No matter whether you are a first time home owner, own more than one home or have several homes, when disaster strikes, what will you do?  Whether it is from a storm, flood or fire you will need to take immediate action.  Can you do the needed repairs or are you going to have to call in the professionals?

broken-house

Home owner insurance is just as important as investing in you and your families life. A natural disaster can not only wipe out a home but can wipe out a family. If you happen to be home when one strikes, don’t you want your family will be taken care of if something were to happen to you? Life insurance, should you or your family ever need it, can really save a family that may have lost a loved one. There are many life insurance policies that can cover a wide array of situations. Take the time to research a policy before its too late.

Regardless of the choice you make, the first step is contacting your insurance company and letting them know what happened and they will send out an agent to get you started on what you should do.  Of course if this is a major disaster you will more than likely have to call in the pros.

You were informed by your insurance agent that you would need to get 2 to 3 written estimates.  When finding a contractor for doing these bids, make sure he is bonded and insured.  Maybe ask him if you can go and look at some of his work he has done in the past.

Always keep in mind that just because you hire a professional contractor to do the job there is still things that you can do to save money.  One way is by doing some of the demolishing work yourself, like maybe ripping up the old carpet or flooring that is needing replaced.  You can also tear down old cabinets or take out appliances and fixtures that need to go.  How about that damaged sheet rock, surely you can that.  You might be pleasantly surprised at how much money you could save by just doing things like this.  Home Depot and Lowe’s usually offer free classes on home do-it-yourself projects.   This is certainly something worth checking into!

Think about maybe cleaning up afterwords yourself.   Most contractors include in their price a clean-up fee.  This is for the interior part of the house, such as wiping out cabinets and window seals and things of this sort.  This is a job you can to with just a bucket of soapy water and a little elbow grease!  Of course they will have a big dumpster sitting in your driveway where they will be putting all the debris as they are doing their job.  Let them do that by all means!

Now that the actual house is taken care of and it looks like a brand new house, what about all the landscaping that was maybe damaged or something that you have just been putting off doing for a really long time.  Now would be a good time to tackle that job too.

Again you are thinking can I really do this or do I need some help?  Chances are you can do most of it by yourself, therefore saving even more.  Most all cities and towns have local nurseries where they have landscaping artists who are very knowledgeable and more than willing to give you advice on what kind of plants, shrubs and tress that grow and do well in your area.  They will even deliver if you don’t own a truck!