Firstly, let me explain why home maintenance is so important. I will take the example of my own house. After we bought and moved in our house, we discovered that there was a minor leak behind dishwasher and over a period of time it had resulted in cabinet damage and mold development. The small maintenance task to check and fix any water leaks would have costed less than $10 but because of ignorance from previous owner, this resulted in heavy repair cost of upwards of $20K.
After realizing how important is home maintenance, I didn’t know what all maintenance tasks are required to be maintained in our new house, how those tasks are to be maintained and when it is required to complete those home maintenance task. I asked Google God if there is any app or website to help us in getting these answers. There were few blogs & articles which provided us the home maintenance checklist, but it didn’t tell us how those tasks are to be done, when it is to be done and it was not personalized. The blog / article did not tell us when I changed my AC filter (I certainly don’t remember even roughly 1-3 months back date) and it is time to change our filter… the articlesw told “you need to change the AC filter”. I even subscribed to maintenance service providers who would charge me monthly fee for home maintenance tasks. But they would perform those tasks only superficially. In 2 hours complete home maintenance which is applicable for 6 months and for that they would charge me monthly fee of $40. Not only they had poor quality work plus paying $240 ($40*6) for 2 hours of work looks expensive. Then I came across Home Warranty. You can raise Home Warranty if something breaks, it is not for preventive maintenance. Plus they would charge $65-$100 for the Service Provider visit. If it is expensive item breakdown like HVAC then reviews tell us that Home Warranty companies would find every small reason to reject the claim.
Whats in it for HOME OWNERS
- Pre-loaded Home Maintenance Checklist. Thereby home owner doesn’t have spend time on researching on what all tasks needs to be done. Addressing What home maintenance tasks are to be maintained.
- The Home Maintenance Checklist will come with maintenance intervals (bi-weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi annually, annually etc.). App will check when was your maintenance task completed last and what is frequency of maintenance task and send me notification that my maintenance task is due for maintenance. Thereby it is personalized for your home. For example, HVAC Filter was changed on 1st Jan 2023 and if the frequency is set for quarterly, then application will send a reminder email on 1st April 2023 to change your HVAC filters. Addressing When home maintenance needs to be maintained
- It comes with DIY videos to help home owners on how those tasks are to be done. Thereby it saves money paying out for Service Providers. Addressing How it needs to be maintained.
- If the Home Owner is busy and cannot perform home maintenance task on his own then he / she can look for Service Providers who can perform these tasks at your defined time and budget. And the funds are transferred to Service Provider once the job completed satisfactorily by Service Provider and approved by Home Owner.
- Many times home owners would not know what home maintenance problem are they dealing with. If the problem is unknown, how can you figure out the solution. For this reason we created a forum where Home owners can discuss with other Home owners about their home maintenance issues.
Whats in it for the Service Providers ?
Service Providers generally pay around $50 just to get one single lead of the business whether he / she will get the job or not. I believe this is unethical and very expensive. Cumulative amount per month can go as high as $2000-$3000 whether he does business or not. If I am Service Provider then I should be charged a commission fee only if I get the job..not for the leads. At Maintain My Home, Service Providers will be charged only if they get the business and not for the leads.
With this thought we planned to build Maintain My Home.