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Home The Basics Infrastructure Ongoing Concerns |
Maintaining your Private IslandAt home in your condo, you pay people to landscape, paint the hallways and clean the pool. If you're alone on your island without staff or access to repairmen, maintenance comes down to you. 
Being a skilled handyman is a definite asset on a private island. If you can't fix things yourself, you better keep things real simple. Buying fancy air conditioners and washing machines is great if you have the money, but keeping them running is another story. Before you buy a piece of machinery, ask for the manual. Follow the maintenance schedule to a tee. Owning a house AND a boat means you probably don't have much spare time to begin with. Inspecting your home and property on a regular basis and following good maintenance practices is the best way to protect your investment. Whether you take care of a few tasks at a time or several all at once, it is important to get into the habit of doing them. Establish a routine for yourself and you will find the work is easy to accomplish and not very time consuming. A regular schedule of seasonal maintenance can put a stop to the most common -- and costly -- problems, before they occur. If necessary use a camera to take pictures of anything you might want to share with an expert for advice or to monitor or remind you of a situation later.
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If a boat is part of your island life, you'll need a maintenance schedule for that too. If your water ride is a small dinghy you beach on
the shore, maintenance is usually as simple as keeping it in the shade. If your dingy sits in the water all the time, look after your motor
because it's the most expensive part of your boat. You need to run the motor frequently, even if you're not using the boat. Keep the
outboard tilted when not in use so the propeller doesn't sit in the water collecting seaweed and barnacles. With a large boat, change
your oil frequently. Also, keep the hull well cleaned and painted. 
Maintenance costs on a private island can be high, but the costs depend on your infrastructure. The more you have on your island, the
more there is to maintain. If you're close to the mainland, it's easier to access supplies and repair people. If you have an island
in the Bahamas with an airplane runway, villa, staff, electricity and running water, you could be looking at up to $200,000 a year
for maintenance.