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MaintenX is headquartered in one of the most hurricane-prone areas of the country, Tampa, Florida. Every summer we prepare our clients for tropical storm rains and hurricane winds, starting with preventative maintenance services that bolster their buildings against the weather. However, one often overlooked area of preventative maintenance for commercial facilities is roofing maintenance. 

Roofing is one of the most susceptible elements of a building to storm damage. It is not typically flooding from the ground up, but rather from caved-in roofing, that causes the most damage during a hurricane. A roof that is not well-maintained is more likely to collapse, leading to massive interior repairs and potentially loss of the building entirely. 

Roofing that is not well-maintained can also face residual damages after a storm. If shingles are loose, they can trap water and allow mold to grow. This weakens the structural integrity of the roof over time, which will cause serious ramifications by the time the next storm rolls around. The best way to combat these dangers is with routine roofing maintenance. 

MaintenX offers roof maintenance including shingle repair and replacement, gutter cleaning, roofing renovations, and much more. We help our clients choose affordable and durable commercial roofing materials that will withstand the natural disasters of their area. All of our contractors are local, meaning they understand the unique needs of your facility based on seasonal demands.  Some of our roofing services include:

• New Roof Construction
• Complete Roof Replacement
• Roof Overlay
• Leaks & Repairs
• Vertical Waterproofing
• Roof Restoration Programs
• Preventative Maintenance
• Disaster/Emergency response
• Custom Metal Roof Fabrication
• Energy Efficiency Analysis & Audits

If you want to make your facility foolproof to the next stormy season, contact MaintenX today. We are by your side at every step, ensuring your facility is safe from natural disasters. We also offer emergency maintenance services after major storms to help you get back on your feet as soon as possible. To learn more about our services or to request a quote, contact your local MaintenX team!

Accessibility is something that every business owner or facility manager should take seriously. Customers with disabilities often feel marginalized by businesses who only do the bare minimum to accommodate their needs, which can mean lost revenue and reputation for your company. If you want to provide a safe, welcoming environment for everyone, accessibility should be a first priority. 

The ADA has certain requirements that every facility must meet to make it accessible. However, there are many additional ways in which you can make your business more friendly to customers or tenants with disabilities. Some of the areas which you should may most attention to include: 

• Parking Lots 
• Building entrances
• Bathrooms
• Table or bar seating
• Walkways and aisles
• Signage (they should be visible and available in braille)
• Emergency exits
• Registers and checkout lanes
• Pools and other guest accommodations

Staff training is also crucial to making your facility accessible. No matter what industry or service you’re in, you will need to be prepared to assist those with disabilities in a manner that is respectful and mindful of their different needs. For example:

• You can make your facility service dog friendly, and train your staff on the appropriate questions to ask those with service dogs. 
• Train staff to ask before providing assistance to those with disabilities. They may need to read information, escort customers through the facility, or answer TRS phone calls. Make sure they know how to handle these situations respectfully.
• Ask for customer feedback to improve your accessibility

MaintenX helps businesses improve their facilities in every way possible. We provide preventative maintenance services for accessible accommodations and can help you build a better facility for those with disabilities. To learn more about our services, contact MaintenX today!

Your commercial building is more than just a place to work. It provides your customers with an important first impression of your brand. It can be a second home to your employees or tenants, and can be a point of pride among each of their work lives. However, a building that doesn’t look good won’t be a place of pride, nor will it make a good first impression on potential consumers. 

An important aspect of facility maintenance is exterior cleaning. Services such as pressure washing can help maintain property value by keeping the facility looking new. Other benefits of pressure washing include: . 

• Preventing corrosion – Mold, rot, and algae that grows on your building can lead to corrosion over time. This looks bad to property visitors and tenants, and will lead to more expensive repairs in the future. Pressure washing services reduce the risk of corrosion due to these very common issues. 
• Boosting curb appeal – Pressure washing makes a building instantly look newer. By scheduling this service regularly, you can improve curb appeal which will please site visitors and customers. 
• Employee/Tenant Safety – Failure to clean the exterior surface of your building could result in certain bacterias entering the facility. As a rule of thumb, a clean building is a safer, healthier building. 

