Maintenance Methods

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The person that attends to maintenance issues can greatly influence the cost effectiveness of your rental property. In our experience, the handyman (general fixer, maintenance dude or overall tender of things gone wrong) approaches problem solving with techniques and supplies they are most familiar with. Rarely do they consider new or green products that may reduce costs over the lifetime of the function.

This is the fault of the property manager and/or owner as they have charged the handyman/maintenance staff with fixing the problem in the least amount of time and with the lowest cost. The handyman shouldn't expect to run every replacement decision by the owner or manager. The problem though, is that most owners (and subsequently managers) haven't had a discussion about energy and water efficient replacements that may have slightly higher upfront costs but generate savings well worth its weight in the future. A couple of examples that usually wouldn't be reported to managers/owners may illustrate the issue better:

1. Maintenance is called out because a toilet won't stop running. Typically easy enough for maintenance to fix without calling a plumber. They handily replace the internal parts on the toilet and get it to stop leaking (running) all day - parts and labor cost around $75. What the owner doesn't know is that the toilet is 30 years old and uses 3.5 gallons/flush. You just spent maintenance money on an out-dated and inefficient fixture. If your maintenance person had been alerted to replace the toilet upon the next maintenance call that $75 could have been used to buy a new $90 high-efficiency toilet that uses 1.28 gallons per flush. An additional $100 for labor would have a maintenance bill over twice as much but provide water savings that will easily pay for the toilet within a couple years, not to mention require less maintenance. If the property is sub-metered and water costs are passed onto the tenants consider the additional investment as a long term improvement that can help market the unit as green with lower utility costs.
   
2. Maintenance is called because the light in the common area laundry is burned out. What seems to be a easy and quick fix is an unneeded and wasteful maintenance call. First the bulb will most certainly be an inefficient incandescent. A CFL (compact fluorescent light) bulb lasts up to 15 times longer than incandescent bulbs and uses a quarter of the energy to provide the same amount of light. Not only does that reduce the electricity bill but maintenance calls over 10-15 years. Second, common areas such as the laundry room could benefit from the installation of occupancy sensors that turn on lights when someone enters and off when they leave. Too often lights are left "ON" for days in common areas when use in that room is minimal. Even though the upfront cost is greater than just replacing the bulb, the energy savings coupled with the replacement CFL could dramatically reduce monthly electricity expenses.

There are numerous other examples but these two common calls express the point. Maintenance is putting out the fire not running the business. Reviewing your maintenance property to identify areas that could benefit from green applications on future maintenance calls will reduce costs and increase income. Inform your manager and talk with your maintenance staff about areas you think could be improved. They'll probably be excited to try something different.