Author: MaintenX

Making Your Property Bicycle-friendly

Making your property more bicycle-friendly is a good way to improve your workplace and the health of your workforce. Buildings that are bike-friendly tend to have a better social environment—which means higher-quality work and improved customer service.

Health Benefits

Making your property more bicycle-friendly can lower healthcare costs. Workers who ride to and from work frequently tend to be in better physical condition.

Getting Started

What are the principal needs of your business or organization? Are there bike-friendly streets leading to your property? Do you have many employees who already have bikes, or would they benefit from a bike-share program? Answering these questions will illuminate the bicycling challenges facing your particular facility.

Bike Storage

Your workers will want to know their bikes are safe and secure while they’re working. Position your bike parking area in a well-lit and accessible place. Also make it as close to the building’s entrance as possible.

Think about setting up an outdoor bike rack and/or have an indoor rack and a ramp for easy bike access and storage.

Showers and Changing Facilities

Some employees will want to have the option of showering when they get to work after a long bike ride. If your staff is small to medium-sized, one shower should be adequate. In buildings with many employees, two showers is recommended.

If you cannot provide changing rooms and showers for your workers, think about getting a corporate membership to a nearby gym or rec center.

Want to know more about making your facility bike-friendly? Call MaintenX today!

Tips to Make Your Workplace More Sustainable

Need to make your facility more sustainable? Here are some tips to help nearly any type of facility lower operating costs while reducing its effects on the environment.

Sustainability Goals

These days, it’s vital to be proactive when it comes to sustainability. That means setting achievable targets. Your objectives should concentrate not only on decreasing energy and fuel consumption, but also on reducing costs and using reusable products and recycled materials.

Get Your Employees Involved

Placing a recycling bin in a conspicuous place in your office is a good way to signal to your staff that you want to make the office greener. If space is a concern, try placing a waste paper recycling box in the printer room and a universal recycling box in the break room. Make sure that your recycling bins are emptied regularly.

Encourage employees to use reusable, washable mugs, glasses, dishes and knives and forks. You’ll also want to mandate that everyone is responsible for washing and storing their own cups, mugs, and silverware.

Think about upgrading to a coffee maker that doesn’t use paper filters. You can also compost coffee grounds.

Greener Office Supplies

Buy reusable office supplies like staple-less staplers and refillable pens. Rechargeable batteries can also save money and keep harmful materials out of landfills.

If you need office furniture, consider buying refurbished. There are many companies that focus on revamping older office furniture and reselling it at a discounted price. Recycle as many used office supplies as possible.

Build a Culture of Sustainability

Encourage your team to recommend their ideas on ways to become more sustainable. You’ll be surprised at what they come up with.

Want to know more about crafting a sustainable workplace? Contact MaintenX today!

What Is an Elevator Maintenance Agreement?

An elevator maintenance agreement is essentially a type of insurance that protects property owners from the erratic and unpredictable costs of elevator service, maintenance, and repairs by offering a fixed rate for each service. As with most insurance, though, it can become confusing when comparing policies and understanding specifics. Below are some helpful things to consider when comparing policies.

What’s Included?

Elevator maintenance agreements are vital investments in the safe performance, durability, and useful life of your elevator systems. As with almost anything in a building, routine maintenance is your best defense against malfunctions and damage. But when compared to many other facility assets, problems with elevators can be astronomically more costly for you and often more inconvenient for—as well as potentially dangerous to—riders.

It’s important to note that not all elevators are the same, and elevator maintenance plans and procedures vary widely. The maintenance strategy and agreement that’s right for your facility depends on a number of factors, including:

  • The number of elevators in the building
  • The brand, model, and year of the elevator(s)
  • The type, age, layout, and condition of your facility
  • The current condition of your elevator(s)

Based on all this information, a professional elevator technician can give you a fair estimate of the health, specific needs, and potential risks facing your facility’s elevator system. Typically, these estimates are complimentary.

If you’d like to know more about elevator maintenance agreements, call the maintenance pros at MaintenX today!

Tips for Managing Water Damage

Water damage can become a living nightmare for homeowners and businesses alike, and, if not dealt with quickly, the effects only become grimmer. From leaky faucets to hurricanes, water damage can cause damage to buildings and human safety. Below are some tips to help mitigate the damage.

