Property Management - 9 Tips to Cut Costs With Preventive Maintenance & Proactive Maintenance

Preventive maintenance and proactive maintenance can cut costs at your property too. Operators, managers, and investors can make a dramatic difference in their long term maintenance costs with preventive maintenance or proactive maintenance.

First, what is the difference between these two concepts? In the first case, we are focusing on maintenance activities to prevent break fix costs. In the second case, we are focusing on identifying capital and expense changes that will change the maintenance profile or requirements of your property. Both can reduce costs, and at the same time, both can improve customer service. Of course in the ideal world, maintenance would work like the old Maytag repair advertisements. Nothing would break and the maintenance person would have nothing to do. What better service can you provide than that?

3 Preventive Maintenance Tips: set up a rotating 90 day schedule to check every unit for nagging issues that grow into high cost repairs. Some items to check include:

• Make sure the AC units are working correctly and that the chemical levels are as required. The great result of this is you will identify leaks more quickly enabling repairing them and reducing costs.
• Check each unit for water leaks and drips. You'll save your residents waterbill fees. You will prevent wood rot loss. You'll save maintenance costs.
• Check window sills and doorways for signs of water damage. You will avoid wood, door, and window replacement costs while improving liveability.

6 Proactive Maintenance Tips:

• Look for replacement materials and systems that reduce costs of operations. A good example is long life carpets available now that absorb odors, resist stain, and offer a 7 year extended life. This product can save $100 per year on maintenance costs.
• Collect resident utility bills regularly looking for anomalies from average costs. You can reveal problems and repair them before you can the service call improving satisfaction, reducing fire risk, and reducing repair costs.
• Clean drains quarterly. You will prevent flood damage and avoid irate residents.
• Clean gutters twice annually to prevent roof rot and avoid water damage.
• Look at and consider new products to reduce costs on a system by system basis annually or more often.
• Visit other properties to identify maintenance and service steps you may not have considered.

Property managers, operators, and owners who look at the options described above and who look at their maintenance requirements in the context of these two ideas will save money, improve asset value, and improve customer satisfaction.

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