Pressure washing regularly can keep you building looking and operating at its finest. However, most facility managers are unsure of how often they should schedule this service. Pressure washing too frequently can result in deterioration of exteriors. We recommend using one of two methods for determining your pressure washing schedule. 

Schedule pressure washing seasonally. Typically, pressure washing is most effective when done twice a year. You can schedule a service before the beginning and at the end of your busy season. This will ensure your building looks its best while the most customers are present, without interfering with your busy season. 

You can also do a simple test to figure out if your building needs to be pressure washed. Simply run your finger down the side of the building and examine. If you can see dirt, you need to pressure wash. Otherwise, you can wait a few weeks to pressure wash. The exception to this rule would be if you can see algae or mold beginning to grow. 

MaintenX offers affordable pressure washing services for commercial facilities. Contact us today to schedule your service or to receive a free quote!

During a renovation or new construction, there are countless decisions to be made. As the facility manager, you have to organize the project with careful attention to every detail. While the colors you choose for your new office space may not seem crucial now, they can play a big role in the comfort of your tenants and productivity of your employees. Color scheme makes an important first impression. Before you start painting, consider your options carefully. 

MaintenX offers much more than preventative maintenance. We provide renovation and new construction services including electrical work, roofing, painting, and general contractor work. We help businesses choose the right design elements that will make their building feel like a home away from home. Here are just a few tips we’ve collected to help you make the right color choice for your facility: 

Consider your industry 

This conversation typically occurs when your business designs its logo. Color schemes portray your brand image to clients; dark and neutral colors are typically used for B2B services, while brighter or pastel colors are more engaging to retail customers. If you will have customers or clients in your facility, keep in mind the standards of the industry and the kind of first impression you want to make with your color scheme. 

Consider the space

White and light colors make spaces look bigger, while dark colors make them feel smaller. If you are working with limited square footage, consider using white or light colors to open up the space. However, if you want a particular office to feel more isolated (such as for an individual’s work space), opt for darker colors to make the area feel secure. 

Consider saturation

While the hue you choose may make an immediate impression, the saturation of color can cause surprising effects on your employees’ productivity. Bright, intense colors can stimulate productivity for staff, especially in areas where creativity is needed. However, you may want to stick to lighter and more neutral tones for the offices of those who are already in high-stress positions. Neutral colors can help to calm and relax those with plenty of pressure on the job. 

If you are interested in changing the paint in a new or old office space, contact MaintenX today. We are happy to help you get started, or provide a free estimate during your call.

Your employees and tenants are the lifeblood of your operation. It only makes sense to ensure that their well being and satisfaction is of the first priority when managing day-to-day operations. One of the ways to improve employee and tenant satisfaction is through proper maintenance that raises the health standards of your facility. 

The health standards of your facility matter a lot, even if you are not in an industry with strict health codes. Those in restaurants, hotels, and hospitals follow strict maintenance and cleaning schedules to prevent citations, but many of the same protocols should be followed by businesses in other industries. Preventative maintenance and proper cleaning can provide several benefits to employee or tenant health.

Improved indoor air quality

Indoor air quality is of the utmost importance when managing any type of commercial facility. It affects the health of your tenants, as poor indoor air quality can cause serious health risks. Things like poor HVAC maintenance can lead to longer cold and flu seasons, migraines, and risks for those with asthma or other respiratory problems. Indoor air quality can even affect productivity in the workplace. Be mindful of your HVAC maintenance to create a healthier work environment. 

Reduced risk of spreading bacteria and viruses

In addition to the risk of respiratory problems associated with poor indoor air quality, bacteria and viruses can spread easily if your HVAC system is not maintained. Bacteria thrives in the cool, moist environment of an HVAC system and can spread if ducts are not cleaned. Plumbing problems can also lead to the spread of bacteria and viruses if not kept in check. 

