What Is Emergency Maintenance? (And Why It’s Important)

Essentially all types of business — ranging from manufacturing facilities to hospitals to restaurants — depend on having equipment and facilities in proper working order. But sometimes the unexpected occurs, such as a power outage or broken water line.

When an unfortunate surprise like this happens, you need emergency maintenance. But the longer it takes to make repairs, the more it could threaten the well-being of your stakeholders and your overall company.

In this guide, we’ll examine what emergency maintenance involves, when emergency maintenance might be required, how emergency maintenance contrasts with other types of maintenance and how to create an emergency maintenance plan. We’ll also cover how a preventive maintenance program could help organizations ideally avoid the need for emergency maintenance in the first place.

Why Is Emergency Maintenance Important?

Emergency maintenance typically involves immediate, unplanned repairs to protect stakeholders like employees and customers, as well as physical property, profitability or even your organization’s existence. It’s sometimes called reactive maintenance, though as we’ll explore in this article, emergency maintenance generally requires a more immediate response than some other types of reactive maintenance.

For example, a restaurant with a gas leak needs emergency maintenance. It’s one thing to ask customers to leave for their own safety, but if left untreated, the gas leak could turn into a fire that spreads throughout the building. The financial fallout from that, even with insurance, could be enough to cause the restaurant to close permanently. 

So, when an emergency maintenance situation is detected, it needs to be addressed right away, rather than figuring it out when you have time.

When Is Maintenance Considered an Emergency?

The line between urgent and emergency maintenance might seem blurry at first glance, but it helps to separate the two based on whether you could reasonably delay maintenance without causing significant harm. In general, think of urgent maintenance as something that needs to be done tomorrow, whereas emergency maintenance is something that needs immediate attention.

Imagine an airplane has a sensor malfunction just before scheduled takeoff versus the Wi-Fi not working properly for passengers. The sensor issue would likely require emergency maintenance so that the plane can take off as soon as possible, whereas the Wi-Fi issue, while inconvenient, could probably be addressed when there’s a break in the flight schedule for that aircraft.

Some other examples of what could warrant emergency maintenance include:

• Pipe burst: Water rushing in could cause significant property damage or flooding that endangers people. This is generally an emergency wherever it occurs.
• Gas leak: Inhaling gas could physically harm people, and a gas leak could cause a fire. This also tends to be an emergency wherever it occurs.
• Refrigerator breaks down at a restaurant: Some emergency maintenance situations are more context-dependent. If a refrigerator breaks down at a consulting firm’s office, it would be considered a non-emergency to be addressed the following day or even week, but if a refrigerator breaks down at a restaurant, it needs to be addressed immediately for food-safety reasons.
• Broken HVAC during a heatwave: While HVAC repairs aren’t always urgent, some situations require emergency maintenance — for instance, if a hospital needs to keep the air-conditioning temperature at a safe level for patients during a heatwave.
• Key-card system stops working at a hotel: In order for guests to safely and conveniently access their rooms, the hotel may need to fix the system right away. 

Emergency Maintenance vs. Reactive Maintenance

Emergency maintenance could be considered a type of reactive maintenance that’s more urgent than other types of reactive maintenance. 

In other words, reactive maintenance is the broader category of repairs made after a problem has already been identified, such as if an employee notices that equipment isn’t working properly. In some cases, though, reactive maintenance turns into emergency maintenance if there’s an immediate threat to people’s health and/or the company’s finances.

For example, if you run a gym and a treadmill stops working, reactive maintenance might involve making a maintenance request for a technician to come the following day to repair it. But if the alarm system starts malfunctioning and won’t stop blaring during normal business hours, you might get an electrician to come immediately for emergency maintenance so that you don’t have to close the gym or frustrate customers.

Emergency Maintenance vs. Preventive Maintenance

While emergency maintenance is a subset of reactive maintenance, the opposite of that is considered preventive maintenance. Rather than responding to problems after they occur, preventive maintenance aims to keep equipment and facilities running properly before a significant issue arises. In other words, emergency maintenance is reactive, and preventive maintenance is proactive.

Preventive maintenance can occur in several ways. For one, it might be scheduled, such as if you have your HVAC system inspected every six months, rather than waiting until a problem occurs. Another type of preventive maintenance is predictive maintenance, which uses technology like sensors to identify issues before they turn into significant problems.

For example, a pressure sensor could be used to identify an increased risk of a pipe bursting, thereby avoiding emergency maintenance that could be more costly. Other types of preventive maintenance, like cleaning or replacing a filter on a set schedule, can also help with equipment functionality and reduce the risk of needing to make an emergency maintenance request.

Creating an Emergency Maintenance Plan

While the nature of emergency maintenance means that you don’t know what the problem is in advance, you can still prepare by creating emergency maintenance strategies. Doing so can enable your organization to handle an emergency more efficiently and effectively, rather than trying to figure out the proper protocol in the heat of the moment.

A solid emergency maintenance plan should include the following steps:

• Develop a team of emergency maintenance technicians: You should know in advance who you would call in the event of different types of emergencies, such as plumbers, electricians or equipment technicians. Make sure you select professionals or companies that offer 24/7 service, as you never know when an emergency will occur. Also ensure that staff know who to contact and how, such as by having a centralized database of emergency contacts.
  
• Define emergency maintenance responsibilities: In addition to knowing who to contact in case of emergency, you need clearly defined emergency maintenance responsibilities so employees know what to do in these situations. For example, if you want employees to first contact a facility manager or property manager to assess an emergency, that expectation needs to be clearly communicated. From there, the protocol might be that the manager contacts the appropriate emergency technician. At the same time, you might define responsibilities so that employees know who’s responsible in the event the manager is unavailable.
• Define who will be reporting the work done: In addition to defining emergency maintenance responsibilities during the emergency event, it’s important to clarify a reporting protocol. For example, if your HVAC system needs an emergency repair, you would likely want to maintain a record of that as part of scheduling a follow-up inspection. So, employees should be clear about who reports that the work is done and how that’s recorded. Using computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software to track everything from asset downtime to routine maintenance is one effective way to do this.
• Dedicate time to assess future risk management: Lastly, an emergency maintenance plan should also involve a post-game recap of sorts. Not only do you want to report on the work that was done, but you should ideally review what happened and see if you can come up with a plan to try to prevent those types of issues from happening in the future. So, your emergency maintenance plan might involve a protocol like holding a meeting between the facilities or maintenance teams and the lines of business affected by the emergency the day after it occurs.

How a CMMS Can Help Prevent Emergency Maintenance in the Future

Emergency maintenance should be a last resort. Ideally, you can get ahead of the problem before it puts lives or livelihoods at risk. Using CMMS software can make it easier to assign, track and report on preventive maintenance tasks for key equipment and assets. It can help create work orders for everything from conducting carbon monoxide tests and checking smoke detectors to having a renter report a clogged toilet to a property management company. That way, everyone can get on the same page, and you can reduce the risks of maintenance issues festering until they turn into emergencies.

An equipment maintenance software like Coast can also be used for teams to communicate with each other in real time about maintenance concerns. That way, even if you’re engaging in reactive maintenance, you can address the issue quickly before it becomes a full-fledged emergency.

See for yourself how Coast’s CMMS can help you streamline maintenance and prevent emergencies. Sign up for a free account today.