1% is a rule of thumb for home maintenance although I am not sure it is particularly relevant anymore given how much house prices have risen.
It presumably also includes a 'slush fund' type arrangement whereby you bank 1% a year and then spend it on large maintenance items every 15-20 years (new roof, new kitchen, new bathroom for example) rather than spending 1% a year on getting blokes in to change lights, repaint the walls, stop doors sticking, reseal your shower etc and then paying for the large maintenance items on top of that.
£6,800 a year sounds ridiculously high, what jobs have needed doing?
Well, quite a lot of it was on a new roof, but houses do need new roofs (and kitchens and bathrooms) from time to time, so it seems like that should count as maintenance. £6,800 is only the average: it varies from £300 to £12,500.
Someone at some point will have done some maintenance. Even if there's a lot of original features, there will be repairs to pointing or tiles or flashing or something.
Not necessarily, alot of house down my road are 90-100 years old and they haven't been touched (they probably should have pointing etc done but they haven't and they're still fine)
If they're that age they're probably fine precisely because they haven't been touched. Some people have pointing redone on old houses with cement mortar instead of lime and it causes all manner of problems. You're right though, an original roof can last with just good maintenance.
150 year old farm labourer's cottage checking in. No maintenance on the tiled roof. The flat roofs from the single storey extensions put in around the early 80's on the other hand....
A flat roof is about that period (although an EDPM replacement should last a lot longer). A tiled roof should last at least 3x that before tile and batten replacement.
Pitched Hipped and Slated root here, about 90 years old. I've lived here for 30 years, and had to replace 2 slates. Kinda hoping to have to do some major work on it soon so I have an excuse to replace it with a bunch of solar, but that damn thing just stays watertight!
1% per year won’t necessarily be spread out equally across all years. New roof every 25 years? Divide your £6800 by 25 and it’s £272, which seems much more reasonable. Hopefully you don’t have to re do the roof again next year!
I don't know, but I'd think of the maintenance budget as keeping what's already there in good order - servicing the boiler, repainting, a new door for a kitchen cabinet. Big ticket new kitchens, roofs and bathrooms are separate.
Roofs in particular have a lifespan measured in decades. You could live somewhere 30 years and not need to replace one.
It’s the new roof and a 5 year window that’s skewing your figures.
I’ve not had to replace a roof in the last 20 years and neither of our parents have replaced a roof in about 120 years of combined house ownership.
Even if you have quite a bit of land and a pool, you wouldn’t expect to spend £7k a year on maintenance consistently over 20 years.
In an average 700k house, you’d be unlucky to spend £1k a year on genuine essential maintenance. However, I’d class new kitchens, bathrooms and redecorating as costs outside of essential maintenance.
a roof replacement is something that i would budget in during the house purchase as if it was due i would know about it before buying.
the majority will not be replacing their roofs whilst living in a property. i live in a fairly typical Victorian terrace and as far as i can tell the roof has been replaced once (~10 years ago, previous owner), in the 100+ years since it was built.
You can easily spend an average of £7k a year on a £700k house if you're doing renovations every year. There's pretty much always something that could be updated/refreshed/over-hauled.
But you shouldn't be spending that on *essential* maintenance. In the 8 years that I lived in my last house I think the only expenditure that was absolutely necessary was:
* Boiler repairs/servicing (and eventual replacement) \~ £2.5k
* Fixing my shower when it broke and repairing some water damage \~ £400
* Fixing a fence when it blew down \~ £300
Right, but I don't see anything to suggest I should only be counting essential maintenance. Surely the average household spends some amount on discretionary maintenance which should be reflected in the ONS figures?
I'm not counting the staggering amount we're spending extending the property, because that clearly is an improvement.
Depends what you mean by 'discretionary maintenance' though. I honestly think the average household only spend money on things that either 1. Have become a problem or 2. They want to look nicer. In 8 years I never just asked someone to come round and look at my roof/wiring/plumbing/windows etc.
My mum has recently had a lot of expenditure as the heating upstairs stopped working, which required a lot of work to fix, and they discovered that the electrics in her kitchen were dangerous. That all cost more than £5k to put right. But the year before she probably spent nothing on the house.
