Apartment Maintenance 101: Key Ways to Improve Cost Savings

Property rentals can be a lucrative investment, but managing apartments is hardly a hands-off operation. Whether you’re a landlord or hired a property management company to handle the job, apartment maintenance is non-negotiable. That’s because a lack of proactive maintenance can result in costly emergency repairs, unhappy tenants and even potential safety risks and lawsuits.

Fortunately, avoiding real estate doomsday is easy if you plan ahead. This guide will give you the blueprint you need to build a world-class apartment maintenance program. We’ll cover everything from the key maintenance strategies you need to know, to who performs apartment maintenance, to how a maintenance software can help you finally escape the reactive maintenance treadmill.

What Is Apartment Maintenance?

Essentially, apartment maintenance covers all maintenance and repairs done on an apartment building. Just about anything that can break in a rental unit is considered part of an apartment maintenance plan, aside from appliances that tenants own. As a landlord, it’s your legal responsibility to keep apartment units habitable, safe and comfortable for renters. Routine maintenance activities cover a broad range of repair work to keep your tenants happy and safeguard your property.

Apartment Maintenance Responsibilities

Maintaining an apartment requires extensive, ongoing work, so organization is key. Necessary building maintenance tasks include all of the following: 

• Inspecting and repairing all heating, ventilation and A/C systems: This form of facility maintenance is ideally done prior to peak-use season. It’s better to repair or replace a heating unit over the summer months than it is to wait until residents need them around the clock in winter.
• Groundskeeping and landscaping: Lawn care, tree-trimming, clearing walkways and power-washing driveways should be done as part of a proper grounds maintenance plan.
• Appliance repairs: This includes addressing maintenance requests for ovens, stoves, dishwashers, microwaves and laundry facilities offered as part of your lease agreement.
• Security check: All structures should be inspected for security and safety, including all doors, windows, hallways and stairwells. 
• Pest control: Professional maintenance services can assist with spraying and doing routine inspections for termites, insects and rodent infestations.
• Plumbing: This involves repairing worn bathroom fixtures, inspecting drains, performing water quality tests and handling urgent repairs.
• Electrical repairs: You want to improve energy efficiency as much as possible. A qualified electrician can check for potential safety hazards, assessing electrical load and ensuring outdoor outlets and wiring is properly weatherproofed. 
• Cleaning: Last but not least, cleaning pools, gyms and other common areas thoroughly is an important part of property upkeep.

Types of Buildings That Use Apartment Maintenance

Many rental properties require dedicated property maintenance plans. Almost any property inhabited by a tenant requires apartment maintenance, but the requirements vary depending on the type of facility. 

• Studio apartments: Studios are self-contained and typically are the easiest to maintain.
• Lofts: Loft apartments are spacious with high ceilings, few rooms and large windows. Since many lofts were converted from older industrial buildings, it’s important to check that aging and outdated components are repaired or replaced. 
• Garden apartments: The highlight of a garden apartment complex is an aesthetically pleasing outdoor space. In addition to the required interior maintenance, keeping up outdoor spaces is expected. 
• High-rise apartments: A high-rise apartment building generally has 12 stories or more, so elevators are a requirement for convenience and accessibility. Ensuring elevators are up-to-code and in working order is essential for high-rise maintenance. 
• Walk-ups: Smaller storied apartments may not have elevators. In these instances, staircases should be clean, dry and well-lit to avoid accidents. 
• Duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes: In housing units with separate entrances, every unit should be considered an individual residence to be inspected and maintained accordingly. 

Different Kinds of Apartment Maintenance Workers

Three types of apartment maintenance workers are frequently involved in apartment upkeep. These include apartment maintenance supervisors, apartment maintenance managers and apartment maintenance technicians. Keeping up an apartment is a time-consuming undertaking, so each apartment maintenance job role covers a different subset of tasks. 

Apartment Maintenance Supervisor

Large facilities that rely on multiple maintenance service technicians require apartment supervisors to keep operations running smoothly. They oversee inspections, maintenance schedules and daily tasks. Today, many apartment maintenance supervisors rely on computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS) like Coast to streamline their workflow and meet resident service requests as promptly as possible. 

Apartment Maintenance Manager

Apartment maintenance managers are in charge of hiring and managing maintenance teams. Properties should budget for two full-time technicians per 100 housing units, and the manager’s role is to plan, schedule and assign work orders for the techs they oversee. In facilities with fewer than 100 units, it’s common to hire an apartment maintenance worker with a few years of experience in management to coordinate and perform the work independently. 

Apartment Maintenance Technician

Apartment maintenance technicians are the ones who actually perform the work. A good technician has maintenance experience performing preventive and routine property maintenance — from troubleshooting problems in common appliances to more complex HVAC repairs. Large apartment complexes may employ technicians with different specialties, but facilities with only a few units often hire a jack-of-all-trades tech. 

Most Common Apartment Maintenance Strategies

When you’re defining your apartment maintenance approach, there are several types of maintenance worth considering. For the most part, the following three strategies should cover all your bases:

• Preventive maintenance is the process of taking proactive measures to prevent equipment failures before they happen. Typically, this involves adhering to a routine inspection schedule, performing upgrades to parts as needed, lubricating moving parts of appliances, changing water filters, sealing bathtubs and countertops and other similar maintenance tasks that protect your assets and keep your tenants comfortable. 
• Reactive maintenance is a reaction to any apartment issue that is fairly harmless but needs to be repaired. A dripping faucet or out-of-order dryer is a pain, but it falls below emergency repairs on the priority list. 
• Emergency maintenance is similar to reactive maintenance in that it’s a reaction to a problem, but it typically involves a significant hazard that must be addressed urgently. For example, a gas leak or backed-up sewer line may require residents to evacuate for their own safety. 

