GETTING YOUR BUILDINGS READY FOR THE WINTER

Posted September 30, 2011

Even while enjoying the cooler temperatures and clear blue skies of Fall, the Property Manager knows that Winter with all its attendant problems, is not far away. Snow, ice rain and cold temperatures are just as hard on a building as heat, drought and thunderstorms. Once again, some preventive maintenance will make dealing with winter challenges a lot easier, and benefit your relationship with Landlord and Tenants.

Hopefully, your landscaper works year around and is up to date on winter’s effect on shrubs, trees and the lawn. He will soon be contacting you to perform aeration and re-seeding and fall mulching of the beds and trees.  He will bring to your attention any damage from storms such as broken tree limbs and erosion.  A survey of the property with these issues in mind is a good thing for you to do also, especially if you haven’t heard from him. Many landscape services provide snow removal during the winter.  Make sure that your company has ordered the salt they may need for sidewalks and exterior steps.

The Fall is also a good time to look at your parking lots to see if there are new cracks or potholes that should be attended to.  Fall and Spring are the best times to re-surface and re-stripe the parking lot, although I prefer Spring since snow removal and salt can scour all the markings off a parking lot.

Roof maintenance projects that can bring problems to your attention are worth their weight in gold for the coming snow season. Winters in the South are hard to call, but we have had some hard ones the last few years, so you would be remiss not taking preventative action. Attention to downspouts and drains is important since the leaves will come down and blow into the strangest places.

I’m sure that your HVAC company has been maintaining the equipment during the summer and has a schedule in place for preparing the units for heat distribution. If any of your Tenants are responsible for their HVAC contracts, check in with them to make sure they are up to date.

Remember that your Tenants want to be warm and dry so that they can conduct business comfortably and successfully, and that your Landlord wants his property to look good and last as long as he needs it to be an excellent investment that he can keep or sell for a great price. Everything that you can do to make sure this happens reflects back to you in a good way, so get going!!!