Property Maintenance Tips to Save Landlords Money
Maintaining a property can be expensive, especially if it’s a property that you are renting out. Properties require expensive routine maintenance to ensure that they are safe to live in. If they are not well maintained, problems will arise, and those problems will be expensive to fix. The best way to keep your property safe, while also saving money, is to prevent these problems in the first place by having your property checked routinely. If you perform the following checks routinely, you can keep your property safe and avoid having to pay to fix a big problem.
Exterminate any pests
Pests can be a big problem, but thankfully, they can be prevented. Hiring professional exterminators to come over and exterminate the property routinely will help you avoid having a pest problem. Yes, it’s expensive, but it’s better than having a tenant leave due to a pest problem!
Another thing to note about exterminating is that you should not exterminate only one apartment, as the pests will just move on to the next apartment.
Check for water damage
Water damage can be an expensive problem to fix. Make sure you catch it before it gets really bad! When it gets bad, it can lead to other problems like mold (more on that later!). You should be especially careful to check for water damage if a major weather event, like a hurricane or a snowstorm, has recently happened.
This check doesn’t even have to be fancy. Just look under sinks, showers, bathtubs, toilets, and water heaters for any signs of water damage. If the property has two stories, check the ceilings of the rooms on the first story that are directly under any bathrooms on the second story, as water damage on the ceiling can indicate a problem on the second story bathroom.
Examine caulking and grout
Caulking and grout can degrade over time. When it degrades, you no longer have a watertight seal, and water can easily leak out of a bathtub or through the floor. Check your bathtubs, floors, baseboards, or anywhere else you have caulking to make sure it is still intact. If it isn’t, add a new layer of caulking to prevent water leakage.
Check for mold
Mold in homes is a big public health problem nowadays. Mold exposure can cause asthma, allergic reactions, and other respiratory problems. It is also expensive to clean up. Prevent this by catching any mold before it grows to become dangerous. If it grows past a certain point, the tenants will have to vacate the property and you will have to take care of the expensive mold removal process (which involves testing, sampling, cleaning, and rebuilding). Save yourself the time and money, and save your tenants from having to endure any respiratory problems due to mold exposure and get the property tested for mold regularly.
Test smoke and carbon monoxide detectors
Carbon monoxide detectors and smoke detectors save people’s lives. These devices are so crucial that there are even laws in place to ensure that every home has functioning detectors. The average lifespan of a smoke detector is 10 years, and that of a carbon monoxide detector is 5 years (yes, even if they are hard-wired). Still, they should be tested frequently. Not testing them can result in not only legal action, but you will also be risking the safety of your tenants. Set up a regular schedule to test them.
Change the air conditioning/heating filters
The manufacturers of heating and cooling systems recommend that the filters be changed at least twice a year. If the filters are not changed, the utility bills can dramatically increase, much to your tenant’s annoyance. Also, a dirty filter can clog easily and will have to be cleaned by a professional, thus costing you even more money.
Flush your water heater
If a water heater is not flushed out at least once a year, sediment can start to build up inside it. An excess buildup of sediment can affect the function of the water heater. Sediment buildup can become such a big problem that the water heater might even need to be replaced. For that reason, drain the property’s water heaters every so often. This process requires lots of care, though, so if you don’t know how to do it, find someone who does.
Making sure your property is safe for your tenants to live in is very important. It’s also very expensive. However, taking preventive measures is much less expensive than fixing a major problem in the property. For example, it’s not very expensive to clean up a small patch of mold, but if that mold builds up, you will have to pay a lot of money to clean it out. Prevent bigger, more expensive problems from happening in your property by performing routine maintenance checks. Your bank account and your tenants will thank you!