Improved safety in the event of a natural disaster

Well-maintained buildings are safe havens in the event of a natural disaster. Those that are poorly maintained become unsafe places for your tenants and employees. In Tampa, Florida, where MaintenX is headquartered, we are at high risk of hurricanes during the summer. Clients who invest in preventative maintenance can keep their employees safe if a tropical storm or hurricane reaches land. Those who do not put their unevacuated tenants at risk. 

Investing in preventative maintenance is your facility’s best defense against safety and health hazards. Talk to your local MaintenX team today to learn about our services and pricing!

Maintenance is supposed to prevent chaos, frustration, and turmoil. Unfortunately, poorly managed maintenance programs can cause more problems as they prevent. There are many things going on behind the scenes that the facility manager may be unaware of or doesn’t understand. 

At MaintenX, we strive to create a clear line of communication between our clients and technicians. This means that we not only deliver results, but help our clients understand where their maintenance dollars are going. However, this task isn’t easy. Below are just a few examples of ways in which maintenance communication problems can occur:

Inefficient work order requests

Employees and tenants often do not understand the importance of work order management in maintenance, and perhaps neither do you. Our work order management system is highly advanced, but occasionally things slip through the cracks when not reported correctly. This leads to disappointment from the client, and confusion on the part of our technicians. To avoid this, we encourage clients to take advantage of the MaintenX work order management system to ensure their service is delivered promptly and efficiently. 

Unknown cause of breakdowns

MaintenX technicians are trained to be able to diagnose and fix most maintenance issues within their specialty. But unfortunately, not even the best technician can solve every mystery. Sometimes breakdowns occur and there is no direct cause or correlation from which to draw a conclusion. This requires understanding from the facility manager, and patience on the part of the technician to make the best call in an uncertain situation. 

Unrealistic expectations

Most tenants and facility managers have very little understanding of the maintenance involved in their space. That’s why they hire us to handle issues. However, this can cause problems when a tenant or employee expects service to be done on their timeline, rather than the technician’s. Not all maintenance issues can be solved in a day or in an hour. It is best to trust the technician and understand that quality work takes time. 

Measuring the wrong kind of progress

The best technicians perform more preventative maintenance than they do emergency maintenance. However, preventative maintenance success is measured very differently, and may look more like an expense than an investment. Keep in mind, when evaluating maintenance performance, the goal is not to fix broken things. The goal is to improve performance and extend service life, as well as prevent equipment from breaking down in the first place. 

Keep in mind that maintenance is an inherently unpredictable, agile element to your operations. Sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes communication is lost, and expectations are not met or set. At MaintenX we strive everyday to reduce uncertainty and chaos at your facility through effective preventative maintenance. The first step for us is talking to you about our process, and setting you up with a preventative maintenance schedule. 

Contact us today to learn more about the MaintenX difference!

At MaintenX, we take great pride in helping our clients save more and do more through preventative maintenance. We help them create energy-efficient, performance-minded work environments that set the standard within the industry. However, there is one benefit to preventative maintenance that we don’t always get to highlight. 

For some of our clients, preventative maintenance has been a determining factor in success after hard financial times. While most companies scramble to cut costs during a recession, our clients stick to their maintenance plans and are stronger on the other side because of them. There are several reasons for this. 

While many things about recessions are uncertain, there are some things we can always depend on:

• One financial setback is never the last
• The best time to prepare for low months is during the high months
• While innovation and acceleration will serve you now, your maintenance plan will keep the ship from sinking when you’re facing hard financial times

Preventative maintenance helps you prevent further setbacks during a financial recession. By avoiding equipment breakdowns and safety hazards, you make your facility robust and ready for anything. It is incredibly difficult to put out fires while you’re in a recession. Preventative maintenance makes sure you don’t have to. 

