Maintaining your Temple City investment property is an important part of any successful rental experience. Good tenants are looking for well-maintained homes, and you’re hoping to avoid expensive emergency repairs.
Preventative maintenance is important for a lot of reasons. It protects the condition of your asset as well as its rental value. It retains tenants.
Even better – it keeps your repair costs down. Simple problems are often easy to fix and inexpensive. The problems that you leave alone for a few weeks or months will only grow in cost and labor.
Service your Heating and Cooling Systems
The weather in Temple City is pretty temperate all year long, but you can expect tenants to use air conditioning in the summer and heat in the winter. This means that your rental property’s heating and cooling system will be well-used and must be maintained.
The HVAC is one of the most expensive systems in your home, so you want to make sure it’s running as efficiently and effectively as it can. Preventative maintenance is going to help keep your repair costs down.
Have a technician come out to your property twice a year, between each season, to inspect and clean the HVAC. This will ensure that any problems are detected early. You’ll know your tenants are unlikely to complain about their air conditioning not working in the middle of July. It will also increase the life expectancy of your system.
Inspect Your Plumbing System and Watch for Water
Always look for leaks.
Plumbing can create major maintenance expenses in rental properties. Inspect your water heater at least once a year. Test the pressure relief valve, and look for any evidence of rust or corrosion. Check for leaks and look at the intake screen. You should flush the water tank once a year to protect against having it leak or explode in the middle of the night.
Pay attention to even minor leaks and look for standing water or lack of drainage. Clean out the gutters twice a year, and make sure they are pointing away from the property so there’s no chance of water getting inside and causing mold. Clear any branches, dirt, leaves, or grass off your roof.
When you’re inside the property, look at ceilings and walls for water stains, which could indicate you have a leak somewhere in your building. Check your irrigation systems if they’re underground. You want to make sure they’re not leaking, stopped up, or rusting.
Train your tenants to know the signs of leaking or standing water. You want to make sure they know to report these maintenance issues right away. This is a big part of preventative maintenance.
Schedule Seasonal Maintenance Issues
Cleaning the furnace, inspecting the roof and the gutters, looking for leaks, and winterizing your property should all be part of your seasonal and preventative maintenance plans. Taking care of these things once or twice a year will ensure you don’t suddenly have to make major and expensive repairs.
Other seasonal checklist items can include:
- Pressure washing the outside of your home
- Conducting safety and habitability checks (smoke detectors, exterior lighting, etc.).
- Cleaning out the gutters.
- Cleaning out the dryer vents.
- Paying attention to landscaping and trimming branches away from the home.
Preventative maintenance allows you to be proactive instead of reactive, and we make it a big part of our Temple City property management plans. If you have any questions or need any help, please contact us at ZenPro Property Management.
