Water Damage Tips for Property Managers

12/20/2021 (Permalink)

Contact SERVPRO of Troup-Coweta today to enlist the industry leader for your commercial property. We are your local restoration experts.

Water damage presents a unique set of challenges for landlords and property managers.

For example: Although you as a property manager may be responsible for the general upkeep of toilets and plumbing fixtures, you obviously aren’t going through every property every day to check on each one. So something you might notice as an issue and immediately act to take care of might go either unnoticed by a tenant, or you might not know about it until it’s too far into the problematic phase.

Considering a toilet leak can waste over 4,000 gallons of water a day, this presents a real potential problem.

So you’ve got potential problems in properties you can’t have eyes on at all times—how to you manage to stay ahead of it? There are a number of things you can do, but some overarching themes run through them all.

Routine maintenance is a must.

• A thorough inspection every year (or at minimum every two years) is essential. Most bursts and leaks begin gradually rather than all of a sudden, so regular maintenance may help you catch something in its infancy before it becomes a bigger issue. If you need expert help in knowing what to look for, hiring a pro to assist is still cheaper than repairing a waterlogged property.

• After heavy rains or periods of snowfall, check roofs and gutters for damage or dams, which could cause water to begin leaking inside.

Maintaining good relationships with tenants can help.

• If you foster good relationships with your tenants, they can be your eyes and ears when problems start. This process, of course, begins well before any water damage calls—hopefully you’ve been building good back-and-forth with your tenants from day one by answering calls and responding to needs in a timely fashion.

• Your help to them cultivates your ability to ask them to be vigilant about notifying you of issues—and when your tenants trust you to act, they’re more likely to alert you when they notice something, even something as small as a running toilet.

• In seasonal shifts or when there’s upcoming nasty weather, be sure to alert your tenants to any potential preparation that needs to be made as well, and you can save yourself some service calls.

Keep properties up to date.

Keeping up with changing technologies for leak detection, maintaining roofing and gutters and water heaters, and replacing older water appliances and hoses keeps your tenants happy, keeps your properties nice and in good shape, and helps future-proof you against damage that could result from neglect or old age.

Even the best landlords and property managers need help sometimes. Contact SERVPRO today to enlist the industry leader for your commercial properties.