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 taking advantage of this season to do important interior maintenance items, you’re really also preparing your property to run safely and smoothly all winter long. These tasks include having filters, batteries, and water heaters checked and cleaned or replaced regularly. You need to do this to ensure the safety of your tenants and to make sure that your rental property is in top condition.
It’s crucial that you change your Dublin rental property’s air filters, and that you do it 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. This being the case, it’s clearly important that your filters must be kept clean. There are different types of HVAC systems, and some systems use different types of filters. Depending on what filter your system needs, 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 having your tenants do these things would be a smart move, the truth is, many tenants would probably forget to do it or not change the filters often enough. This neglect would cause strain on your HVAC system, reducing its life and the efficiency of the unit.
Fall is also the best season 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.
There are multiple types of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Some of them have batteries that need to be changed every six to twelve months while others can last up to the full useful life of a smoke or carbon monoxide detector— which is ten years. 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. The number of these tragedies could have been greatly reduced if the smoke detectors in their homes were working 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 forgotten. Making sure your rental property’s water heater is routinely cleaned is an important part of keeping it working well. 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 stay clear of these problems by simply 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 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 letting your tenant change or clean the filters, batteries, and water heater in your Dublin rental property is not the best option. While it may be the case that you can do all these property maintenance tasks yourself, it would mean you’d have to spend so much of your own time and effort. The smart option would still be to hire a company like Real Property Management One, and they can do all the work 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, contact us today.
We are pledged to the letter and spirit of U.S. policy for the achievement of equal housing opportunity throughout the Nation. See Equal Housing Opportunity Statement for more information.
