How to choose the right home maintenance service
As homeowners, we are quite house proud. We usually want to stay on top of home maintenance tasks to keep our major appliances and built-in home systems running smoothly. This allows us to save money on things like utility bills and, most importantly, protects the value of what’s probably the largest financial investment of our lives.
We may handle certain tasks ourselves, such as changing furnace filters, exchanging light fixtures and taking care of small touch-ups. But if we are not DIY types or don’t want the trouble of handling big jobs ourselves, it often makes sense to hire professional home maintenance services.
A highly-trained professional usually comes with very specialized knowledge in a particular field, whether it is plumbing, electrical work, or regular maintenance and repairs of an HVAC system. A licensed professional will know how to do a home improvement or maintenance job so that it meets code and is done safely and correctly, saving you problems down the road.
Continue reading to learn how to choose the right home maintenance service.
Determine your home maintenance needs
Whether you are facing a broken refrigerator, an inefficient furnace, damaged drywall or an air conditioning unit that won’t turn on, it usually costs less to do regular maintenance before small problems become big and costly. Some experts even suggest that it’s a good idea to set aside at least 1% of your home’s purchase price for home maintenance tasks.
You can divide home upkeep into monthly, seasonal and yearly tasks, covering often used major appliances — such as dishwashing machines and cooktops — and built-in home systems, including plumbing, HVAC and electrical.
For example, every month, you might test smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors for safety’s sake and look for leaks around toilets and sinks (calling in a plumber if you discover one). In the summer, you might want to have your air conditioning unit inspected to ensure it’s running correctly and then do the same for your heating system in the fall before the cold weather sets in.
Every year or every few years, you might want to do such tasks as draining your hot water tank so that it doesn’t get clogged with sediment, cleaning your clothes dryer vent and exhaust, cleaning out your heat ducts, scoping out your sewer system (to prevent slow flushing or clogged toilets) and so on.
You might opt for a one-time maintenance or service option, such as updating your electrical system to a higher amp service, or replacing an old-style fuse box with a more modern electrical breaker panel, ranging from 100- to 400-amp service.
Other built-in home systems and major appliances that might benefit from home maintenance services include:
- Clothes washers and dryers
- Wall ovens
- Range exhaust hoods
- Trash compactors and garbage disposals
- Garage door openers
- Sump pumps
- Water heaters
- Jetted bathtubs
- Ceiling fans
- Dishwashers
- Toilets
- Food centers
- Ductwork
Where to find home repair services
Of course, the trick is to find the right home repair services company whose work and reputation you can trust, providing guaranteed service at a reasonable price. To get this help, people employ various methods, including requesting recommendations from family and friends, doing local internet searches, going to home maintenance stores in the area and relying on the networks of trusted home warranty companies.
Your home warranty company
Turning to the right home warranty company is a great way to find the home maintenance services you need. For example, at Cinch Home Services, we have a national network of over 18,000 service professionals, covering all aspects of appliance and systems repairs. These service technicians are vetted by us and provide round-the-clock service backed by a six-month guarantee.
Our extensive screening and selection process for service pros includes license checks and verifying liability insurance. We also continually monitor our technicians and score them based on customer feedback.
If you are trying to protect your house’s value and avoid high repair and replacement costs, you can worry less about unexpected breakdowns with peace-of-mind coverage provided by Cinch. With three different home protection plans to choose from, we can help you find the right coverage for any home needs.
Recommendations from friends and family
When looking for home maintenance services, people will often ask friends and family for recommendations. If they have had a good experience with one, you might reasonably expect the same.
However, be mindful that this way of finding help can fall short if your friends and family don’t have a suggestion to meet your particular home maintenance needs. Or they might make recommendations based on minimal experience, not taking into account other professionals who might do better work at a more reasonable cost.
Online search in your area
You can also do a local internet search for handyman services or home maintenance service professionals. This gives you a chance to compare services, prices and look at online reviews to see if other consumers like the choices.
However, home maintenance can involve a wide variety of professional disciplines. So, you may have to do several searches and get separate quotes as different maintenance and repair issues pop up in your house.
Often, it is a better idea to go through a home warranty company, with one phone call or online request getting you the qualified help you need at a reasonable price. This is the convenience of one-stop shopping.
Home maintenance stores
You can also go to a home maintenance store in your area, though you might face the same challenge as the online search for services. For example, a store specializing in repairs and sales of home appliances is unlikely to be able to help if you need, say, electrical work or to repair a plumbing problem.
A national home warranty company with extensive links to a full range of local service technicians is much more likely to be able to handle all of your home maintenance and repair service needs from a single point of contact.
7 traits of a reliable home maintenance service
When looking for a reliable home maintenance service company to handle your needs, you’ll want one with the best experience, a range of services, a flexible price structure and who is responsive to maintenance requests. The seven traits of a home maintenance service company you can trust include:
- 1. Many years of experience: A long track record is an indication that a company knows what it is doing and has many happy customers. Cinch has been in business for more than 40 years, serving more than 1 million customers across the country every year.
- 2. Transparent pricing: When the bill arrives for home maintenance and repair work, you won’t want any big surprises. Cinch offers transparent pricing for our three home warranty plans and a preset deductible at the time of the service request.
- 3. Good reviews: A good home repair service company gets good reviews. Not only does Cinch have testimonials from happy customers, but we also have consistently received awards for the quality of our service. For example, in 2020, we received 18 prestigious Stevie Awards for our excellence in sales and customer service — for 34 Stevia Awards in total — and have garnered recognition in national and regional publications.
- 4. Licensed and insured: All of Cinch’s service professionals, including electricians and plumbers, are vetted so that you know they are properly licensed and insured and have the professional credentials to do work to code safely and effectively.
- 5. Guaranteed workmanship: A good home maintenance service company stands behind its work with a guarantee. Cinch offers its customers a 180-day workmanship guarantee on covered repairs. This means we will fix persistent problems at no extra cost to you.
- 6. Service available when you need it: If you have an emergency that must be addressed, it’s good to know that your home maintenance service company is available when you need them. Cinch offers our customers round-the-clock service, with a network of more than 18,000 quality service technicians, covering many of your built-in home systems and major appliance needs.
- 7. Convenience: Ordering the help you need should be simple. With Cinch, you can schedule the work you need done by submitting an online service request, specifying what service you need and when.
Get connected with a trusted service professional through a home warranty with Cinch
With Cinch, it is a no-hassle experience to get service from a trusted service professional through a home warranty with three levels of home protection services. The home service agreement provides for repairs and replacements of many built-in home systems and major appliances.
After choosing a home protection plan that suits your budget and coverage needs, you can request service whenever you need it, paying a preset deductible at the time of the service request. We will then connect you with an experienced service technician who is qualified to handle your particular issue.
Cinch is a great way for house-proud homeowners to find peace of mind, protecting their investments and ensuring that their house remains a home sweet home.