siding to your roof, to your windows, to your HVAC, to your hot water heater, to your sinks, your tiles, your floors, All these materials come together and make up the structure of your house. Well, we live in a world where those things need regular maintenance in order to perform effectively.
Mm-hmm.
Efficiently, yes. So because it's a piece of equipment, and if you don't service the equipment, just like you don't change the oil on your car, it can go bad, right? So it's the equipment needs servicing, you know, is a huge aspect of maintenance. I guess the other concept to understand is Your home is located somewhere in the United States, which means it's susceptible to the current climate and weather of the season.
Yeah, touché.
And so again, we've talked a lot about on our podcast about the specificity of where your home is located has a huge driver. If you live in the desert in Tucson, Arizona, different set of maintenance. Your home is susceptible to lots of high heat. Dry brush. You live in, you know, New Hampshire on the coast.
Yeah.
Completely different, you know, maintenance issues and the seasonal issues. And I think we're going to get into why the seasons are important. But at the end of the day, because your home is subject to these ongoing weather conditions, those ongoing weather conditions contribute to the sort of ongoing wear and tear over the outside of your house. Potentially even the inside, because if the outside wears out, then you can get leaks and all kinds of things that get into the inside of the house. So it's really preserving your asset and the collection of all those different assets, which is why maintenance is such an ongoing task that unfortunately, yes, there are peaks and values, peaks and valleys over when you should do maintenance.
Peaks and valleys.
But it's an ongoing thing. You just have to be a diligent homeowner.
Yeah, and you know you bring up a good point. You know there's different weather patterns, and weather patterns impact how we use our house, how we manage our house. And the first thing that came to mind when you said Arizona and dry heat, there's elements of dry heat that you have to manage in your home, and sometimes you have to humidify your home a little bit to. Help everything operate. But then you deal with places like Florida and you need a dehumidifier because the humidity is so much both on the inside and the outside of your house, and it could cause a different kind of damage. And so yeah, making sure that you're checking all these parts and pieces of machinery and equipment and items in your house and everything around your house is, um, quite interesting. And let's face it, there's a huge business in home maintenance just represented all the home improvement stores. So definitely huge business.
Yeah. And I guess we can talk about on this category as well, maybe if you want, that, you know, in terms of knowing what to do and when to do it is one thing. And then there's the actually doing it. And that falls into 2 buckets, right? It's the DIY. I'm willing, wanting, and capable of doing this particular task or most of the tasks. And then there's the, I want to hire a contractor to do this or a service provider to do that particular maintenance.
So that's correct. And so before we get to that, before we get to that, let's talk about why people are doing like spring home maintenance and fall home maintenance. I mean, because there's traditionally 4 seasons in the United States, and some people experience true 4 seasons. Like 3 months, 3 months, 3 months. Some people experience elongated seasons. I mean, for instance, some places in the north may have a longer winter and a shorter spring. Some places in, um, in like Arizona, you brought this up, may have a long summer and very little fall or spring. And, um, then there's all these other variations. I mean, like Alaska is a whole nother ballgame, but that is part of the United States. That's a whole nother ballgame. But why would people do spring and home maintenance? I mean, or spring home maintenance and fall home maintenance? Because it's just sheer coincidental that those times are when people start getting their ducks in a row and start tackling those honeydew tasks.
Yeah, I guess I have a few answers to that question. My first one might be winter and summer. probably have harsher weather climates than fall and spring. So it's kind of like the, the spring and fall, you've, you've come out of one harsh winter climate. And so part of maintenance is inspecting, you know, hey, did the climate and weather of a harsh winter cause any damage? Can I fix the damage before it gets worse? And then there's the So that's kind of like looking backward at, did the winter cause any issues to my home? And then there's the looking forward of, I know that summer's gonna be another harsher climate. What can I do to get in front of it as a preventative thing so that I can still enjoy my summer with my home and that it operates efficiently and those kinds of things. So I, and so I guess that's probably my biggest reason why I think most people tend to focus in on spring and fall maintenance. Because it happens to sit between the winter and summer sort of seasons.
