How Do You Ensure Good Maintenance In Commercial Buildings?
When you own or manage commercial buildings, you know that good maintenance is key. It's what will protect your investment from deterioration; unchecked maintenance problems can erode the structure and function of the building. At the same time, tenants will be repelled by a building with maintenance issues. How do you keep maintenance efficient and current? Here are some ideas.
Hire a Good Inspector
A good inspector of commercial buildings will know how to look for the first signs of wear and tear on the building. They can keep a log of all problems they note during their building walk-throughs. While you might not repair every single crack you find, you will at least have a list that shows all of your maintenance priorities. Prioritize things like commercial plumbing and electrical needs, since these are the ones that will affect tenants the most.
Be Responsive to Tenants
Your tenants are great watchdogs for maintenance issues. It affects them directly when there are maintenance problems, so if you nurture the tenant relationship, they are likely to come to you with problems. But this relationship can change if you are unresponsive or unhelpful in response to a maintenance request. Keep an open-door policy with regards to reporting problems, and don't hold maintenance issues against your tenants. If you repair the problems swiftly, you can prevent some of the larger maintenance costs down the line, and you'll preserve the line of contact with tenants so that you always know when something is going wrong with your commercial buildings. Plus, of course, you'll ensure that tenants are happy with their lease.
Choose a Good Commercial Contractor
You may choose to hire individual commercial plumbing, electrical, and waterproofing contractors for your commercial buildings, or you could hire a general contractor for commercial buildings who can coordinate all of that work. However you choose to set up your maintenance team, just make sure you choose and vet your contractors before you have a problem. Start the relationship early. The last thing you want is to be in a hurry to choose a plumber when you have a toilet overflowing. Ideally, your contractors will be with you for the amount of time you own or manage your commercial buildings, so give yourself time to choose the best people.
If you invest a little bit of money into maintenance, you'll actually make your life easier in the long run, and you'll preserve the value of your commercial buildings. Thus, follow these tips as a manager or owner, and ensure good maintenance in your buildings.