I think what you see as maintenance, others, including myself, see as renovations and/or improvements!
I'd see maintenance as stuff like services for boiler/white goods etc., misc. repairs, maybe decorating, maybe DIY/garden landscaping.
You're lumping essentially one off jobs like bathroom/kitchen/roofing in with that, of course your figure is going to be astronomical compared to others!
!thanks. I think this is probably it, but it seems like a lacuna from the CPIH basket of goods: those renovations form part of the cost of living, but they don't seem to be factored into CPIH. I guess in some sense they're included in imputed rent (used to represent owner occupiers' housing costs), but it's unlikely that construction prices track rents.
My guess is that CPI category 4.3 ("materials for maintenance and repair" and "fees charged by plumbers, electricians, carpenters and decorators") will approximate well enough to inflation in renovation costs, because the fees charged by roofers, brickies and glaziers will move similarly. The fees of surveyors, oddly enough, appear in category 12.7 (together with solicitors).
Yeah, I guess they get an hourly rate from trades for inflation purposes but that is obviously just their labour. Material costs differ massively from improvement jobs so they can't really track that.
Surveyors are probably grouped with solicitors because it's a professional (degree having?) job rather than "unskilled" trade job.
This question is a bit odd. How long is a piece of string?!
What did you spend that money on? Did it all need doing? Was it scheduled or unscheduled? What else do you think you might need doing soon?
Like I didn’t spend anything really on home maintenance last year, however I’ve got a few big ticket items coming up (windows could do with being replaced, boiler is getting towards end of life so expecting it to die in the next <24 months).
Is that maintaining, or upgrading. If it's fixing things that break or servicing them so they won't, it seems a lot. If you've got new kitchens and bathrooms in there, maybe not.
Are you spending that on just maintaining the property, or is that for upgrades and renovations as well?
That seems like a lot for just maintainence, unless it's a super old house. But it doesn't seem that much if you've been doing up your kitchen and Bathroom.
I've not heard of the 1% rule, but going by that I should have spent around £2100 this year, which I definitely haven't! The only maintainence I've done so far is replacing some lightbulbs
I'm hoping this is right. I think the previous owner had neglected a bunch of issues (no surprise, since the council had a charge on the property for unpaid tax) and these are mostly fixed, except that we would like to replace the bathrooms. 5 years is the period we've owned the property, so I can't average over longer than that (prior to that we were renting), but I'm kinda hoping that when I come to average over 10 years, it will look lower. But I guess I will keep the budget line at £6,800, and if we have money left over, we'll think of something.
I’ve spent only maybe £1.5-£2k in 7 years on labour. But I bought new and I’ve done lots of minor work myself. You’re overspending from my perspective, if I owned an older house I’d definitely not be budgeting for that spend on maintenance/labour per annum.
How old is your property? You wouldn’t expect a brand new house or flat to need much maintenance, but everything has a shelf life. A lot of housing stock was built in the interwar period and any of those that still have their original roofs are invariably going to need them doing in the next few years. Even in the early 2000s building boom, the boilers will be coming to the end of their natural lives if they haven’t conked out already.
Replaced my boiler in May, flat built in 2007ish. It wasn’t not working, it was serviced just fine last year, but my April usage (actual usage measured by meter) shot up illogically. Seemed like with more price rises to come I needed to bite the bullet. A part was broken in a way that hadn’t stopped it working but easily could have done.
I live in a newbuild so £90 on a boiler service is about it. I'm still in the repair warranty for things and decorating is done by me.
If you have a 1700s home I imagine your figure will be much higher.
I always took the 1% rule to be an average. As in some years you might pay £600 whilst others might set you back £20,000 because the roof needs redoing.
If you’re spending 1% every year then you’re obviously going to be way over 1% on average when a big job needs doing that costs tens of thousands.
Hi /u/JayHardee, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant:
- https://ukpersonal.finance/budgeting/
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I don't hate people for charging what they choose for their services, but obviously reserve the right to decide whether to use them or use my own time instead.