Yeah, I personally also think too, that they're willing to do spring and home— spring and fall home maintenance. One, because spring, you're springing into like a new season. So it's like spring forward. And I think there's a reason why we have daylight savings and whatever we call it, just so happens to be in the spring and the winter, or the fall. And so We spring forward and we're springing into like a new season, a new season of growth and opportunity. And then at the same time, I'm also a firm believer people are doing a lot of spring home maintenance. One, because the weather is nice and they can get outside and they can do all these things, but they're preparing for summer because they're gonna have all these parties at their house. You know, they're opening up their pools for those people who have to close them. They're like getting ready to use it. The last thing they wanna do all summer When kids are off and the family's all getting together and the days are longer, is honeydew tasks.
Yes.
And so I see them doing it in the spring in order to do that. I also see it happening in the fall only for preparation for winter. It's almost like harvest season. That's what fall is. It's harvest season. So you're harvesting the aspects of your home by making sure you are basically almost like winterizing it, for lack of a better word. You're closing up your pool. You are, um, you may not be doing Any kind of landscaping in the winter, and you may be looking at other areas of the property, and you may have to have fireplaces, gas fireplaces, anything that works, and it has to be ready to work before it's needed. And let's face it, if you're in summer and you're going to do some things in spring, that's a good time to get your HVACs checked, because if something breaks. In the summer, that could be a huge impact. It may cost you more. You may not be their supply supply chain might be halted, so you may not be able to get a new unit quick enough or repair quick enough. Just one thing after another. So getting ahead of it can prevent any uncomfortable situations from occurring during the summer and winter months. Going back to your whole element of weather making a difference, but also activities, activities that you're going to do as a family.
There's completely the, what I call the human element of the owners slash occupants of the home. And correct, you're more likely to do maintenance tasks, especially outdoors, when it's nicer weather than it is if it's super hot or super cold. And then there's also the lifestyle issues, right? People want to entertain in the summer. Maybe they're, you know, also entertaining in the winter, but it's sort of internal entertainment, you know, holiday parties, those kinds of things tend to take over. So absolutely the dynamic, as we can see, is yeah, somebody's spring, depending on if you're in Texas or Minnesota, may be off by a month or two depending on whether they're in a long season or not.
Totally.
But then there's the lifestyle component of the people. And when you sort of choose to do these things. So it all boils down to the simple questions of like, what do I do? When do I do it? Who's going to do it? How am I going to do it? And it's candidly why we always recommend people to have a home maintenance schedule, right?
Yeah.
It's the one big frustration that I think it's what I call being blunted by the pain. How many times do people buy a home and don't even realize it doesn't come with an owner's manual?
Not all the time. Some contractors may give you some sort of maintenance calendar manual, but it's— you put it away.
Yeah, if you're lucky enough to buy a brand new home from a builder, you'll probably get a binder, and in the binder it'll tell you when to do it, but then nobody looks at the binder.
No, and most people can't even find their original binder.
It doesn't push those reminders to you.
No.
So yeah, I guess I kind of stopped looking at it.
So talking about a calendar, You know, why would people want to want to track a calendar? I mean, let's talk about that. I mean, I know from a fact that ease of having access to information and knowing when I last did something helps me understand when I need to do it next. And so that actually helps me. For instance, like air filters. I mean, we've told the whole story about why Hamzat is here, but literally arguing over air filters I thought was silly and a waste of. My time and probably yours, and but we needed to change our our filter. Excuse me, air filters. We need to change them regularly to make sure one our HVAC system was working properly, but also to make sure the air quality in our home was clean. And air filters are super cheap anyway. Why wouldn't we do it? It was just a matter of scheduling and finding a time when um. who's doing it, when we're doing it, and why. I mean, for me, it keeps me organized when I can have a schedule. So why would anyone else want to have a schedule or a calendar to help them with home maintenance?
Yeah, I mean, I think that it's kind of that— it's kind of tying both human nature as well as the structural components of your home, because human nature is most people would rather Focus on job, travel, entertainment, entertaining, right? Maintenance is often considered, you know, a treasury. Oh God, I have to do maintenance. So in a sense, what that means is it's a something that doesn't stay top of mind because your mind is occupied on all the other fun things in life, hopefully.
