Budgeting for house maintenance

[Cerulean]

I'm looking into home ownership and have found a property that suits my wife and I's budget and priorities. One thing I'm having some difficulty getting my head around though is how to think of budgeting for the general upkeep and maintenance of the house. I've read wildly different articles in my research both in English and Japanese and am looking for some experiences of those of you who own your own home (I'm talking about a detached house here for reference, roughly 10-15 years old).

How do you decide how much to budget for house maintenance each month? Do you include things like replacing appliances in this budget or is it purely renovation/repair of the structure? Do you use it when things are in need of repair, or do you also invest in prevention and general improvement? Where do you keep these funds, in cash, in other asset classes? Do you use your full budget every year or do you keep some back in anticipation of large expenses like a new roof? And finally, if you have been living in your house for a while, do you have any tips or advice on how to organize the planning for home maintenance?

[Beaglehound]

Lots of variables in this budget really, you are going to have things that need replaced immediately when they break and other things that are likely to be more of a choice as to timing (roof, exterior painting etc).

I keep aside a notional 15k a month for maintenance/new appliances but our house was newly built three years ago and we bought most appliances new as well, so have hardly had to dip into it yet except for routine water heater maintenance.

The idea is to build up a fund to cover things that will need doing in the future, so I don’t spend the fund each year. When maintenance needs done to the exterior or we need a new water heater/aircons, for example, it will dwarf my annual ‘budget’ of 180k. Any major exterior maintenance might outstrip the fund in fact, so I am prepared to supplement as required, but the 15k a month should provide a decent base. With a 10-15 year old house you will have to decide if the building needs any initial outlay, then a reasonable amount to put aside might be a bit higher than mine based on the age of the house and whether you do any major maintenance at the outset.

[Cerulean]

Thank you very much for the reply.

Luckily the house has been freshly renovated (all new kitchen/bathroom, new boiler, all double glazed windows etc) so at least those things should be fairly good for the immediate future and not require immediate outlays, which should hopefully allow us some time to build up a cushion for the larger jobs. Your budget seems in line with what I was planning for us, as you say older houses will probably require a higher budget and I was planning on saving around 25k a month for that so that's reassuring. We have also built up general emergency funds that give us a bit of freedom in tackling the larger jobs if there are any sudden problems.

How are you planning to decide on things like when to re-do the roof, or get work done on foundations etc? Do you have some kind of schedule in mind already? Are you planning on getting professional inspections every x years or just visually judging things by yourselves?

[captainspoke]

Thank you very much for the reply.

Luckily the house has been freshly renovated (all new kitchen/bathroom, new boiler, all double glazed windows etc) so at least those things should be fairly good for the immediate future and not require immediate outlays, which should hopefully allow us some time to build up a cushion for the larger jobs. Your budget seems in line with what I was planning for us, as you say older houses will probably require a higher budget and I was planning on saving around 25k a month for that so that's reassuring. We have also built up general emergency funds that give us a bit of freedom in tackling the larger jobs if there are any sudden problems.

How are you planning to decide on things like when to re-do the roof, or get work done on foundations etc? Do you have some kind of schedule in mind already? Are you planning on getting professional inspections every x years or just visually judging things by yourselves?

Call it poor planning if you want, but we don't have a specific budget--any special funds set aside for maintenance (and our place is ancient, 50+yrs old). Separate things into what might be an emergency, vs discretionary. If your water heater is new, that should be good for years--check to see if there's a guarantee on it, when we changed ours we got five years of any service needed. And a water heater is an emergency item, so I'd 'budget' for something like that via emergency funds, not by trying to guesstimate it as a part of ongoing maintenance.

Other big ticket items are discretionary. When and how often you might replace your burners/grill and oven. Washing machine? How do you guess whether it'll last 8 or 15yrs? Just get one when you need to. Same with an a/c unit, and a house probably has several, and they're not all going to go kaput at once, just change one when you want or think it's doable.

And excuse me, but "work done on foundations"?!? There should never be any work needed. There may be some settling, but barring some hugely extensive work, it's not correctable, or not worth correcting without full rebuilding. (Be careful you don't get scammed by some doorbell ringer saying your foundation needs work.)

Various roofs (types/materials) do have a lifespan, but it's usually in measured in decades, not years. Any metal roofing might be the shortest, tho some types--good galvanium--should be 40yrs or so. Traditional tile should last as long as the house itself. (OTOH, gutters might need attention, such as cleaning or sometimes replacement.) Hopefully, you don't have any exposed exterior wood, which would need repainting/staining, but which may be a DIY thing rather than something you'd need to budget for.

[Beaglehound]

Honestly haven’t given too much thought to the big things since house is just three years old. There is also a ten-year warranty for defects like foundation, roof, windows, walls and the like.

[Moneymatters]

How are you planning to decide on things like when to re-do the roof, or get work done on foundations etc? Do you have some kind of schedule in mind already? Are you planning on getting professional inspections every x years or just visually judging things by yourselves?

quite a decent thread here on roofing. and some talk on painting.
viewtopic.php?p=17481&hilit=colonial#p17481

get a selfie stick and check the roof condition yourself. but the timing to recoat/replace / repair will depend on several variables. mainly what material is the roof and has it been recoated once already. assuming made from that colonial stuff of course.

As for painting/sealing external walls. I do recommend to visual inspect look for cracks especially on weather exposed walls.
You could do some simple caulking yourself if you see cracks but aren't ready to pay for it to be resealed/repainted.

[Gloria]

if you have damage to your roof it can be claimed on fire insurance. We just got back 400,000 yen on a 650,000 yen repair. I told a friend about this and her company paid 270,000 on a 240,000 repair!!!!

[Tkydon]

You might consider budgeting the same amount as your Kotei Shisan Zei, which is partially based on the Accounting Depreciation of the Structure.

And a further Y10,000 per month for Appliance maintenance and replacement...

[Cerulean]

Wow so many helpful responses thank you all very much.

The roofing thread had a lot of useful information, and I'll look into the fire insurance coverage. Seems like that would be a massive help in the case of an emergency. There's a lot to learn!

[mighty58]

I agree with Captainspoke on this one. As the majority of the large expenses (repairs, big furniture, white goods) that come up are once-in-a-decade (or two decades) type expenses, and most arise from something breaking down or going wrong suddenly, it's both hard to predict and hard to budget for. Therefore, having a healthy financial position overall, by saving and investing regularly, is probably the best way to deal with these expenses, rather than trying to budget some small amount every month. Remember, if you do go the monthly budget route, you'll then need to manage that money, track it, and decide where to park it until it's needed, which seems, at least to me, like adding yet another layer of unnecessary complexity to one's life.