When you experience a maintenance issue on the weekend or after 5 p.m., your heart begins to sink. You’ll likely call every emergency repair service in town, but these are not full-proof solutions. Many times after-hours maintenance staffing is limited, which means you may not get the help you need immediately. For a large-scale commercial facility, this is dangerous.
If you are in the midst of a serious maintenance emergency, don’t panic. Ask yourself these questions to see if you can ameliorate the situation as you’re waiting for help to arrive:
“Is this actually an emergency?”
Sometimes, when a maintenance issue arises after hours, facility managers prematurely panic because they know help will be hard to find. However, some maintenance requests are better left unresolved until morning. If you have a minor plumbing or electrical issues, determine whether or not your staff will be put in danger or if your critical operations are put under pressure. If not, you may be able to skip calling an emergency maintenance service entirely.
“Can I find a quick fix?”
Before you panic, do a quick online search of your issue to see if there is a quick fix you can implement while waiting for the professionals. Ask your onsite employees to brainstorm ideas. While you may not be able to implement a long-term solution (and should still seek maintenance service regardless of whether or not you stop the problem), you can sometimes easily stop major disruptions all on your own.
“Can I locate the owner’s manual or another maintenance resource?”
Many pieces of equipment and heavy machinery come with owner’s manuals and maintenance resources for the owner to utilize as a diagnostic tool. Hopefully, you kept these resources upon purchase of the appliance or piece of equipment. If not, you may be able to find resources on the manufacturer’s website, including their help chat.
“Can I shut down the facility or isolate the issue until the problem is resolved?”
In some emergencies, you may have to isolate an area of the facility or allow employees to leave in order to follow safety protocol. Depending on your operational goals, this may be a good or poor strategy. If your facility is meant to operate 24 hours a day, this is an undesirable outcome. However, sometimes it is safer and more cost-effective to halt operations rather than working with failing equipment or within a questionable work environment. Consider all the costs before making a decision.
MaintenX prides itself on being a reliable and affordable emergency maintenance service for commercial facilities in 13 states. We are always on-call and can be at your location, sometimes within minutes, ready to resolve your maintenance issue. When in a difficult situation, call us at 855-751-0075 or report online here.