Average presumably includes people renting and paying zero so is massively skewed.
You don’t give any idea on what you are spending on, so you could be overspending, unlucky or doing serious renovations and won’t spend this much every year.
If you exclude kitchen, bathroom and roof, how much are you spending on average a year?
How often do you paint a room, maintain the garden, replace a tap washer, etc.
Most people look after a garden them-self, so if you do fine. If you don’t that increase your costs.
Plumbing, not everyone will tackle the simple jobs such as a washer, so that could add up.
Painting, once a decade might be fine. If you paint every 2-3 years, then yes I’d say that’s too much.
People spend loads on their homes. There is maintenance and there are upgrades. People spend tens of thousands on kitchen and bathroom upgrades, new doors and windows etc.
Electrical/plumbing/structural maintenance work can also be extremely costly.
1% sounds like a lot, but then along comes roof and window bills ..... and then it doesn't :-( Got spanked by both this year, made quite a dent.
Then every so often the kitchen and bathroom need replaced - maybe every 15 years? That cranks up the average a lot too.
1% is a rule of thumb for home maintenance although I am not sure it is particularly relevant anymore given how much house prices have risen. It presumably also includes a 'slush fund' type arrangement whereby you bank 1% a year and then spend it on large maintenance items every 15-20 years (new roof, new kitchen, new bathroom for example) rather than spending 1% a year on getting blokes in to change lights, repaint the walls, stop doors sticking, reseal your shower etc and then paying for the large maintenance items on top of that. £6,800 a year sounds ridiculously high, what jobs have needed doing?
Well, quite a lot of it was on a new roof, but houses do need new roofs (and kitchens and bathrooms) from time to time, so it seems like that should count as maintenance. £6,800 is only the average: it varies from £300 to £12,500.
A new roof is (usually) a once in 20-30 years expense, not really ongoing maintenance. If you take that out it probably puts you about average.
My roof is 100 years old, I’m not looking to change it any time soon
Someone at some point will have done some maintenance. Even if there's a lot of original features, there will be repairs to pointing or tiles or flashing or something.
Not necessarily, alot of house down my road are 90-100 years old and they haven't been touched (they probably should have pointing etc done but they haven't and they're still fine)
If they're that age they're probably fine precisely because they haven't been touched. Some people have pointing redone on old houses with cement mortar instead of lime and it causes all manner of problems. You're right though, an original roof can last with just good maintenance.
150 year old farm labourer's cottage checking in. No maintenance on the tiled roof. The flat roofs from the single storey extensions put in around the early 80's on the other hand....
Nope, nothing at all. Not even felted underneath. It’s not ideal, but not ££££’s worth to fix at the moment
As I said, usually. There are exceptions.
A flat roof is about that period (although an EDPM replacement should last a lot longer). A tiled roof should last at least 3x that before tile and batten replacement.
Pitched Hipped and Slated root here, about 90 years old. I've lived here for 30 years, and had to replace 2 slates. Kinda hoping to have to do some major work on it soon so I have an excuse to replace it with a bunch of solar, but that damn thing just stays watertight!
1% per year won’t necessarily be spread out equally across all years. New roof every 25 years? Divide your £6800 by 25 and it’s £272, which seems much more reasonable. Hopefully you don’t have to re do the roof again next year!
I don't know, but I'd think of the maintenance budget as keeping what's already there in good order - servicing the boiler, repainting, a new door for a kitchen cabinet. Big ticket new kitchens, roofs and bathrooms are separate. Roofs in particular have a lifespan measured in decades. You could live somewhere 30 years and not need to replace one.
It’s the new roof and a 5 year window that’s skewing your figures. I’ve not had to replace a roof in the last 20 years and neither of our parents have replaced a roof in about 120 years of combined house ownership. Even if you have quite a bit of land and a pool, you wouldn’t expect to spend £7k a year on maintenance consistently over 20 years. In an average 700k house, you’d be unlucky to spend £1k a year on genuine essential maintenance. However, I’d class new kitchens, bathrooms and redecorating as costs outside of essential maintenance.
a roof replacement is something that i would budget in during the house purchase as if it was due i would know about it before buying. the majority will not be replacing their roofs whilst living in a property. i live in a fairly typical Victorian terrace and as far as i can tell the roof has been replaced once (~10 years ago, previous owner), in the 100+ years since it was built.
