If you look at the different seasons of the year, fall would be the best one for you to perform regular maintenance on some of the hardest-working devices in your rental property. By doing important interior maintenance items during this season, you’re making the best use of the season’s time. You’re not only making sure everything is working well but you’re also preparing your home to run safely and smoothly all winter long. Some of the things you can do are check and clean your filters, batteries, and water heaters. And, depending on its condition, they may need to be replaced. These tasks should be done regularly to reduce the risks your tenants are exposed to, and to make sure your rental property is in great condition.
Replacing your Sugar Hill rental property’s air filters regularly is very important. These filters keep your property’s HVAC system clean and running efficiently. This is the reason why changing air filters is an important part of seasonal maintenance. As the winter months draw near, residents would want to stay indoors more. That means they’ll let furnaces work harder to keep out the cold. For this reason, we can see the importance of keeping your filters clean. There are multiple types of HVAC systems, and they don’t have the same type of filters. So, depending on which type of filter you need, you may need to change the filters as often as every 30 days, every three months, or even every six months. While you may be thinking that this would be a good thing to delegate to your tenants, that may not be such a good idea. The chances that they’re going to forget or not change the filters often enough are high. This neglect would cause strain on your HVAC system, reducing its 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 see to it that these devices are working well to make sure your tenants are kept safe. For example, if your smoke detectors aren’t functioning properly and one of your tenants gets hurt in a fire, you can be pretty certain that you’re getting sued. In other words, it’s critical that these devices are maintained properly.
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. Even so, no matter what kind of battery your devices have, you should still have your batteries tested on a regular basis, and replaced right away when necessary. 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 leave these tasks to your tenants, you can’t be sure that they would do it. What’s worse, they may damage your property’s smoke detectors as they try and do the maintenance— especially if they weren’t properly trained. This would lead to additional replacement costs and the increased liability on your part.
Next, we have water heaters. Despite it being one of the most frequently used devices in a rental home, it’s often neglected when doing property maintenance tasks. It should not be neglected. It is important to clean your rental property’s water heater so it continues to work efficiently for a long time. Over time, sediment builds up in the tank of a water heater, making it less efficient and even leading to clogged water lines.
These problems wouldn’t bother you if you just flush your water heater once every six months or so. The task may take longer than you’d like but it’s something you have to do to get the most out of your expensive water heater unit. This may be another task you’d want your tenants to be handling. However, there is no guarantee that they’ll clean out the water heater properly. Instead, they may just be doing more harm than good.
Neglecting these maintenance items can have serious consequences and you may have to spend more on expensive repairs after a while. But making your tenant do the tasks of changing or cleaning the filters, batteries, and water heaters in your Sugar Hill rental property is not the best option. The other option would be to do it all by yourself— but that would leave little room to do more meaningful and important tasks. That’s also not so good. The best option would really be to get a company like Real Property Management Executives Greater Atlanta to handle all the property maintenance tasks 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! For more information, feel free to contact us today.
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