Safety First

If the water damage is substantial, it is very important that you immediately disconnect the power, unplug electronics, and move furniture and other important objects to a dry area away from the affected parts of the building. The quicker you do this, the better the outcome for everything in the flooded area. Pull up all carpets and underpadding. Carpet can sometimes be salvaged, but the underpadding will need replacement.

Avoid More Damage

Water damage should be treated with urgency. Every minute the water remains, the more damage it will produce. It is often the case that a professional service will be needed to properly remove the water and dry the affected areas. Hire a professionally licensed contractor.

Flood Insurance

As floods become more and more frequent, flood insurance is becoming increasingly vital to homeowners and businesses. It is an unfortunate fact that many people assume that their home or property insurance policies cover them when a flood occurs, only to find out after the fact that this is not so. In this way, floods have the potential to destroy not only your property but your finances as well.  

For this reason, it is crucial for homeowners and businesses to:

  • Find out if your property is in an area where floods are more likely
  • Carefully review all property insurance policies
  • If flood damage is not covered in existing policies, get covered for flood insurance

Need more information about managing water damage? Call the experts at MaintenX today!

What Is Remanufactured Furniture?

Facility managers often turn to remanufactured office furniture for its cost-effectiveness. But as companies and customers alike are becoming more environmentally savvy, the “green factor” of remanufactured furniture also makes it appealing. Business owners are also always pleased when a substantial asset purchase is achieved well under budget. It’s a rare thing in business: good for the company, good for the remanufacturer, and good for the environment.

Benefits of Remanufactured Furniture

It’s a sad fact that many people are unaware that old office furniture can be remanufactured to like-new condition. That’s one of the reasons why millions of tons of used office furniture are thrown away every year. Remanufactured furniture:

  • Reduces material demands
  • Lowers carbon emissions
  • Keeps furniture in use and out of landfills

A Greener Solution

Furniture manufacturers often present themselves as green by offering furniture made of recycled materials. While this manufacturing technique does reduce carbon emissions and keeps reusable materials out of the environment, remanufactured furniture has a near-zero environmental effect. There is no manufacturing offset and the only environmental effects are from the shipping of the furniture from the remanufacturer to the client.

There is an almost endless supply of remanufactured furniture. It comes in many styles, colors, and materials and can be used in virtually all business sectors. Did we mention that they’re substantially less expensive than new furniture?

If you’d like to know more about remanufactured furniture and how it can save your business money, call MaintenX today.

Sustainable Winter Management Tips

As temperatures drop, it’s important to ensure that your property is fully-prepared for a cold, hard winter. Below are some helpful and sustainable winterization tips to keep your home or building warm this winter without breaking the bank.

Space Heaters

If you’re a property manager, space heater use by your tenants is a strong sign that your building’s HVAC systems are not working correctly. Schedule a professional service like MaintenX to inspect your system.

Insulation Inspection

Have the insulation—especially attic insulation—inspected regularly to ensure that heat doesn’t escape in the winter and invade interior spaces in the summer.

Ceiling Fan Direction

Reverse the direction on your ceiling fans twice a year (counterclockwise in the winter, clockwise in the summer). This will redirect the airflow and save on energy consumption.

HVAC Tips

  • Keep all air supply vents free from obstructions (furniture, rugs, clutter, etc.), ensure that the vents are clean and, if they are adjustable, angle air so that warm air is directed out, not up, and towards the most-used parts of the building
  • Close supply vents in unused rooms to keep warm air only where it is needed.
  • Clean or replace your furnace’s air filters regularly (Filter replacement schedules are variable depending on filter type, MERV rating, and frequency of use. Checking them once a month is a good way of creating an easy schedule).
  • If your heating system is older than fifteen years, it might be time for a new system.

For more information, contact the HVAC specialists at MaintenX today!

2018’s Most Frequently Cited Workplace Safety Violations

Employers must provide a safe workplace under federal and state laws, but as many workers will tell you, companies don’t always follow these laws. There are many reasons for this, from simple oversight to ignorance of safety regulations to more insidious reasons like cutting corners to save money on routine maintenance and inspection of facility systems, structures, and equipment.

This list highlights 2018’s most frequently cited workplace safety violations.

Falls

Although falls are a leading cause of fatalities and serious injuries in many sectors, appropriate fall protection procedures and equipment use are not always followed at every worksite. According to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), employers must protect workers from falling from platforms, elevated workstations or into holes in the floor and walls.