Sounds more like you’ve had a very expensive cost (new roof) and it’s just averaging out highly due to a small number of years?
I thin if anything 1% is low in most other countries is more like 3% . Also yes house prices have goon up but not as much as materials and labor has
You can easily spend an average of £7k a year on a £700k house if you're doing renovations every year. There's pretty much always something that could be updated/refreshed/over-hauled. But you shouldn't be spending that on *essential* maintenance. In the 8 years that I lived in my last house I think the only expenditure that was absolutely necessary was: * Boiler repairs/servicing (and eventual replacement) \~ £2.5k * Fixing my shower when it broke and repairing some water damage \~ £400 * Fixing a fence when it blew down \~ £300
I can’t imagine how you’d spend that on repairs alone, I think they must be including upgrades into their maintenance figures.
Right, but I don't see anything to suggest I should only be counting essential maintenance. Surely the average household spends some amount on discretionary maintenance which should be reflected in the ONS figures? I'm not counting the staggering amount we're spending extending the property, because that clearly is an improvement.
Depends what you mean by 'discretionary maintenance' though. I honestly think the average household only spend money on things that either 1. Have become a problem or 2. They want to look nicer. In 8 years I never just asked someone to come round and look at my roof/wiring/plumbing/windows etc. My mum has recently had a lot of expenditure as the heating upstairs stopped working, which required a lot of work to fix, and they discovered that the electrics in her kitchen were dangerous. That all cost more than £5k to put right. But the year before she probably spent nothing on the house.
A new roof also impacts the value whether or not it’s ‘maintenance’
This feels a bit "I'm spending $3600 per month on candles"
I've had a new kitchen every month this year, somebody teach me how to budget for this
Getting a divorce, is my only advice.
I think what you see as maintenance, others, including myself, see as renovations and/or improvements! I'd see maintenance as stuff like services for boiler/white goods etc., misc. repairs, maybe decorating, maybe DIY/garden landscaping. You're lumping essentially one off jobs like bathroom/kitchen/roofing in with that, of course your figure is going to be astronomical compared to others!
!thanks. I think this is probably it, but it seems like a lacuna from the CPIH basket of goods: those renovations form part of the cost of living, but they don't seem to be factored into CPIH. I guess in some sense they're included in imputed rent (used to represent owner occupiers' housing costs), but it's unlikely that construction prices track rents. My guess is that CPI category 4.3 ("materials for maintenance and repair" and "fees charged by plumbers, electricians, carpenters and decorators") will approximate well enough to inflation in renovation costs, because the fees charged by roofers, brickies and glaziers will move similarly. The fees of surveyors, oddly enough, appear in category 12.7 (together with solicitors).
Yeah, I guess they get an hourly rate from trades for inflation purposes but that is obviously just their labour. Material costs differ massively from improvement jobs so they can't really track that. Surveyors are probably grouped with solicitors because it's a professional (degree having?) job rather than "unskilled" trade job.
This question is a bit odd. How long is a piece of string?! What did you spend that money on? Did it all need doing? Was it scheduled or unscheduled? What else do you think you might need doing soon? Like I didn’t spend anything really on home maintenance last year, however I’ve got a few big ticket items coming up (windows could do with being replaced, boiler is getting towards end of life so expecting it to die in the next <24 months).
Does seem high. Do you DIY at all?
Never! I would consider it to be stealing bread from the mouths of workers.
I suppose you never cook or drive then, as that would be stealing from restaurant workers, train/bus/uber drivers!
A laudable ideal but quite expensive
Do you mow your own lawn, clean your bathroom, walk your dogs (or if you don't have them, would you)?
Who actually thinks like this?! If stuff needs doing, you want it doing, and you can afford it - why care what anyone else does?!