Yeah, and I have. I will say this: when we did kind of the alpha group when we first launched Home Zada, the men definitely did not like the. Home Maintenance because they felt like they were going to get a honey-do list of more tasks and more tasks. But I will say my own personal use of the calendaring system that we have and managing a calendar actually reduces my tasks. It keeps me so organized. I'm not wasting money on tasks I don't need to do because I've already done it. That's the first thing, because I can't remember. And 2, I'm not wasting money on, on broken items.
Like the—
I literally— home maintenance has literally elongated the life of my equipment and my appliances.
Yeah, without a doubt, because I think that's, that's the, that's the benefit of having a maintenance schedule/calendar for your home is that A, it's going to send you those reminders and alerts over when things need to be done. And that, that the reason why that's important, one is it's going to remind you because you're not thinking about your home in your everyday life. And then it gets, then you get reminded of it. And then the important parts is, yeah, there are some maintenance tasks that you should do in the spring versus in the fall. So it's going to remind you of only the important things that you need to do. And it also dovetails into Well, just 2 ends of the spectrum. There's the experienced homeowners who know this, but there's no maintenance calendar or schedule. It's locked in one, but somebody's head.
Or Excel spreadsheet.
And because life is sort of going on, you sort of forget those things. So you're kind of like, okay, I know I need to do this, but I haven't focused on it because I forgot about it. And then there's the second, on the other end of the spectrum, A brand new homeowner who hasn't yet learned all the things that need to get done, well, they can preserve the value of their home with a maintenance schedule that basically is going to remind them, but it also is not reminding them, it's actually educating them on things that they hadn't even conceived of. The back of your dryer is connected to a duct and you should clean it. You know, most first-time homeowners have never heard that before. Yeah.
What was drying up?
There's the— I think that's the real value of having a maintenance calendar is to sort of stay on top of, and like you said, organized around what do I need to do for my home and when do I need to do it, whether you're experienced homeowner or a first-time homeowner.
Yeah. And I think that to our point, we said it earlier, every home is completely different. Your knowledge of your home and and the the beauty of how it operates and the quirks that it operates because every home has a little bit of quirks here and there. That's your knowledge is independent of someone else's. Now there are tasks that all homeowners need to do, and for the most part, and there are a subset of those, and some of those are changing the air filters. Cleaning them. So some people have regular air filters where they change. Some people can actually clean their air filters because they have a— they have that different type of filter or something. You can do that. The other thing that people could do is get their HVAC equipment checked biannually in the spring and the fall.
Yeah.
Prior to those harsh seasons, because if they need to make minor repairs, They can actually do that. And we've done that before in the sense that we made minor repairs to HVAC equipment rather than replacing the whole thing, which I think is part of the reason why we've been able to elongate the lifespan of our equipment because we did these checks and we made the modifications that were less costly along the way. And the equipment operates amazingly. Things like cleaning out the refrigerator coils can also help your refrigerator work Really efficiently. And most people don't know this, but the refrigerator actually uses up a lot of electricity in your home. And if you don't have refrigerator coils clean, then your electric bill can be higher.
Yes.
And so ultimately maintenance can also save you money, as I indicated with elongating your HVAC equipment and then also like refrigerator coils on the utility bills.
Yes.
What else do you see as necessary?
You've, you've touched on a different way. You've touched on one of the sort of what I call the major categories of the types of maintenance. One, I kind of put it into the bucket of you want your home to operate efficiently. Yes, usually around energy, and that has to do with, you know, refrigerator and HVAC. So doing those things saves money on the monthly utility bill because those units are working Not as hard because they're clean and operating efficiently. And yeah, you're saving money. And what may only be a 15-year lifespan of an HVAC unit, you've extended it to 22, 23, 25 years, and you're not having to pay that $10,000 or $15,000 replacement HVAC unit. So you're pushing things out. But then there are other categories of maintenance around what I call safety of your family.
You're right.
The health of your family, and you kind of touched on that with air filters because we breathe the air in our homes. So we want to keep a healthy occupancy. Then there's also what I call the inspection side of things, and I kind of alluded to that where you've come out of a heavy winter season, you want to inspect to see if there are some small damages that happen that you can quickly fix to prevent them from becoming bigger issues.
