Preventive maintenance is the planning, monitoring, and complete routine check of building components and common elements in order to sustain and improve the property value of your community. Deferred Maintenance, or postponing the maintenance of common elements, can have a long lasting, negative impact on the community.
A proper preventive maintenance schedule will help you to stay organized and efficient when taking care of your community. The first thing you should do at your property is to identify all the common elements that need to be maintained. Some of these elements can be maintained by in-house staff and others need to be maintained by outside professionals. It is also important to understand the frequency and scope of the preventive maintenance.
As an example, the following common elements in a condominium would likely need to be maintained by outside professionals on, no less than an annual basis: roofs, cooling towers, generators, gym equipment and alarm systems.
Some examples of common elements in a condominium that could be maintained by in-house staff include: changing air filters for individual AC units, back-flushing individual AC units, touch-up painting in common areas, re-strapping of pool furniture and cleaning hallway carpets.
For homeowner associations, the following common elements would likely need to be maintained by an outside professional: trees and other plantings, clubhouse AC and electrical systems, and lakes, including the shoreline.
Areas in a homeowner association that can typically be maintained by in-house staff include: pressure cleaning of pool area, changing clubhouse AC filters, machine cleaning of clubhouse carpets, touch-up painting in the clubhouse and minor fence repairs.
Does your community have a well defined preventive maintenance plan or checklist?