Category: Building Maintenance

How To Keep Your Grass Green in The Summertime

In Florida, where MaintenX is headquartered, many of our clients struggle to keep grass green in the hottest summer months. This can also be true for those throughout the Southern United States, where high temperatures and sporadic rainfall can make grass either dry out or drown rather than thrive. It can be difficult even at home, let alone at your business where you don’t have the time to put in the yard work on your own.

While it’s best to hire a landscaping company to manage the grass for your facility, if you are a small business there are many ways you can improve the look of your grass without a professional. Below are just a few ways we help our clients keep a green lawn all year long:

Let it grow out.

One of the biggest mistakes property owners make is cutting the grass too short when they mow it. While it may look nice and clean-cut immediately after mowing, you’re likely tearing the grass out at its root in many areas. This will lead to patches of dead grass across the lawn in a few days. If you raise your mower blades by just a few inches you can help maintain healthier grass.

Install a sprinkler system.

In Florida, we experience sporadic downpours followed by days of intense heat and humidity in the summertime. If you want to avoid the drowning/dry-out cycle for your grass, install a sprinkler system to ensure your grass is watered every day. We recommend opting for a manual one to ensure you’re not overwatering on rainy days.

Water in the morning.

If you water our grass in the morning, the water is less likely to evaporate in the heat and can sink down into the soil where it needs to be. The earlier you can water, the better. In areas of intense summer heat, we recommend as early as sunrise to ensure the water soaks in and can provide for your grass all day.

Aerate the grass.

As people walk over your grass and the elements solidify the soil, it becomes more difficult for oxygen to penetrate the ground and reach the roots. Aeration is the process of loosening up the soil so that oxygen can reach the roots and provide a healthier environment for your plants. Aeration every few weeks or months can help maintain a healthy environment and doesn’t take any special equipment other than a garden rake.

MaintenX can help you with landscaping and exterior maintenance services throughout the summer. If you’re interested in what we have to offer in your area, contact your local MaintenX team today!

Non-Medical Spaces in Medical Facilities That Need Extra Care

Medical facilities have the strictest codes and standards of hygiene among all other industries in the U.S. They must be nearly perfect to prevent the spread of disease and infection from patient to patient, and must do so on a daily basis. In order for a medical facility to meet this standard, they must employ a top-quality cleaning and maintenance program for the entire facility.

While cleaning standards for patient and procedure rooms are very specific and are likely handled by medical staff, non-medical spaces may not receive the same attention to detail. However, every inch of your medical facility is exposed to potential dangers, so it’s important to clean and maintain every area of your space, including these frequently missed places:

The front desk

Every patient who comes to your facility will touch the front desk to fill out forms, talk to the staff, and receive instructions for further care. This means that it is a prime space for germs to gather and be spread from patient to patient. Ideally, you could wipe down the front desk after every patient, but this isn’t typically practical. What you can do is make sure to wipe down the desk with disinfectant at every break or at least two times per day to be as proactive as possible.

Waiting rooms

Waiting rooms are a prime location for patients to spread germs among each other, especially if one does not know the cause of their illness. Since COVID-19, many medical facilities now take social distancing measures to prevent the spread of disease, but this is not always practical. Make sure to thoroughly clean seats, tables, coffee stations, and any other surface that a patient may touch at the end of each day.

Elevators

Elevators are used by every patient and staff member in your hospital. The shared buttons and close quarters make them an ideal place for the spread of disease. Make sure to wipe down elevator doors and buttons on a daily basis.

Cafeteria

Doctors and family members who are exposed to sick patients, as well as sick patients themselves, will all visit the cafeteria at some point. This means that tables, chairs, trays, cups, silverware, and every other surface touched by patients are fair game for the spread of germs. While many of these surfaces will be disinfected by the kitchen staff, it’s important to take time to clean things like seats, walls near tables, and other surfaces that are exposed on a daily basis.

Common bathrooms

Patient bathrooms are often cleaned thoroughly along with the rest of the patient room, but common restrooms in the lobby or cafeteria don’t always receive the same level of care and attention to detail. However, they are equally liable for the spread of germs. Be sure to disinfect regularly to keep your staff and patients safe.

MaintenX specializes in repair and maintenance for medical facilities across the U.S. If you are looking to improve your maintenance plan for the upcoming year, talk to us about preventative care and cleaning options with MaintenX.

Understanding Commercial Restroom Maintenance

Contrary to what you may believe, your restroom is likely the most visited place within your entire facility. While your floor plan or office rooms may seem like the most important spaces because they are where work gets done, the restroom is a safe place for people to retreat, relieve themselves, and find solace after a long day of work.

