[retiredguy123]

My house is 8 years old. I have to admit that I spend almost no money on maintenance. Here are some examples:

HVAC system – I add hot water to the condensate drain every 2 months or so and replace the air filter every 6 months. I have never paid an HVAC company to perform any preventive maintenance.

HVAC ducts – no maintenance or cleaning.

Water heater – no maintenance. It still produces plenty of hot water when I need it.

Clothes dryer – no maintenance, except to clean the lint screen. I have considered it, but I never paid anyone to clean out the vent duct. The dryer still seems to dry clothes as well as when it was new.

Smoke detectors – no maintenance or routine battery replacement, except that about 3 years ago, I replaced the batteries because one detector started to beep.

Dishwasher – no maintenance. Someone said that I should clean the filter, but I haven’t done that yet.

Refrigerator – no maintenance except to replace the water filter every 6 months. I started to use the cheap Amazon filters when Whirlpool raised their filter price to $60.

Plastic push-pull shut off valves – I still have the original cheap plastic valves and have had no leaks or issues.

Vehicle – I have a 5 year old SUV with 54K miles. The only maintenance I have done is to change the oil every 5,000 miles and to replace the tires and the battery. No other maintenance.

Maybe I have just been lucky, but I saved a lot of money.

[ThirdOfFive]

Originally Posted by retiredguy123

My house is 8 years old. I have to admit that I spend almost no money on maintenance. Here are some examples:

HVAC system – I add hot water to the condensate drain every 2 months or so and replace the air filter every 6 months. I have never paid an HVAC company to perform any preventive maintenance.

HVAC ducts – no maintenance or cleaning.

Water heater – no maintenance. It still produces plenty of hot water when I need it.

Clothes dryer – no maintenance, except to clean the lint screen. I have considered it, but I never paid anyone to clean out the vent duct. The dryer still seems to dry clothes as well as when it was new.

Smoke detectors – no maintenance or routine battery replacement, except that about 3 years ago, I replaced the batteries because one detector started to beep.

Dishwasher – no maintenance. Someone said that I should clean the filter, but I haven’t done that yet.

Refrigerator – no maintenance except to replace the water filter every 6 months. I started to use the cheap Amazon filters when Whirlpool raised their filter price to $60.

Plastic push-pull shut off valves – I still have the original cheap plastic valves and have had no leaks or issues.

Vehicle – I have a 5 year old SUV with 54K miles. The only maintenance I have done is to change the oil every 5,000 miles and to replace the tires and the battery. No other maintenance.

Maybe I have just been lucky, but I saved a lot of money.

I'm pretty handy with tools so I do a lot of maintenance on stuff:

GROUNDS: Mow lawn, edge and trim hedges/bushes.
A/C: Change filter every six months
FRIDGE: change filter every six months. Like the OP I get them from Amazon (cheaper)
GENERATOR: (for emergencies) Use 1 x. Mo. (lawn mowing), then oil changes 1 x 6 mo. and clean spark plug)
WATER HEATER: New, so no maintenance yet, but will drain bottom of tank per instructions 1 x year.
SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM: check battery strength and recharge as necessary.
SCREENS: Garage screens are getting ragged so will be painting the frames and replacing the screen in all four sliding panels.

Etc.

[rjm1cc]

About the same but I would have the dryer vent cleaned. Maybe ever 8 years for your experience.
I do spray inside and outside for bugs.

[OrangeBlossomBaby]

I don't think my fridge even has a removable filter for the ice maker. It's an old-school ice maker, not in the door, and the freezer part of the fridge is on the top of the unit, not on one side or another.

It's the first time I've had an ice maker built into a freezer before. I've always made ice with ice trays.

We mow our own lawn, weed our own flower beds, trim our own hedges, prune our own tree.

We handle any indoor insect/bug problems, but we have a service for the yard.

Our dryer hose is on the floor and extends through a vent on the bottom of the laundry shed to the outside. Very easy to clean, just open the vent, insert the shop-vac nozzle, and turn the shop-vac on. Boom. Clean in seconds.

I don't know anything about the dishwasher other than how to turn the thing on and off. It's built into the kitchen in such a way that if we ever need to replace it, we'd have to either remove the counter, or remove the floor boards. Whoever built it this way is absolutely evil.

[Topspinmo]

IMO if you dryer vent exits up to roof it needs cleaned more often do to gravity pushing air up. I’m lucky my dryer vents to outside wall and house about 3 foot or so from dryer. Still if you have offset and hose snaked into it, which slows volume down where lint can collect it needs to be check if you have low flow on outside vent. Even if don’t lint still builds up over time in around and through blower motor. I do everything that don’t require licensed contractor and permits.

I had photos that show lint buildup inside dryer, but I must of deleted them?

Here’s photo of vent ducting I put on my dryer to get maximum air flow as possible. Straight through to out side.