Just Moved Into a New House? Important Things To Do After Moving In
Posted Thursday, October 14th, 2021 | 1,499 views
Once you move into your new build house, you’re going to have to take care of a few tasks that will help you start living more comfortably. Moving into a new house is an amazing experience and there’s nothing better than being the first owner, but there’s still some work to be done.
Clean Up The New House Dust
Although your house will look brand new when you move in, when it was built it was exposed to a lot of dust and debris. This is quite normal but this dust and debris could affect people with allergies. It will also settle on your walls which makes them look dull and colourless.
A good place to start is by wiping down all your walls first. Then you can move on wiping down the moldings and the ceilings with a damp cloth. Then start cleaning all your windows, and then move to vacuuming all the carpets and floors.
You can get your vents professionally cleaned and you can install an inexpensive air-purifier to help speed up the process. You can purchase a decent air-purifier from your local Home Depot or Walmart for a few hundred dollars.
Before you move into your new house, it’s cleaned up and ready to live in, but there’s nothing like giving it a one-over to make sure the cleanliness of your home is up to your standards from here on in.
Don’t Wait To Paint
A lot of people like the paint their new house comes with, but if you are having thoughts about painting the walls with your colour preferences, don’t wait to paint.
Get your painting started as quickly as possible. Why? The longer you wait the more you’ll be used to the current colours, and you may end up just putting it off.
One of the benefits of starting the painting right away is that there will still be a lot of room, and you won’t have to move too many things around because you just moved in.
Try to get your painting project done within a few weeks of moving in and you’ll be happy you did. When your friends and family visit you, they’ll definitely be impressed by your new walls!
If you’re not comfortable with painting, or you’re worried about making a huge mess of your new house, hire a painting company to do it for you. There are a lot of professional commercial painters that can help you.
Set Up Your Cable TV and Internet
Setting up your cable and Internet is important. It keeps everyone in the family busy and helps pass the time, especially when you’re just getting organized in your new house.
Simply make a call to your local cable and Internet provider and set up your appointment to have them visit your home for an install. You can also make all these arrangements before you move into your new house which will save you time and let you avoid waiting days without service.
Test Your Wifi
No one wants weak wifi. It’s good to know which areas of your new house receive a stronger wifi signal. This can be done by going to each room of your home and testing the signal on your phone or iPad. Take note of which areas have the strongest and weakest signal throughout the house.
You can also use a phone app to test your wifi signal. There are many apps that will show you exactly how strong or weak your signal is while you’re walking around your home.
If you find the signal is too weak in important rooms, you can either test your wifi-box in different locations or purchase a Wifi repeater. Wife repeaters will strengthen the signal throughout the entire home.
Check For Roof and Basement Leaks
Chances are that your new home builders did an amazing job on the build of your home but no one is perfect. Sometimes we find imperfections that need to be rectified.
With that said, one good suggestion is to look for leaks in your home after the next big rain storm. This will give you a chance to inspect for any leak problems and fix them before they get worse.
If you do find any leaks after moving into your new house, contact your builder and let them know what you found. Most builders will come and fix the problem right away and for free.
Another thing you can do is call your local roofing company and have them install drip edge along your roof line. Installing drip edge will reduce the chances of roof leaks, and it also helps keep wildlife out of your attic.
Locate Your Fuse Box
It’s good to go to your basement and find your fuse box. Find it, and make a note of which fuses are being used for each part of your home. One of the best ways to familiarize yourself with your fuse box is by making a chart showing which fuse affects which areas of your home.
That way when the electricity in an area of your home goes out, you can simply refer to this chart. To make things easier simply tape the chart to the door of your fuse box and never worry about finding it.
These days most new homes are built with fuse flip-switches. These switches help homeowner identify flipped fuses and make it easier to find in case of an electrical overload. In these cases, a switch-chart comes in handy when you’re doing power tests etc.
Locate Your Water Valves
Another important tasks is to locate and familiarize yourself with your water valves. They’re almost always located in the basement and are the main source of water for your home.
Take a note where these valves are so you can shut the water off in case you need to. You may need to turn off the main water valve when you’re doing minor repairs or making upgrades to your home like fixing the toilet, or installing a new faucet.
Test All Your Electrical Outlets
Again, most new build homes will not have any electrical issues but just to be safe, go through your entire home and test all the electrical outlets.
It’s easy to do to and only takes a few minutes. Simply grab your mobile phone, plug the charger into it, and insert the charger into all your outlets – one by one. If your phone starts charging, the outlet is working. If you find one that doesn’t work, call your builder.
Another good idea is to test all the light switches in your home just to make sure they’re all in working order too.
Test Your Furnace & Air Conditioning
Another good idea after moving into a new build house is to test out your furnace and air conditioning units. Simply turn them on for a few minutes and note if they’re working properly or not. You can opt in for closing the room doors and checking back shortly to see if the room is adequately heating up or cooling down.
While you’re testing your heating and A/C, it’s a perfect time to test all your air vents to make sure they’re working and not clogged with anything. Simply go to each room of your home and feel your vents. Look for whether any air is coming through and how much pressure you feel.
If something doesn’t feel right, simply contact your builder and they’ll address the problem for you quite promptly.
Test Your Toilets and Faucets
Most of this type of testing is done for you before you move into a new house but just to make sure everything is working it’s good to test your toilets and faucets too. Simply go to each bathroom and flush your toilets, and test all your faucets. Signs to look for are water pressure and test the hot water.
Check All Your Windows
New build homes have high quality and modern windows installed but sometimes some of them have minor defects that weren’t caught when they were first put in.
Test them. Simply go to each room of your home and open and close the window a few times and see if everything works well, and if their appears to be a proper seal when you close them.
You don’t want to encounter any window issues during inclement weather, and you especially want to see if you can detect any drafts.
Check All Your Locks
One last important item on your checklist is to check all the door, screen-door and window locks to make sure they’re working properly. Although most of these items were checked before you took possession of the home, there’s no harm in making sure all the locks are working properly and everything is secure.
Make sure to check the locks on all the house doors, garage doors, windows and sliding screen-doors. If you find any issues contact your builder and get them rectified right away.
