Take care of minor repairs before they turn into major expenses

One of the lessons I’ve learned over the years is that problems don’t normally go away without addressing them. And if the problem involves having to spend money, not only does the problem not go away, it usually ends up costing me more money.

I had originally started this post several months ago and thought I would get around to finishing it before now. What brought me back to it was the constant hum of the air conditioner in my office which one of my coworkers heard and said we should get that looked at before it turns into a much more expensive problem. He said it as though he’d learned the lesson much like I had, the hard way.

This lesson applies to all problems, but I think I’ve experienced it most often through automobile and home ownership. Everyone of us has had that squeal or sound our car makes and we just hope it goes away. Sometimes they do but most often the squeal or sound just gets louder and more expensive. If only we had addressed it sooner. For example, when I was younger, my brakes started squealing and I kept putting off a minor repair that would have cost me about $100. Don’t get me wrong, that was a lot of money at the time. I put it off however, and it turned from a squeal to a grinding sound which ended up costing me over $500.

When it comes to home ownership, routine maintenance can help avoid those expensive repairs on items such as air conditioners and appliances. Having someone come out and do routine maintenance on your air conditioning could potentially save you several thousands in costly repairs. Once it goes out, you don’t have much of a choice as to the type of repair, especially here in the Texas Summers.

Anyway, I can’t hear myself think with this loud noise coming from the air conditioning in my office so I need to wrap this up so I can report the noise. Hopefully we can get someone out while the issue is minor and before it turns into one of those expensive repairs we’ve all experienced at some time in our adult lives.

 

 

Post author: Jamieson Mackay, CCUFC

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