Wear And Tear Maintenance Tips For Commercial Properties

As a business owner, it’s your responsibility to learn more about how to maintain your property to keep it running for many years to come. After all, a well maintained property is one that’s less likely to cost you lots of money for repairs in the long run.

But how exactly do you maintain any issues caused by wear and tear on your property? What are a few things that you need to keep in mind? Read on to find out more.

Why Perform Maintenance on Your Commercial Property?

Ultimately, you want to make sure that your commercial establishment looks fantastic for anyone that visits, right? It gives you a more professional image for starters. Not only that, but if you don't keep your property well maintained you are much more likely to deal with issues caused by wear and tear down the line. For this reason, performing maintenance tasks on your property from time to time is essential. Of course, you can hire a professional to help with this too. Some things you may need to contain include tools that you use, the exterior and the interior. You may also need to maintain things inside of the property such as the air conditioning or the boiler.

Things to Do

So what things should you be doing when you’re trying to maintain your property? The first thing that you should do is make a list of the things that need to be done. Take note of all of the things that need to be done regularly in order to avoid any issues later down the line. For instance, you will need to make sure that the following things are maintained:

• Plumbing
• Garages
• Roofing
• HVAC
• Fire Alarms
• Parking Lots 
• Electronics

You should also consider things that need to be maintained on a seasonal basis. Pay closer attention to the roof of your establishment during the fall and winter months when it’s windy or when there’s a lot of ice. Keep an eye on the insulation and make sure that you keep on top of getting rid of any ice or snow build up.

Clean Out Your Gutters

During the spring months, you need to pay extra attention to your gutters. This is because stormy weather can mean that you get a lot of dirt and debris building up into the gutters, and this clogs them up. As a result, you should try to clear out your gutters on a regular basis in order to avoid further problems.

Do An Energy Audit

One of the things that you should do every year is take stock of how well your building is using energy. You can do this by performing an energy audit. 

Why is this? Well, energy costs can eat up a lot of your yearly budget. Why spend all of that money on energy when you can do some extra maintenance and save yourself a little cash?

You can get a professional to do an energy audit for you, but they’ll usually do things such as suggesting how you can reduce your energy bills. For instance, they may suggest that you get some energy saving light bulbs, or that you get some new roof insulation. In the long run this will save you a lot of money.

Check for Pests

They’re called pests for a reason - they’re annoying! Not only are they annoying but pests can also wreak havoc on your establishment. If your property is accessed by members of the public it certainly doesn’t look good having pests around either.

It’s also worth noting that if you don’t keep on top of pest control you may find yourself spending a couple thousand dollars on getting exterminators in, and if you have tennants you may also need to evict them.

You can avoid this issue by doing a pest audit on a regular basis - yearly at the minimum. It’s better to prevent pests from showing up to begin with than to have to deal with the aftermath.

Clean Out Any Pathways

Another thing that you should do is keep on top of cleaning off areas such as walkways and other common areas. You want to make sure that people can walk back and forth easily. Don’t think that you can neglect this in the summer either, because things such as thunderstorms and rain can cause debris and dust to stay behind. 

Paint

You want your property to look nice and fresh, so make sure that you inspect the paintwork on your commercial property on a regular basis. It’s best to keep an eye out for any indications of wear and tear. If your property isn’t well painted, it can look pretty run down which doesn’t look attractive or professional. It’s a good idea to do a touch up on the paint on a yearly basis, especially during the summer. You can do this yourself or hire a professional painter to help you out.

Check Up on Your Mechanical and HVAC Systems

Your HVAC systems are essential for your business to run smoothly. You need to have good working air conditioning and heating so that your tenants, employees or any visitors can be protected from the wrath of poor weather. Your HVAC systems work especially hard during the winter and summer months, so it’s important to check how they are doing regularly. If you don’t feel qualified to check in on it yourself, you can get a professional in to look at it for you. 

Make Sure That Your Backup Generator Is Working

Power outages are a nightmare, but they’re made even worse when there’s no form of backup power available. For this reason, you will want to make sure that you keep an eye on your backup generator. Make sure that there aren’t any broken parts inside causing issues. Every week you will need to take some time to start up your emergency generator for a minimum of 5 minutes. This keeps it moving and helps to stop it from dying out from inactivity. You should also do transfer load testing on a monthly basis, and a full load test on a yearly basis.

Check for Fire Hazards

If you own a commercial property then it’s essential that you check for fire hazards on a regular basis. This includes checking any smoke detectors at a minimum once a month. You will need to replace the batteries at least once a year too, or else they won’t work. Double check that all of your fire exit doors are working correctly, and make sure that you have fire extinguishers on every single floor. Maintenance aside though, you should also do fire drills every now and again to ensure any employees or tenants know where to go for the nearest fire exits.  All the passageways should also be clear too.

Conclusion

So there’s everything that you needed to know about wear and tear maintenance in a commercial property. Ultimately, maintaining your commercial property is an essential task. You don’t want to be in a situation where things are falling into total disrepair. You, any employees and any tenants will be much happier if you just give a little time to making sure your building is all in good working order.