Apartment Maintenance Example: Proactive vs. Reactive Maintenance

Let’s take a look at exactly how a proactive versus reactive maintenance approach affects everyone involved in an apartment community. A proactive approach to maintaining good, quality air-conditioning in the summertime would involve inspecting HVAC units before summertime. If a property owner waits until an air-conditioning unit fails during a heat wave, the problem requires reactive maintenance in that it must be prepared right away. And the problem can quickly turn into an emergency maintenance situation if residents (especially elderly tenants or young children) need to be relocated to avoid health complications like heat stroke. 

Since the property owner is responsible for providing habitable living conditions, they will likely be responsible for providing relocation funds until the issue is resolved. Covering motel stays for multiple residents is far more expensive than repairing or replacing old A/C units before the first heat wave of summer hits. Additionally, it saves owners, property managers and maintenance staff from the stressful experience of scrambling to meet resident needs and conduct emergency repairs overnight. 

How to Build a World-Class Apartment Maintenance Program

A successful apartment maintenance program rests on three foundational steps that include:

1. Defining key performance indicators: Before starting, decide what success looks like. Focus on outcomes like reducing emergency work orders by 20 percent or boosting resident satisfaction scores. Set a clear, measurable goal for your team to target.
2. Conducting a full asset inventory: You cannot maintain what you do not track. Create a definitive list of all major systems and equipment in every unit. This includes HVAC units, water heaters and common area appliances. Assign a unique ID to each asset.
3. Setting up a preventive maintenance schedule: Preventive maintenance is the most effective way to eliminate costly breakdowns. Base your schedule on manufacturer recommendations or historical failure data. For instance, schedule inspections for all HVAC units before the peak summer season.

Apartment Maintenance Checklist for Property Owners

Without a doubt, preventive maintenance beats last-minute repairs, both in terms of cost and resident satisfaction. If you don’t have a maintenance plan now, don’t put it off any longer. While the following list is far from exhaustive, it’s a good starting point for developing your apartment maintenance strategy. 

 Interior Inspections

• Check the attic for insulation, moisture build-up and structural issues.
• Examine the plumbing system for signs of leaking or broken pipes.
• Check the air-conditioning to ensure it’s in good condition in anticipation of summer.
• Inspect all appliances for proper functioning, and install new filters as needed.
• Clean and inspect vents and ductwork, check furnace filters, test thermostats and check all components of the system.
• Check for signs of termites and other pests at regular intervals.

Exterior Inspections 

• Check all caulking around windows, doors and siding.
• Inspect exterior paint for peeling or cracking; touch up areas where needed.
• Check exterior grounds for signs of overgrowth, debris or other hazards.
• Inspect roofs for signs of damage that may result in leaks.

Testing

• Test all carbon monoxide and smoke detectors.
• Test all exterior lighting, and replace light bulbs as needed.

Cleaning/Landscaping

• Clean out gutters and make sure they’re draining properly.
• Trim trees, rake leaves and check for any standing water after rainfall.
• Power wash roofs and outdoor surfaces to prevent the growth of moss and grass that may damage surfaces.

Mistakes to Avoid When Implementing Your Maintenance Plan

The road to successful facility maintenance is full of common pitfalls. Avoid these three mistakes that derail even the best-planned program:

• Developing processes in isolation: Do not let managers and executives create procedures without consulting the technicians. The team doing the work offers vital, first-hand experience and expertise. This collaboration ensures the standard operating procedures (SOPs) are practical and effective.
• Poor or incomplete training: An SOP is useless if technicians are not trained on it. Ensure every team member knows how to access and follow every new procedure, especially when implementing new work order software.
• Ignoring your data: The software’s main benefit is collecting key insights. Regularly review work order completion times, recurring failures and equipment repair costs. Use this data to continually refine your preventive maintenance schedules and lower overall repair and maintenance expenses.

How Coast Can Help Apartment Maintenance Teams 

A top CMMS software like Coast offers a comprehensive platform designed to help facility managers mitigate risk and prepare for equipment failures, including those that give property managers the biggest headaches.

Coast helps solve three core problems:

• Work order chaos: Paper forms and texts result in lost work requests. Coast centralizes all resident service requests into a digital queue for clear assignment and tracking. This provides an easy way to prioritize repairs, like fixing a dripping faucet (reactive) before it causes severe water damage (emergency).
• Poor training and accessibility: SOPs need to be instantly available to technicians in the field. Coast allows you to attach step-by-step procedures or digital checklists directly to a work order or a specific asset. This ensures consistency across all technicians and properties.
• Scheduling gaps: Manual scheduling means routine checks get overlooked. Use Coast to automatically generate and assign preventive maintenance tasks based on set dates, meter readings or usage hours. This proactive system protects your high-value equipment maintenance investments.

Take it from Coast customer iTrip Annapolis. The team found the ability to store checklists within Coast invaluable. Since their different properties require different inspections for cleanliness and regulatory standards, the ability to create and upload checklists for each individual one meant that they are now able to perform inspections more consistently.

Experience streamlined apartment maintenance first-hand by signing up for a free Coast account today.