Yes.
Right.
Well, let's give some examples of that so people can understand.
Okay, so—
Inspections. Yeah, inspections first.
Inspections. I'll share, I'll share the story that you were the one who told me about a customer, right? They had some sort of like mulberry tree that was overhanging their roof, birch, and these little berries fell into their tile roof And in the tile roof itself, those berries started to accumulate. They never cleaned that out. Next season came, heavy rains came, all those mulberries were basically preventing the natural outflow of the water draining through the gutter system and down the downspouts, created a roof leak.
Yeah, and it was actually getting through the tiles.
And that roof leak came into the attic, came into the house, and it created a much bigger problem.
Totally. And you are correct, I forgot about that story. You're right, it was, um, The customer was very frustrated because they also tried to get a claim from their insurance company and their insurance company said no because trimming back those trees is home maintenance. It is not an insurance claim.
Yep.
And so that's another way to not only inspect your house, but save on your house because he had to replace that entire roof and get all those trees trimmed, which is not an inexpensive feat. And he literally was out a large sum of money.
Yep. People that live in— roofs are a big issue, right? People that live in high wind areas. If your roof is starting to get a little bit older, maybe the high winds sort of start to peel off some of the asphalt shingle tiles kind of mentality, or the flashings around, you know, the openings around the vents. Or the chimney, or you could have pests, rodents on the top of your roof, right?
I have that right now. That's why I'm not bringing this up.
They could be contributing to sort of small little pockets of storing their acorns and stuff like that, which has basically created a bigger opportunity for potential leaks, right? So that's kind of like an inspection aspect over, again, It hasn't become an issue yet, but there's tiny little things that you could sort of see that become an issue. And if you don't take action to fix them over the next season or even multiple years, then all of a sudden you have a, you know, 4 or 5 figure issue that you're dealing with versus, you know, a couple hundred dollar maintenance, hire the roofer to come out and check it out.
Yeah. Another, one of the other inspection things that just came to mind was It has to do with energy efficiency, but also potential risk for wall and mold damage. And that is inspecting around your windows, making sure that you're caulking around your windows if there's any kind of gaps or what have you. Because not only are you releasing your air conditioning air or heating air inside your house, it's going outside because maybe there's a gap. And then that's a waste of money. But then the other thing is, then when rains do come, the rains can get in and it could cause damage inside your walls, which then create mold, which then not only ties to the inspection tips and the monetary tips, but also ties to the health of your family because mold is very toxic and it can cause a lot of problems.
Yep, 100% agree with you. I mean, you know, I think, believe it or not, Housing and Urban Development and sort of even federal agencies have sort of talked about the unhealthy home, and it's predominantly around water and air.
It's always around water and air.
Unhealthy homes. And yours was just one example. Another example of the sort of the water piece, which is Your gutter, your downspouts get clogged.
Yeah.
And then as a result, water starts leaking through the downspout, and as opposed to maybe connected to your drainage out to the street, and that water seeps under your house. Now you've got standing water in your crawl space.
Yeah.
And it could potentially cause damage to your foundations and settling. But then that standing water could start to create sort of an opportunity for mold to be growing under your home. So there's so many of these little things that Um, you know, it's sort of that inspection preventative piece of just being a diligent homeowner. And we're not trying to scare people. It's all relatively easy as long as you know what to do and when to do it, which is why we really recommend you have a home maintenance schedule and calendar. And because it's going to remind you of these things and tell you how to do it and what to do and when to do it, then it becomes very simple and easy and you're avoiding all these sort of issues.
Yeah.
And I mean, there's even movies about people calling their home a money pit.
Yeah. And that's not— and you don't— it doesn't need to be that way.
Exactly. It doesn't need to be that way. It's people that ignored or didn't want to educate themselves or didn't sort of think about the concept of your home is a whole bunch of different building materials and equipment that all come together and subject to the weather and climate.