Restrooms aren’t solely a place for relief and handwashing. They’re a place for people to find a quiet moment during a busy day. They offer privacy to change clothes or take a phone call, and mirrors for one to reapply makeup or wash their face after a long workday. Restrooms also make a very clear impression to customers about how you handle your facility. If the restroom is dirty, they will likely assume you don’t take pride in your business or your work.

To understand your restroom maintenance plan, you need to think about all of these elements of restroom use. Ask yourself these questions to determine if your restroom maintenance plan is up to par:

  • Is there bright lighting for people to feel safe and be able to check themselves in the mirror?
  • Are the stalls spacious enough for comfortable use?
  • Are the floors clean enough for someone who needs to take off their shoes to change?
  • Are the mirrors clean when someone checks themselves in one?
  • Are the faucets leaking and causing a mess?
  • Are the paint colors and decor calming and inviting, or are they cold and harsh?
  • Are there enough stalls to prevent a line (except during especially busy times)?

If your restroom does not meet all of these standards, you may think about remodeling to ensure it provides a comforting experience for both guests and employees.

MaintenX offers restroom remodeling, maintenance, and repair services to businesses across the U.S. If you’re interested in learning more about ways you can improve your restroom experience, contact us or visit our Resource Center.

The #1 Maintenance Issue That Ruins Summer Service

Summer is here, which means it’s the busy season for many small businesses across the U.S. This is especially true at MaintenX’s headquarters in Tampa, Florida, where the tourism industry is ramping up and won’t stop until mid-August. While we work on all sorts of maintenance issues in the summer, you can probably guess which is most common this time of year.

If you guessed HVAC problems, you are correct. Because of the increased demand for the HVAC system during the summer, we see an increase in service calls for overworked or broken down units. In the wintertime, this wouldn’t be a huge issue for service, but in the summer it can easily shut down an entire building.

An overworked HVAC system will ruin your customer experience.

Employees and customers don’t want to be in a building with no A/C during the summer. Not only will it create an unpleasant customer experience, but it can cause real issues for your staff if they’re working in the heat. A restaurant, for example, with no A/C or ventilation can quickly become too hot for employees to safely work. It is also very easy for a building to reach 100+ degrees in the summertime, which isn’t safe for anyone.

An HVAC system won’t last forever, but there are several ways you can prevent unexpected breakdowns during the summer that will ruin your business day:

  • Schedule preventative maintenance – Extend the service life of your system with regular preventative repairs. This will prevent performance issues and help you keep track of wear and tear so you know when it’s time to replace your units.
  • Don’t overwork your HVAC system – If your A/C can’t keep up with your temperature setting, turn it up in the summertime so your system can get some rest. In extremely hot and humid climates, it may be unreasonable to keep your building at 68℉ unless it’s absolutely necessary.
  • Replace when your HVAC technician tells you to – It’s better to plan an HVAC replacement than it is to wait until the A/C stops working unexpectedly. If this is the last season your HVAC system will perform at its best, listen to your technician’s recommendation and replace it.

Summertime should be a successful season for you – don’t let HVAC problems get in the way of that. To learn how you can prevent HVAC issues at your facility, contact your local MaintenX team today!

Top Three Maintenance Issues That Drive Customers Away

For most small businesses, appearances are everything. The way your building is presented makes just as much of an impression on the customer as the quality of products and services. This is true for any business, whether you’re a retail or restaurant space, medical facility, or industrial complex. To make a great impression on clients, it’s important that your building is clean and in peak working condition every day. However, maintenance issues can easily get in the way of this goal.

Below are the top three maintenance issues that customers will automatically notice, and how you can prevent them from ruining your reputation.

Leaks in the restroom.

Restrooms are a critical part of your building’s operation. They often serve as a representation of how you operate your facility – if it is clean and tidy, your clients will know you take pride in your building. However, if the restroom is dirty, low stocked, or has leaking faucets, they will know you aren’t interested in maintaining a clean appearance. Don’t let something as simple as a faucet leak ruin your reputation with a customer. Call your MaintenX plumber instead to fix the leak the same day.

An overworked HVAC system.

In Tampa, Florida, where MaintenX is headquartered, many of our clients struggle to keep up with the A/C in the summertime. If they have an older or outdated system, they may have to run the A/C to keep the building cool at all, and it is typically still noticeably warm to customers. On a hot day, the last thing your customers want is to walk into a hot building. Make sure you schedule regular HVAC preventative care services to maximize your HVAC system’s performance.

Dirty flooring.

You may think that floor cleaning can be put on the back burner because it’s not at eye level to your customers, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. It doesn’t matter what type of flooring you have – carpet, hardwood, marble, or basic tile – customers will notice if it is scuffed or stained in any way. Investing in daily cleaning as well as a high-quality floor installation can ensure your building looks presentable to customers.

MaintenX offers preventative maintenance, repair, and installation services for businesses across the U.S. If you are looking for ways to improve the customer experience, talk to your MaintenX team about a preventative maintenance program that can improve efficiency and performance across the board.