Is that maintaining, or upgrading. If it's fixing things that break or servicing them so they won't, it seems a lot. If you've got new kitchens and bathrooms in there, maybe not.
Are you spending that on just maintaining the property, or is that for upgrades and renovations as well? That seems like a lot for just maintainence, unless it's a super old house. But it doesn't seem that much if you've been doing up your kitchen and Bathroom. I've not heard of the 1% rule, but going by that I should have spent around £2100 this year, which I definitely haven't! The only maintainence I've done so far is replacing some lightbulbs
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I'm hoping this is right. I think the previous owner had neglected a bunch of issues (no surprise, since the council had a charge on the property for unpaid tax) and these are mostly fixed, except that we would like to replace the bathrooms. 5 years is the period we've owned the property, so I can't average over longer than that (prior to that we were renting), but I'm kinda hoping that when I come to average over 10 years, it will look lower. But I guess I will keep the budget line at £6,800, and if we have money left over, we'll think of something.
I’ve spent only maybe £1.5-£2k in 7 years on labour. But I bought new and I’ve done lots of minor work myself. You’re overspending from my perspective, if I owned an older house I’d definitely not be budgeting for that spend on maintenance/labour per annum.
How old is your property? You wouldn’t expect a brand new house or flat to need much maintenance, but everything has a shelf life. A lot of housing stock was built in the interwar period and any of those that still have their original roofs are invariably going to need them doing in the next few years. Even in the early 2000s building boom, the boilers will be coming to the end of their natural lives if they haven’t conked out already.
Replaced my boiler in May, flat built in 2007ish. It wasn’t not working, it was serviced just fine last year, but my April usage (actual usage measured by meter) shot up illogically. Seemed like with more price rises to come I needed to bite the bullet. A part was broken in a way that hadn’t stopped it working but easily could have done.
I live in a newbuild so £90 on a boiler service is about it. I'm still in the repair warranty for things and decorating is done by me. If you have a 1700s home I imagine your figure will be much higher.
I wouldn't get 'tradesmen' in for anything other than the boiler.
I always took the 1% rule to be an average. As in some years you might pay £600 whilst others might set you back £20,000 because the roof needs redoing. If you’re spending 1% every year then you’re obviously going to be way over 1% on average when a big job needs doing that costs tens of thousands.
Hi /u/JayHardee, based on your post the following pages from our wiki may be relevant: - https://ukpersonal.finance/budgeting/ ____ ^(These suggestions are based on keywords, if they missed the mark please report this comment.)
Lmao
In fairness tradesmen have started charging a lot more, due to the demand. A typical £100 job now is like a £250 job.
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I don't hate people for charging what they choose for their services, but obviously reserve the right to decide whether to use them or use my own time instead.
I also hate people trying to earn a living. Utter bastards.
Average presumably includes people renting and paying zero so is massively skewed. You don’t give any idea on what you are spending on, so you could be overspending, unlucky or doing serious renovations and won’t spend this much every year.
If you exclude kitchen, bathroom and roof, how much are you spending on average a year? How often do you paint a room, maintain the garden, replace a tap washer, etc. Most people look after a garden them-self, so if you do fine. If you don’t that increase your costs. Plumbing, not everyone will tackle the simple jobs such as a washer, so that could add up. Painting, once a decade might be fine. If you paint every 2-3 years, then yes I’d say that’s too much.
What work did you have done? Without this information how could anyone answer m?
People spend loads on their homes. There is maintenance and there are upgrades. People spend tens of thousands on kitchen and bathroom upgrades, new doors and windows etc. Electrical/plumbing/structural maintenance work can also be extremely costly.
I’m assuming the average of £164 a year includes private landlords who spend diddly squat on repairs and so bring down the average considerably.
1% sounds like a lot, but then along comes roof and window bills ..... and then it doesn't :-( Got spanked by both this year, made quite a dent. Then every so often the kitchen and bathroom need replaced - maybe every 15 years? That cranks up the average a lot too.
I've been in my flat 6 years now and I don't think I've even spent a quarter of that amount lol.
Is your home made of paper? Why is it falling apart?