Maintaining a manufactured home is important for many reasons! Routine maintenance is the best way to keep a home's value high and build future equity. It also helps ensure the safety and comfort of the house year-round. It's not always exciting, but maintenance is an essential responsibility that should be taken seriously.
Many vital home upkeep tasks must only be addressed once or twice a year. Yes, these efforts require little time but go a long way toward preserving comfort and quality for years to come. On the other hand, lack of maintenance almost always results in frustrating, expensive issues down the road.
At Sun Communities, we value our clients' time and money and offer this checklist that, if addressed annually, homes will more surely maintain their value, ensuring peace of mind for the owner.
A Handy List of Maintenance Tips for Manufactured Homes
Foundation
It's crucial to inspect the home's foundation and other support structures. Make sure there are no cracks or other inconsistencies in the foundation. This is one of the most critical items to check yearly, specifically in the first few years of construction. Just like site-built homes, a manufactured home's foundation can start to sink and settle over time. Because of this shift, homes should be releveled on a semi-regular basis. Homes with permanent foundations should be checked professionally to ensure that shifting hasn't happened.
A cracked foundation or unlevel home can cause several problems, such as doors and windows that won't close or seal properly, leaks or cracks in the walls, and drafts of air and humidity entering the home. A minor stress on the home's structure can impact the entire living space, causing it to age more quickly and potentially lead to warping. Check if the house is level using a standard carpenter or water level. With permanent foundations such as crawl spaces, slab foundations, or basement foundations, visible cracking, sagging, or shifting is usually the biggest damage indicator.
Clean the Inside, too!
Regularly clean the walls, surfaces, and other hardware with a gentle detergent to avoid discoloration. It's important to remember to use gentle cleaning materials, as rough products or harsh chemicals can cause discoloration. Avoid using abrasive solutions like pure bleach, especially on fiberglass fixtures like sinks, tubs, and showers. Corrosive chemicals can tarnish fixtures and cause them to appear aged.
Skirting
The skirting or perimeter enclosure around the bottom of your home keeps unwanted moisture from getting into the home's underbelly. Inspect regularly to ensure there are no holes or cracks that might allow moisture to enter the house.
While you don't want holes or damage to the solid portion of your skirting, you still want to ensure the skirting is adequately ventilated. What does this mean? Proper skirting ventilation involves having approximately one square foot of venting for every 150 square feet of space under the home. Ventilation helps avoid the collection of too much moisture beneath the dwelling. Too much humidity can lead to issues with the foundation and flooring.
Window and Vent Caulking
Inspecting the caulking around your windows and vents is always a good idea. This is important, especially during winter if you live somewhere with significant temperature changes. Extreme temperature changes can eventually cause caulk to shrink, split, or break down, resulting in cracks, gaps, or warping in the seals that protect the home's internal climate. When airflow penetrates through damaged seals, the house is less comfortable, and heating or cooling costs are higher.
Many people think of checking their window seals before winter sets in but often need to remember about other seals around vents, ducts, and other systems that are sealed from outside exposure with caulk or sealant. Resealing every year before the cool weather hits can help keep unwanted air and moisture out, lowering energy bills and ensuring year-round comfort.
Gutters
Proper gutter upkeep is one of the easiest ways to prevent damage to a manufactured home's roof and exterior. When gutters are clogged, they can cause leaks and water damage to the home. If ignored for too long, clogged gutters get heavy with debris and break or fall off the house, causing substantial external damage to the property.
Even when the property is not around large trees, dirt, leaves, and rocks can be carried through the air and deposited into your gutters. Gutters should be inspected and cleaned at least twice yearly, ideally in the spring and just before winter.
Exterior Siding
It is always a good idea to regularly clean the siding to avoid mold and mildew growth on the exterior paneling. Siding is one of the most commonly ignored home components when it comes to maintenance, but it should be at the top of the list of items to address each year. If the manufactured home has vinyl siding*, water with detergent is an effective cleaning solution.
Mildew can sometimes be more challenging to remove, especially if it has not been cleaned or scrubbed for some time. A helpful tip is to mix a 1:3 solution of chlorine bleach and water. This is a practical way to break down and eliminate mildew. Be cautious: Mixing bleach with certain substances can be dangerous.
Many special cleaning products are designed to cut through mold and rust on a home's exterior. Using a homemade or mild store-bought cleaning solution to scrub the outside siding once a year is an easy and affordable way to avoid long-term exterior damage.
*NOTE: Vinyl is the most commonly used material in siding.
Heating and HVAC Systems
Inspecting and cleaning the air ventilation and heating systems several times yearly to improve the air quality in any home is essential. Regularly changing the filter helps keep the house comfortable and in good condition. Clean filters can help decrease the effects of asthma and allergies.
Changing filters is a huge step towards air cleanliness and system maintenance, but thoroughly vacuuming these air systems once yearly is still a good idea. This type of maintenance also makes the heating, cooling, and HVAC systems last longer, saving homeowners money. Replacing an entire air system is expensive. Preventative maintenance is the best solution to ensure air systems don't break down unexpectedly.
Roof
Check the roof at least twice a year to ensure there is no debris or broken or missing shingles. Defects or weaknesses in the roof could lead to moisture, other unwanted elements, or even vermin getting into the house's roof cavity.
Recoating the roof yearly is also a great idea - especially for flat roofs. Roof coating is essential to keeping your indoor temperature regulated and keeping the house's interior dry. The coating depends on the roof or roof cap installed on the home. Be sure to use the right coating for the specific roof material. For instance, asphalt and aluminum coatings cannot be used on PVC or rubber (EPDM) roofs. You should also be checking for debris and broken or missing shingles.
Bonus Tips
Here are a few bonus tips to help you enjoy your manufactured home fully.
Choose a Manufactured Home Community that Offers Maintenance
An attractive feature of living in a manufactured housing community is that maintenance is part of their amenities! Depending on the community, these luxuries range from yard maintenance to gutter cleaning, annual winterizing, and complete plumbing and heating maintenance. Browse through Sun Communities properties to find out what services and amenities are included.
Proper upkeep of manufactured homes may sound like a lot of work. But it's important to remember that traditional site-built homes require similar or even more expensive maintenance to keep them looking nice and clean.
Read more: Get to know Sun Communities more
Plumbing Maintenance
Inspecting the plumbing system for leaks, clogs, or other issues is necessary to prevent water damage and keep the home's plumbing fixtures working year-round. Checking for leaks under sinks, around toilets, and in the water heater area can help identify and address plumbing issues early on.
Regular Inspections
Regular home inspections are essential. This includes checking for signs of water damage, pests, structural issues, or any other potential problems. These preventative measures help preserve the home's value by identifying and addressing issues early on.
Discover more: Find your forever home
Creating a calendar that plans out all the necessary maintenance for the year is a fantastic way to organize. These steps help homeowners avoid costly damages in the future.
These tips ensure that manufactured homes remain looking good and in top condition for years to come. Sun Communities provides our residents with the resources and assistance they need to maintain their homes and enjoy a luxurious life in our manufactured home communities.