Summary: All buildings are as different as the communities living within them. But one thing that’s always the same is the need for staying on top of planned maintenance and resident communication. This story of two buildings highlights the benefits and pitfalls of working with improvised systems to manage your multi-family building.
Brad manages his building with the help of spreadsheets, a Google calendar and a WhatsApp group for communicating with residents and owners’ committee members. It’s not ideal, but it’s how they’ve always done things. Plus, the owners committee aren’t keen on paying for building management software.
Planned maintenance for the lift, hot water boilers, and HVAC systems are scheduled at the beginning of each year. As notifications pop up, Brad calls the approved contractors listed on his smartphone and books the work. It’s a similar story for reactive maintenance. When things break — like the burst pipe in April — he goes through his phone’s contacts looking for approved contractors to book and schedule repairs with.
The lift in Brad’s building is out of action, again.
Bronwyn sighs, pushing Tracy’s pram to the stairs for the fifth time that week. “We’re going to bumpity-bump-bump down the stairs today!” she sings to Tracy, who claps her hands with delight.
“Bumpity-bump-bump!” Tracy sings back.
Bronwyn reaches the ground floor red faced and puffing. “At least I won’t need to go to the gym this week,” she thinks.
Pushing Tracy past the front desk, she stops for a word with Brad, the building manager. He’s scrolling through his phone, muttering about unreliable trades people.
“The lift is still out. I’ve just bumped Tracy down three flights of stairs for the fifth time this week. Do you know when the lift will be fixed? My arms are starting to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s!”
“A message went out to the WhatsApp group this morning. The tradesperson was supposed to fix it yesterday, I’m chasing them up now. All going well, they’ll be here first thing in the morning. Excuse me…” Brad trails off and answers a call on his smartphone.
Bronwyn sighs and heads out the door to the park. Later that evening, she speaks to her husband about moving to a building with a reliable lift and more conveniently located to the primary school they hope Tracy will go to.
Two approaches to planning maintenance for your building
No two buildings are the same. Nor are the ways they manage planned and reactive maintenance issues. Some building managers like Brad and their owners committees rely on manual systems like spreadsheets, online calendars, emails and WhatsApp groups to keep the wheels of their communities turning. It’s a lot of work. It’s easy for issues to be overlooked or forgotten. Often, residents are the last to know when things don’t go as planned.
Other buildings rely on building management software like BuildingLink. We tie all the loose ends of building management, including planned and reactive maintenance, into one easy streamlined process.
Planning maintenance with BuildingLink
The first thing Natalie does each morning is log into BuildingLink to see what’s happening in her building that week. All of the communal assets — HVAC, boilers, lifts and electric systems — had their planned maintenance dates uploaded when they switched to the software. Her building manager’s dashboard shows her building events, planned maintenance and has a helpful list of reactive maintenance issues that have been logged by residents and owners committee members.
These reactive issues are recorded with photographs and short descriptions of the problem. They’re a priority task. She’s able to allocate all seven of them to her list of approved contractors before her morning building-walk. As she walks the building, she checks her inspection list, making sure all of the items in communal areas are reviewed and noted. Anything that doesn’t seem right gets a photo to go along with the ticket she raises on her smartphone app.
Nathan bumps into Natalie as she finishes her morning building walk.
“Thanks for the email about the boiler servicing next week,” he smiles. “I’m going to head to the gym early and shower there — the hot water won’t be off in that part of the building, will it?”
“Good idea, we’re only checking the east side boilers this time around. It’s better than having the hot water out across the whole building,
“The west side gets the once over next month. Thanks for mentioning it! I’ll follow up on the ticket our contractors got to make sure they’ve booked us in.” Natalie smiles and nods as she carries on with her inspection.
She’s back at her office for lunch. Grabbing a sandwich, Natalie checks in with the boiler servicing contractor as she pulls her planned maintenance email template up on her screen. The details for the west side boiler servicing are filled in with a few taps and she hits send. All residents are notified of the next interruption to their hot water supply within minutes.
Planned and unplanned maintenance issues in multi-occupancy buildings can cause friction and inconvenience to residents. But with a little notice, planning and streamlining processes from a single building management platform, they don’t have to. No two buildings are the same, but building management doesn’t have to be hard when you have the right software behind you. Book a demo to see how BuildingLink could work for you and your building.