To ensure your beautiful waterfront property stays beautiful and in top condition, you need to know what to pay attention to! To help you keep up with the maintenance, we have prepared seven tips for maintaining your waterfront property in Florida. Draft your to-do list, and start checking off boxes!
Be prepared to deal with humidity
One of the first things to know before buying waterfront property is that you will be dealing with a lot of humidity issues. It should, in a way, be obvious: you are purchasing a home near a large body of water. And the weather in Florida is quite humid, even in areas without one. Still, most people tend to prioritize the view and completely disregard what this means for their home. For starters, if you fail to control the humidity level, your wooden furniture and items will suffer. You will likely experience warping, if not rotting of the wood used to make them. This would probably ruin the furniture beyond being able to fix it relatively quickly. You will definitely want to install a dehumidifier in your home and keep it well ventilated so no stale air can linger in your home.
Out with the carpets
Carpets are a nightmare on waterfront property! So, one of the essential tips for maintaining your waterfront property is to get rid of them completely. This goes double for any home built close to a beach. Sand will get virtually everywhere, and your carefully placed carpets will quickly turn into something straight from a nightmare. Even the experts from getmovedtoday.com caution that sand needs to be carefully removed from waterfront furniture and carpets before packing unless you want it to scrape and damage your items during the transfer! So, you can imagine how hard dealing with it is. An excellent alternative is putting in fashionable wooden flooring. Laminate, vinyl, and tile work great, too, with tile even helping keep your home comfortably cool.
Exterminate any mold as soon as it appears
One of the consequences of the humidity and wetness in waterfront areas is the increased chance of mold appearing in your home. And, if you want it to stay appealing and in good condition, you need to exterminate any mold in sight to maintain your waterfront property. After all, mold can both threaten the health of your family and damage the integrity of your home. If allowed to spread freely, it will eventually cause your home’s more sensitive parts to start rotting. It will also make it easier for water to penetrate the façade and roof of your home if it is growing on them. If you are not sure you can clean up the mold properly yourself, it is better to contact professional cleaners.
Know which materials your home should be using
As you learn more about waterfront property, you will discover that there is more to building a home that will last in such areas than good design skills. A good waterfront home needs to be made of certain materials in order to be able to withstand the rigors of its location. Namely, it needs fiberglass and stainless steel. If the normal glass is used, it will very quickly become pitted, scratched, and generally damaged by the sand particles hurled around by the wind and the acidity of water droplets. For similar reasons, any attempts to use wood, or paint over the stainless-steel exterior, will end up with a weathered-looking façade. At the very least, it will take a lot more effort and frequent renovation to keep your home looking fresh. If you haven’t bought a home yet, look for one with these features! If you have, consider a renovation.
Clean the outside of your home often too
An essential tip for maintaining your waterfront property in Florida? Don’t just kick back and relax – even if you have a home built of the materials we had mentioned. Those materials are weather-resistant, not weather immune. This means that they need to be cleaned at least once a week to stay in good condition. All you really need to do, though, is wipe them down. This will help to eliminate the sand and acidic water particles sticking to your façade and glass surfaces. If you just leave it alone, your glass will first turn murky before slowly developing visible damage over time. Even your stainless-steel façade will gradually start to show signs of wear.
Designate a mudroom
We’ve mentioned how troublesome sand inside your home can be. To maintain your waterfront property, you need to make it more difficult to track it into your home. And while removing all your carpets could do the trick, you must consider that it isn’t always the most sustainable solution, given that they help your floors insulate the home. So, is it possible to leave the carpets to lower the bills and keep the sand out of the house? Yes, if you add a mudroom.
A mudroom, or just an area in front of your doors designated as one, helps immensely. It makes it easier and more convenient to clean up! Especially if you have the flooring made of tile in this section of your home. It can even hold a small wardrobe or hangers for your jackets and coats so the sand or similar clinging to those does not get dragged into your home, either!
Still, it’s impossible to keep all of the sand out when you live on waterfront property. Some of it is bound to sneak inside and into those carpets you decided to keep. So, if you’re fixed on keeping the carpets, one of the simple and sustainable home improvement ideas you can try out is swapping the regular carpeting for a non-toxic, eco-friendly alternative. For one thing, it helps you avoid exposing yourself to harmful chemicals, dust, and bacteria commonly found in regular carpeting, on top of all the sand in it. Secondly, if you’re after sustainability and making your home more environmentally friendly, this is one of the easy ways to upgrade it.
Pay special attention to your roof
Obviously, your roof is your chief protector from weather conditions finding their way into your home. And, in a waterfront property, strong winds are likely to contain traces of water. That’s without even mentioning frequent rainfall. In Florida, the periods between June and October see a ton of water pounding down on your poor roof! If it is not in tip-top condition, you are likely looking at a lot of leaks developing. That is why maintaining your waterfront property demands inviting professionals to check over your roof before this rainy season. This is why one of the valuable tips for buying water view real estate is never to prioritize property that needs roof repairs! This can get expensive, and you are looking at a lot of troubles until you get it done.
Final comment
Now that you are familiar with the seven tips for maintaining your waterfront property in Florida, you should be able to do a better job taking care of your home. Just remember that waterfront property asks for a lot of work. The weather conditions of such a home make it impossible to slack off for long. Not without serious consequences, at least.