Here are some other top reasons for why you should invest in preventative maintenance before and during economic downturns: 

Maintenance can prevent safety hazards and costly downtime. 

During a recession, the instinct is to cut costs wherever possible. However, you can’t ignore a broken piece of equipment, no matter how tight your budget may be. Avoid the costly downtime involved with reactive maintenance by investing in more affordable, long-term preventative maintenance services. 

Maintenance helps to keep product quality on par with the competition. 

When budgets are cut under financial duress, oftentimes it is product quality — and therefore customer satisfaction — that suffers the most. Don’t let your customers down by skimping on product or service quality. Invest in maintaining your equipment and office spaces so that you can deliver the same competitive offers no matter how tight the times may be. 

Preventative maintenance can help extend the service life of facility equipment.

In addition to equipment failure, you can’t ignore equipment that requires replacement. The last thing you want is to have machinery out of commission, requiring a costly replacement, in the middle of a recession. Invest in your current equipment over time to ensure this never has to burden you. 

Preventative maintenance will help you and your tenants thrive during financial hardships. To learn more about the benefits and options of preventative maintenance service, contact MaintenX today!

Most people think of maintenance in one dimension: it’s the service for fixing things. For most facility managers and tenants, the only time maintenance is given a second thought is when something goes wrong, or a piece of equipment starts to fail. However, maintenance is happening all the time, and should rather be considered a part of regular operations at any commercial facility. 

There are several different strategies of maintenance that can be implemented at different levels of operations. Some pieces of equipment will need very little maintenance, while others will require more attention by your MaintenX team. Below are some of the ways in which we group maintenance tasks and strategies for our clients’ services: 

Reactive maintenance

Reactive maintenance is the most typical maintenance tool, simply because it requires no prior planning. When you call your maintenance technician after a piece of machinery has started to fail, you are reacting to the problem rather than preventing it. For very simple processes and pieces of equipment this is sufficient, but for most commercial facility systems a bit of forethought will serve you much more. 

Run-to-fail maintenance

Run-to-fail maintenance (RTF) is similar to reactive maintenance in that assets are left untouched until they begin to fail. The difference between RTF and reactive maintenance is that RTF includes a plan or strategy for when the asset begins to fail. RTF includes a checklist to diagnose an issue, or a plan to either fix or replace the asset as soon as a problem occurs.  This is a step above reactive maintenance, but is not as efficient as other strategies. 

Routine maintenance

Routine maintenance includes all of the required maintenance tasks that are performed to keep a piece of machinery in working order. For example, changing the air filters in an HVAC system is considered routine. It does not require a diagnosis, but prevents problems from occurring in the future. These tasks should be planned according to the equipment’s manufacturer recommendations or by your MaintenX technician’s suggestion.

Preventive maintenance

Preventive maintenance is a maintenance strategy aimed at preventing failures and extending the service life of facility equipment. This includes monitoring equipment performance over time, optimizing routine maintenance tasks, diagnosing potential issues, and planning for possible breakdowns before they occur. Using preventative maintenance, you can reduce downtime at your facility and reduce the expensive costs associated with reactive maintenance. 

To learn more about your maintenance plan and options, contact your MaintenX team today! We are happy to discuss preventative maintenance scheduling or to provide a quote for an upcoming service.

Preventative maintenance can become one of your facility’s greatest cost-saving measures when implemented correctly. However, managing such a program takes time and effort. Otherwise, it will just become another operations obligation that provides no real benefit to you or your tenants. In order to make preventative maintenance truly effective, you need to plan and organize it with your maintenance team.  