Yeah, and and houses just start settling and things just start happening. So you need to manage through the lifespan of the house and work with it. And maintenance, in my opinion, helps us work with our homes, and it helps us work with our homes by helping it have a lifespan that can extend itself, you know, forever in a day. And we do have that. I mean, there's 100-plus-year-old homes on the East Coast. I mean, so it does exist because they've got good bones. And then how do we have maintenance that when you look at the inspections, you go around periodically and look at things around your house to determine what needs to be repaired, what doesn't need to be repaired, etc.? And then that then helps save money on any of your utility bills, on replacing anything too soon, and then also Helps keep your family healthy and safe, you know, just from all kinds of things. I mean, you brought up the dryer vent, and most people don't know this, but, um, lint is very flammable. And so cleaning out that dryer vent— and, and we're talking the dryer vent duct that goes out of your house, not the one inside the dryer that you pull out and you scrape out.
Correct. That's the little lint thing that you do.
You need to do that too, but we're talking about the other one. That gets out because both are important and both have an element of safety if it's not working properly. And a lot of people don't know that. To your point, you said that earlier, but then you also talked about a lot of these tasks you can do yourself or DIY it, or you can hire somebody. So what's your opinion? I have my own, but what's your opinion on Doing some of these yourself versus hiring out for them?
I got probably 3 or 4 different views on that. One is clearly, if you can do it yourself, you're going to save yourself money, right? It's just because you're not paying the labor cost of somebody else to do it. And we live in a world where whether it's a web search or a YouTube search, or in our case, you know, using Homeowner AI or whatever, You can get step-by-step instructions for lots of things that you may never have done before, and you can then gauge whether you can do that yourself or not, right? And a lot of that may depend on whether you have the tools and sort of the skill set for sort of doing some things. The other, the other aspect of it is your own personal safety, right?
Mm-hmm.
It's the, um, if you're going to clean your gutters, somebody either needs to get on the roof or have a ladder. Right? Well, climbing ladders can be a risky sort of thing depending on your mobility. Some people, you know, in their healthy mid-20s, 30s, 40s, right, more than willing to do that to save the money. Others are like, no, I'd rather hire somebody to do that for me kind of mentality. So it's the personal safety aspect of it. That's kind of like the 2 big things over. I think most people will probably prefer to do it DIY because it's kind of a money-saving thing. But then you also have to be aware of the personal safety and/or the skill set to do the task.
Yeah. And I want to touch base on skill set for a second because I do have an opinion on skill set. And I just think that there's certain things, whether there's a YouTube video or not, I do believe that hiring the experts can actually help you. And I'm a firm believer plumbing and electrical for sure. For sure. I mean, water can do a lot of damage. I am one of these people, I would definitely hire out a plumber and/or an electrician. Electrician can shock you, so that's a healthy thing. But also, I look at— we talked earlier about HVAC equipment. Like, the equipment is ever-changing, and some of your units may be really old. And I just think that there are trained HVAC individuals that go through apprenticeships, that they have a better understanding of the little nuances of the equipment itself, and they can make the best recommendation for you in whatever timeframe. And I think there's a lot of people like that. I do agree with you on safety issues, for instance, gutters and stuff. If you are not in a position to climb a ladder or someone is not available to watch. So I'm a firm believer, don't climb a ladder without someone else there.
Yeah.
Just because you never know. I've known a lot of contractors that have fallen off ladders and they're experienced being on ladders and on roofs. And, uh, that was kind of challenging. But I just— and I'm not here to scare anybody, I'm just saying it's just sometimes it's better off if you reach a particular age Definitely. I think ladders should be removed from the home. That's just me personally. Just remove them. And then, um, for a variety of reasons. But I also think like, um, some people are better equipped and some people have a lot of time. So I'll just tell you, if it were up to me and someone told me that, oh, you've got to change out your irrigation system in your, in your lawn and everything else, I would not feel comfortable because I wouldn't be skilled. But 2, that would be a long task that I wouldn't have time because I work versus I know a friend's husband recently retired and he's overjoyed with the fact that he gets to create a brand new lawn, brand new irrigation, and he is digging trenches by hand and with a backhoe and all these things. And he is like in his glory days. Bad at playing in dirt. Totally.
Men playing in dirt, we love it.