What To Do If Your Rental Property Owner Doesn’t Respond To Maintenance Requests

As a small business owner or manager, you have 100 things constantly up in the air. With any luck, most of them don’t drop, but even the most organized business has emergencies from time to time. However, it can be very frustrating when one of those emergencies is a maintenance repair.

Tenants and landlords typically share responsibility for repairs to a leased space. Minor repairs that are caused by normal wear and tear are typically the tenant’s responsibility. However, your landlord may want to control major repairs involving the structure or major systems of the building, such as HVAC, plumbing, roofing, or electrical work.

If you believe your landlord is responsible or will want to oversee repair work, always submit a service request before paying for the repairs yourself, But, what if you submit the request and don’t hear back? Your business needs a functioning building, and you can’t wait forever. So, what are your options when your landlord is silent after a service request?

Check the lease.

Tenants are responsible for repairs that are caused by regular wear and tear or caused by employee or customer accidents. The repairs you’re requesting may not be covered by the landlord, in which case you should make arrangements to repair it yourself.

Contact their maintenance partner.

If your landlord works with a specific commercial contractor for repairs, you may try calling them to see if they will do the work and bill the owner instead of you. This may prompt your landlord to respond to you sooner and will ensure you are going through all the proper steps to get the repair done.

Repair and deduct.

If the landlord specifies that they will handle certain repairs in the lease, you are entitled to that service in a timely fashion. If you can’t get your landlord to respond, you can sometimes make the repairs yourself and send the bill to them to deduct from your rent. Before you do this, make sure you’ve contacted the landlord several times and given them ample time to respond. You may even consult with a lawyer to ensure you won’t end up paying out of pocket for expensive repairs you can’t afford without the deduction.

If you can’t wait for a landlord’s response anymore, contact MaintenX for help. We offer affordable repairs and will work with you on solutions that won’t break the bank or disrupt your tenant-landlord relationship. To learn more about maintenance and repair options in your area, contact MaintenX today!

How To Find The Best Affordable Contractors For Your Small Business

Operating a small business is a never-ending carousel ride. You’re constantly running around in circles, and very rarely get the chance to step off and breathe. When an entire team is reliant on you, it can feel as if every decision you make has the weight of the world on it.

One of the most difficult decisions you make as a business owner is who to call for building maintenance and repairs. If you choose the wrong contractor, you could be dealing with months of rework and maintenance issues within your building. Or, you could be overcharged for a repair that won’t last. If you’ve recently signed a new lease, one of the first things you should do is find a reputable maintenance team to handle minor repairs not covered by your landlord.

Below are three different ways to find the best handyman or contractor to work for your small business. The sooner you find a company to partner with, the better off you’ll be when it comes time for preventative repairs or emergency service.

Ask your neighbors.

One of the most important benefits of networking within your local business community is receiving tips and tricks for getting your brand off the ground. Your building neighbors can help you navigate city codes, manage seasonality, and help you find reputable contractors for the work you need to be done.

Research online.

One of the best ways to find any service for your business is through online reviews. Reviews from other businesses are likely to be honest and unfiltered in most cases, especially if you can find hundreds or thousands of online testimonials. While no business will have perfect online reviews, look for businesses that have a majority of positive reviews on Google Maps and platforms like Facebook.

Meet for a consultation.

While references and testimonials can help, the only way to know if a contractor is right for you is to meet with them in person for a consultation. You can ask questions about their actual services, their pricing, turnaround time, and more important factors in your decision-making process. Ideally, you do this at the beginning of a new commercial lease so you can be selective of who you call before an emergency repair arises.

If you’re looking for commercial HVAC, plumbing, roofing, or electrical work in your area, contact MaintenX to see if we have contractors in your area. MaintenX guarantees fast, quality service every time in the 13 states we service as well as other cities within our contractor network. If you’d like to learn more or connect with your local MaintenX team, give us a call today!

What To Do If Your Rental Property Owner Doesn’t Have a Preferred Maintenance Service

As a tenant, handling commercial repairs must be done with care and consideration. You don’t want to handle repairs on your own that are the owner’s responsibility; however, these repairs are often a more pressing concern to you than they are to the owner. Things become even more complex when the property owner does not have a preferred maintenance service you can call for preventative and emergency repairs.

If you are in need of repairs and aren’t sure who to call, these are the steps you should take to ensure you handle the maintenance service properly:

Contact the owner first.

Some landlords want control over property repairs and maintenance to ensure the work done is up to their standards of quality. It is their building’s property value that is at stake, and they will likely want to at least oversee repairs that affect the structure of the building in any major way. They may also have preferred contractors that they simply haven’t shared with you yet that you can call for quality and affordable repairs.

Review your lease.