Toxic Chemicals

Gas and chemical leaks are the most common problems, though asbestos continues to plague older facilities. It is now mandated that natural gas have some sort of odor so that it is more easily detected, but it is still a deadly problem in many facilities today. OSHA will soon require that some types of facilities have detectors for carbon monoxide.

Training Saves Lives

Safety training is vital and teaches workers important procedures and work habits to stop potential dangers in the workplace from becoming real-life tragedies.

If you would like to know more about workplace safety violations and how to avoid them, contact MaintenX today.

Should You Use Window Film in Your Building?

Window film is a fast, easy way to reduce utility costs while also reducing energy consumption.

Benefits of Window Film

  • Increases comfort
  • Eliminates cold and hot spots in a given space
  • Comes in many different patterns and designs that can enhance or completely revamp the look of build exteriors and interiors
  • Fast return on investment
  • Local utility rebates are available in some areas

Conserve Energy, Save Money

Building owners and facility managers need to keep their heating and cooling costs as low as possible, and tenants and employees want to have a consistent temperature in their work or living spaces. Adding window film to a building’s exterior windows is an affordable solution which takes care of both these concerns. As an added benefit, window film also reduced the strain on existing HVAC systems, extending their operating lives and avoiding costly repairs and potential malfunctions.

Visual Appeal

One thing that’s increasing in popularity is the application of window film with decorative designs. Frosted or stained glass varieties of window film now exist, and the variety of patterns and styles is only growing. Those same patterned films can now be used not only for energy conservation, but also to keep glass in place when a window is shattered, lowering the threat of injury in the event of an accident or robbery attempt.

Window film provides a large range of benefits to both facility owners and occupants.

If you’d like to know more about window film and how it can help reduce your energy costs, contact the experts at MaintenX today!

Commissioning Solar PV Systems

What Is Solar PV Commissioning?

Solar PV commissioning is a system which formalizes the quality control process of solar PV systems. This procedure determines if these systems are safe and performing correctly.

Normally, the owner of a solar PV system has a particular goal in mind for its purpose, like reducing electricity bills, powering supplemental generators, and other applications. With this information, solar PV system designers then create an effective plan to put these goals into action.

Installation manuals will commonly use the term “solar PV commissioning” broadly to refer to start-up or closeout procedures of solar grid components. Solar PV commissioning is critical to ensure safety and avoid dangerous malfunctions.

Benefits of Solar Commissioning

Diminishing solar PV system performance naturally happens over time. Commissioning offers an organized method to ensure the output and efficiency of your solar grid.

Some important benefits of solar PV system commissioning include:

  • Locating under-performing cells
  • Avoiding energy loss
  • Ensure overall system function
  • Lowering the incidence of future costly repairs
  • Improving comfort levels
  • Extending the life of equipment

Make a Checklist

Commissioning technicians use equipment inspection checklists to research common equipment issues, create work orders for and follow the progress of repairs, meet state, local, and federal code compliance requirements, and ensure that issues have been fully resolved after servicing.

Solar grids are becoming more and more popular with industrial companies, utility providers, small business owners, and homeowners alike. That’s why it’s more important now than ever to ensure the safety and efficiency of solar grids.

Co-working Spaces Trending Upwards

Coworking spaces have increased in popularity over the past decade. Below we’ll explore the factors involved with this trend and its effects of the modern workplace.

Bringing the Outdoors Inside

Modern offices have become a lot more open in recent years, but they’ve also been getting a lot greener—both in an environmentally conscious sense and a literal sense. It turns out that being surrounded by trees, plants, moss, and flowers perks up employees and increases morale and productivity. Artificial waterfalls, stones, sand, and anything else that replicates nature is also increasingly seen in offices around the world.

Technology

Another developing trend is that facility managers and property renters are increasingly using automation and software in their structures. Coded key cards, facility management software, automated booking systems, employee attendance trackers, and self-regulating smart building AI solutions have all become players in offices, facilities, and factories. As these emerging technologies progress, we are likely to see even more innovation in the field of self-regulating systems and artificial intelligence.

The Loneliness Problem

Recently, remote workers have been on the rise. And many have increasingly had the same complaint: they feel lonely, because they do their work alone. That’s why spaces have been popping up across the country to address this problem. Businesses now host open areas where freelancers, artists, and digital nomads can work together, form personal and professional bonds, and beat the blues that remote working is notorious for inducing.

If you’d like to know more about the current trends in coworking spaces, call MaintenX today.