Totally. And so I'm sitting here going, more power to you. And he is loving life because he's got these projects. And I, and I really do believe that if you've got time, that's also a good thing to do. If you don't, then obviously there are tons of experts out there that can, that can do a really good job. I think you just need to be specific when you talk to them.
Yeah, spot on. Time. And if you don't have the time to do it, but it needs to get done, hire somebody to do it. Or if you're in a point where you have the time, but maybe your ability to earn money is much greater focusing in on something else or a lifestyle, and you've got the sort of disposable income to be able to hire more people to do that because You know, instead of you doing it, you're taken away from your ability to have, you know, a good income or an investment strategy or whatever the case may be. So time is definitely a huge component over the DIY versus hiring people to do it for you.
Yeah, this has been a really good discussion about the very basics of maintenance, why calendars are important, why getting reminders can actually help you, and then also the types of maintenance that we have to do. Energy efficiency, safety, health, et cetera, inspections. And then at the same time, whether or not to DIY or to do it yourself or to hire out and what types of things. Now, there's so much more we can talk about maintenance. I'd like to save some more of this for other podcasts, but is there any closing thoughts that you have for this particular maintenance? Because we are in springtime.
I guess I'd probably focus in on that calendar piece, right? And I'm going to draw the analogy, right? It's the— most people drive a car and the car has blinking things that blink at you and tell you when it's time to do maintenance on your car. Yes. But you buy a home and there's nothing that blinks at you. So you're completely reliant on your knowledge to know what needs to get done and your ability to remember when it needs to get done.
Yes.
And that's why having a calendar to send you those email reminders of, Beth, click here to see what maintenance tasks I should do this month, and those types of things. It's more of that mental reminder that you need to be that constant reminder because people, I don't know, this is just John's opinion. People naturally think, okay, I drive my car, it needs maintenance. For some reason, a lot of people, I'm not saying all, some homeowners like, oh, I own a home that I don't, they don't even know what maintenance to do and when to do it.
They don't even consider it.
It kind of mentality, but yet it requires more maintenance than your car does. But yet they completely ignore it because there's no calendar sort of pushing them these reminders and educate educating them on the knowledge of all these things that they should be looking for.
Yeah, and I to to add to that point, I will say this because the calendaring is really really important. I don't want to keep all these. reminders in my head about home maintenance. I want to free up my brain for really good problem-solving, innovative activities.
Correct.
That can, that can change the future versus putting, okay, when do I need to change the air filter?
Correct. You know, you always bring that up to me. I don't know if it's a quote, maybe it's Einstein or somebody else. I don't know who you do it. It's sort of like, don't keep things locked into your brain that are sort of trivial. Develop a system that sort of reminds you of those things so you can free up your brain to do other more creative, Yeah.
I mean, I just am a firm believer in that. I mean, let's face it, problem solving is not for the faint of heart and I love problem solving and you need to free up your brain to do really great problem solving, excuse me, um, activities versus when am I going to change the air filter? Who's going to clean my gutters? I mean, seriously, I'm not doing any of that.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's why I like the calendaring system.
One last point. I think you brought it up when we, when we did our interviews with a whole bunch of different homeowners, especially for, you know, spouses or partners that own a home together. It, it was almost 100%, one knew everything that needed to get done and the other knew nothing that needed to get done. And it didn't matter what, what gender you were. It was just, it had to do with lots of different sort of factors. So just having that sort of communication of one central spot where if the other one who doesn't know what needs to get done needed to know, it was already there versus the constant, you know, harping of like, tell me what I need to do and when I need to do it.
Yeah, that was a good point. I forgot about that. It was so long ago, but yeah, you are correct. So, um, any closing thoughts?
No, I think we hit the nail on the head.
Yeah, awesome. So for anyone who's interested, please share this with whomever you think might benefit. We hope this episode has given you a lot of information about home maintenance. We are going to talk more about home maintenance and why it's important and who could benefit, which is every homeowner. But if you want to know more about home maintenance, HomeZada, Be a Smarter Homeowner podcast, please visit us at homezada.com. That's homezada.com, and we look forward to seeing you in another Be a Smarter Homeowner podcast. We hope this made you a little bit smarter.
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