Most commercial leases will specify what repairs are the landlord’s explicit responsibility. If your repair is not covered in this list, it is likely your responsibility to fix it yourself. If the landlord does not give you instructions for handling the repairs, you can assume responsibility and begin contacting local maintenance teams for help.

Find a commercial contractor.

You may have connections to local contractors in your area, but it’s crucial to choose someone who specializes in commercial repairs and maintenance rather than residential. Not only can you cause issues within the building, but you can also create problems with your permits or lease for certain building types. If you don’t know a commercial contractor in your area, contact MaintenX for help.

MaintenX offers commercial plumbing, electrical, HVAC, and roofing service for businesses in 13 states across the U.S. We help small businesses like yours thrive and are consistently top-rated in our local service areas for retail, restaurant, medical, and industrial facility maintenance. If you are looking for a trustworthy contractor you can call for preventative maintenance and emergency repairs, contact us today!

Who is Responsible for Overseeing Commercial Repairs?

Leasing a commercial property causes anxiety for both tenant and owner. The owner can only know so much about a tenant before they move in, and are taking a risk that the management won’t honor the lease or take care of the property as their own. On the flip side, the tenants are putting their business’ storefront in another person’s hands. If the building equipment breaks down, has undetected problems, or is otherwise not as the lease described, they may be forced to solve the problems on their own or lose a significant investment in the building itself.

One of the primary causes of tension in commercial leases is repairs. Tenants are hesitant to report them for fear of liability, and owners are always worried about them happening unexpectedly at the tenant’s expense. The best way to ease this tension is by clearly laying out tenant and owner responsibilities in the commercial lease. This ensures that the tenant knows what repairs they are and are not responsible for and can confidently ask for maintenance service when they need it.

Tenant Responsibilities

Typically, tenants are responsible for any equipment they bring into the space and any part of the building that wears down with regular use. In most cases, anything that the landlord does not specify in the lease as their responsibility falls to the tenant. This may include:

  • Flooring cleaning and repairs that are caused by normal wear and tear
  • Paint or wallpaper retouching
  • Lighting issues not caused by the internal electrical structure
  • Bathroom and kitchen fixtures
  • Any equipment repairs related explicitly to the tenant’s operations
  • Any damages caused by employees or customers

Landlord responsibilities

Landlords need to be specific about the repairs and maintenance services they will cover in their lease. Most of these will include repairs that affect the long-term value of the building or maintenance services that affect several spaces in a multi-tenant building. These may include:

  • Repairs to the foundation, walls, and roofing of the building
  • Major system repairs such as HVAC/R, electrical, or plumbing maintenance
  • Upgrades to meet fire and safety codes
  • Major renovations to the structure of the building

While you may want to leave some of these up to the tenants as needed, some landlords prefer to have control over repairs to ensure that the work done is performed by the best – rather than the cheapest – contractors. Tenants will not have a vested interest in the long-term appreciation of the property, so it’s important to make sure that the work done to your facility will last.

MaintenX can help you handle your facility repairs and outsource maintenance to your tenants as needed. To learn more about our preventative and emergency repair service, contact your local MaintenX team today!

Why Choose Polymer Roofing for Historic Buildings?

Historic buildings are some of the trickiest sites for us to work on as commercial contractors. While we want to preserve the historic integrity of these buildings and keep them as true to their original form as possible, we also want the best in technology for our customers. Finding the right balance of modern technology with historic preservation efforts can be tricky, but is well worth the effort. 

Historic roofing is one sector in commercial construction that has made great strides in this area. Historical preservationists often want to keep the natural slate or wood shake roofing on historic buildings for as long as they can, but this can pose safety hazards for the building and leave it less energy-efficient for modern appliances. The lack of proper insulation can make these roof types struggle to cope with modern heating and cooling needs, and can even become a greater fire risk. But, there is an alternative on the rise that is becoming more and more popular with historical preservationists. 

Polymer roofing is a new option for historic buildings that preserves the structural integrity of the building itself while maintaining the same look of different periods throughout American architecture. Polymer roofing can be designed to look like natural slate or wood shakes, but provides a much more durable installation with modern flashing that will ensure the roof is well-insulated, safe, and built to last as long as other modern roofing options. Other benefits of polymer roofing include: 

  • Decreased fire and natural disaster hazards as compared to original historic roofing
  • Increased roofing lifespan
  • Comparable aesthetic appeal to wood shake or slate roofing
  • Reduced risk of water damage due to improper insulation
  • Increased energy-efficiency
  • Value-add option for commercial property

Historical sites across the country are using polymer roofing to create the look and feel that old stone and wood shake roofing had, but with every bit of durability, that modern roofing provides. If you’re interested in restoring a historic commercial building with this modern roofing tech, contact MaintenX today! We offer expert roofing repair and restoration services from coast to coast.