Preventative maintenance checklists can help you organize your maintenance schedule and ensure that all required tasks are being performed. Checklists can also be adaptive to changing equipment needs. There are several types of PM checklists you can implement to simplify management of the program: 

Types of checklists:

• Pass-or-fail checklist – This type of checklists simply asks the question, “Does this system or piece of equipment meet X performance standards?” If the answer is yes, then no maintenance is needed. If not, then a service and diagnosis should be performed to find the problem and correct it. 
• Step-by-step checklist – Some pieces of equipment require regular routine maintenance. For example, HVAC units need their air filters replaced and coils cleaned no matter the age or current operating condition. Step-by-step checklists are useful in these circumstances to ensure that the recommended maintenance is performed on time. 
• Safety checklist – Some systems, such as electrical systems, require certain safety protocol to be followed before performing maintenance. Checklists of this sort reduce onsite accidents. Safety checklists can also include fail tests to ensure that all safety equipment is in working order and will prevent accidents while the equipment is in operation. 

The checklist organization and steps included will depend on the piece of equipment or system’s needs, as well as the experience of the contractor. An experienced technician will likely need a less-detailed checklist to simply see what maintenance tasks have already been performed, and which still need to be completed. Inexperienced or general technicians will need more detailed instructions to ensure that all maintenance is performed correctly. 

Checklists can also be used in wrench-time studies. A wrench time study evaluates your maintenance team based on their efficiency performing certain tasks. While these should be sued in conjunction with other evaluations, it can be helpful to know how long a contractor takes to complete the checklist. An extended time could mean that your equipment is reaching the end of its service life, and maintenance is becoming harder to perform. 

Maintenance checklists should be updated with the help of your maintenance team. As your systems age they will need different PM tasks. Your maintenance team can also help you strategically plan upgrades when certain systems have reached maximum performance capacity. Talk to your MaintenX team today about your preventative maintenance options!

Facility managers are exceptional multitaskers. They manage their maintenance teams, their staff, tenants, and all the moving parts that keep operations running smoothly. With so many tasks to delegate, facility managers need a strong preventative maintenance (PM) plan to back them up. This keeps everyone on the same page and prevents equipment breakdowns that could lead to unwanted downtime. 

Preventative maintenance is important for these reasons:

• PM prevents premature equipment breakdowns
• PM prevents the high costs associated with reactive maintenance
• PM keeps machine operators safe
• PM increases the service life and productivity of equipment and of the facility as a whole
• When adjusted correctly, PM can reduce overall maintenance costs over time

There’s no question that preventative maintenance is vital for the overall health and wellness of your facility. However, it can be hard to manage when you have so many other tasks to take care of. Here’s how to simplify your PM plan so it continues to be easy and effective for both you and your maintenance team: 

Keep it on schedule. 

The most effective preventative maintenance plans are adaptive to facility needs; however, they should include a basic schedule of tasks to ensure that both facility manager and contractor are on the same page. Your maintenance plan can be adjusted to factor in service life, predicted issues, and long-term expenses, but it should be planned nonetheless. 

Communicate issues early on. 

Waiting to report maintenance issues is like waiting to go to the doctor — it only gets worse the longer you put it off. When you request a service immediately, your contractor has a much better chance of finding a small problem, rather than having to repair a severe one. If you, an employee, or a tenant believe that maintenance service may be needed, contact your MaintenX team as soon as possible. 

Track your progress. 

The goal of preventative maintenance is to incrementally decrease maintenance costs by preventing major disasters and repairs. In order to meet this goal, you need to carefully track the cost of preventative maintenance vs. the costs of reactive maintenance over time. You also should track the number of work overs to see if you’re achieving the downward trend, or if your maintenance costs are remaining stagnant year after year. While the cost-savings will take some time to achieve, these numbers will help you adjust your PM plan annually. 

Use a work-order management system. 

MaintenX prioritizes customer ease and satisfaction over everything else. To that end, we use an advanced work-order management system that ensures every service request is tracked and performed as soon as possible. This electronic system helps us to keep track of your current status, as well as our progress on individual maintenance goals over time, setting MaintenX apart from the rest. 

If you’d like to simplify your preventative maintenance plan, contact MaintenX today!