Among the 4 seasons of the year, Fall is the best time to perform regular maintenance on some of the hardest-working devices in your rental property. Make the most out of the season by doing your important interior maintenance items. This way, you’ll also be preparing your property, making sure things run safely and smoothly all winter long. These maintenance items include checking and cleaning filters, batteries, and water heaters. Some of which may need to be replaced, depending on its condition. All of these tasks have to be done regularly to make sure your rental property is safe for your tenants.
It’s important that your Hewitt rental property’s air filters be changed regularly. These filters keep your property’s HVAC system clean and running efficiently. This is why changing the air filters in your rental property is an important part of seasonal maintenance. As the winter months draw near, furnaces start to work harder to keep out the cold as families tend to spend more time indoors. For this reason, we can see the importance of keeping your filters clean. Now, there are many kinds of HVAC systems and they use different kinds of filters. So, depending on the specific model you have, you may need to change the filters as often as every 30 days, every three months, or even every six months. While you may think that these maintenance tasks are best done by your tenant, there is a high likelihood that they’re going to forget to change the filters or not change them often enough. This sort of lapse in maintenance will cause strain on your HVAC system, resulting in a reduction of life and the efficiency of the unit.
Fall would also be the perfect time to test and change the batteries in your rental property’s smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. You have to have these devices working well to keep your tenants safe. If you neglect to keep smoke detectors functioning properly, you may get sued should your property be damaged and/or one of your tenants get hurt in a fire. In other words, it’s critical that these devices are cared for.
Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors come with different kinds of batteries. Some batteries need to be changed every six to twelve months while others— those with lithium batteries— can last up to ten years, which is the useful life of a smoke or carbon monoxide detector. Nevertheless, no matter what kind of battery your devices have, you should still make sure that the batteries are being tested on a regular basis, and replaced immediately when needed. Hundreds of people are injured or killed in house fires every year. This is quite sad since many of these could have been prevented if the smoke detectors in their homes were functioning properly. If you let your tenants do this task, there is no certainty that they would carry them out. On top of that, they may even damage your property’s smoke detectors as they fiddle with them. This would lead to increased liability on your part and an additional expense to replace the devices.
Then we’ve got one of the most frequently used devices in a rental home— the water heater. Despite being used so much, it’s often forgotten when it’s time to do property maintenance tasks. It should not be overlooked. Cleaning your rental property’s water heater ensures that it lasts long and continues to work efficiently. Over time, sediment builds up in the tank of a water heater, making it less efficient and even leading to clogged water lines.
You can dodge these problems easily by flushing your water heater once every six months or so. It may take some time to finish the task, but it has to be done so you could get the most out of your expensive water heater unit. This may be a task you’d also want to assign to your tenants. But if you do that, you really have no guarantee that they’ll clean out the water heater properly. What may happen instead, especially if they mess up, is give you more problems.
Neglecting these maintenance items can have serious consequences and you may have to spend more on expensive repairs after a while. But giving your tenant the tasks to change or clean the filters, batteries, and water heater in your Hewitt rental property is not the best option. It may be true that you can do all these things yourself. The question is, would it be worth all the time and effort? The better option would undoubtedly be to hire a company like Real Property Management Talent to manage the property maintenance projects for you. Our full range of maintenance services can free up so much of your time. This way, not only will your property be in good shape and your tenants kept safe, but you would also be able to focus on what matters most. You would now have the time to work on growing your real estate investing business! To learn more about what we can do for you, feel free to contact us today.
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