What You Should Know About Preventative Maintenance

Preventative maintenance is something everyone is familiar with. Whether it is brushing your teeth or changing the oil in your car, preventative maintenance helps extend the life of your investment, and it is extremely important when it comes to your vacation rental property. It gives the maintenance team the opportunity to inspect and address minor issues that may be a result of normal use or wear and tear. When your property is properly maintained, it not only looks and feels better but also enhances the guests’ experience and encourages them to take care of the property when they are there.

Additionally, it can be a huge cost savings in many ways. 1) Optimization of maintenance time/charges: It is much more cost effective to have multiple items done at once while the technician is there, than to wait for the towel bar to fall off and pay a service fee for that one issue, and then wait for a chair leg to need tightening and pay yet another service fee for that one item, etc. throughout the year. 2) Decreased downtime: While almost all maintenance tasks require some downtime, planned preventive maintenance can decrease and optimize that downtime. The service is scheduled when the unit is vacant and will hopefully prevent

issues that could cause unplanned downtime while the unit could be rented. 3) Protecting your asset: Maintaining a property is not cheap, but the better you take care of it, the longer it will last. Preventive maintenance will prolong the life of the property so an owner can get more years out of the investment, ideally resulting in reduced costs and increased profit. 4) Improved performance: Properly maintained systems often perform better, are more energy efficient, and end up costing less to operate, saving you sometimes 30% in energy and utility bills. 5) Preventing catastrophic failures: Preventative maintenance is a way to catch small issues before they become big issues. Reactive maintenance, the old “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it” strategy, may save money short term but often ends up costing exponentially more in the long run. Studies have shown that preventative maintenance can reduce repair costs by 20%. Once you factor in lost rent from unplanned downtime and negative reviews from frustrated guests, it’s a no-brainer.