The Value of Preventative Maintenance

Like so many things in life, the most important thing about preventative maintenance is to get started doing it. The difference between doing any maintenance at all and designing the most ideal maintenance plan for your facility can have huge long-term impacts on your budget in 10 to 20 years, but you'll barely notice a difference now. When you optimize your preventative maintenance planning, you are planning to succeed in the long term. However, starting today and doing what you can is way better than continuing to only deal with your equipment when it fails.

The analogy of car maintenance is helpful since it is one of the few pieces of equipment that most people touch daily and understand the value of regular maintenance. Driving by cars that are broken down on the side of the road serves as a regular reminder of the consequences of ignoring our car’s maintenance. Performing regular maintenance on your car does not guarantee that it will make it to a shockingly long lifespan. However, it makes that possible, and it dramatically reduces the likelihood that you'll be stranded on the side of the road with a seized-up engine or a deflated tire. Reduced breakdowns increase safety, reliability, and operational effectiveness, improving your bottom line. There is also clear data that well-maintained equipment runs more efficiently, lowering your utility costs.

There are immediate benefits from performing regular equipment maintenance, but the real value of preventative maintenance is revealed in the long-term.

Start with the Manufacturer’s Recommendations

Every piece of equipment comes with recommendations from its manufacturer; how to install it properly and how to maintain it. The best place to start when building your ideal maintenance plan is the needs of the equipment as established by the manufacturer. This gives you a good sense of the minimums and the cadence of the equipment's needs.

Finding efficiency in your equipment list

To build an efficient and inclusive plan, create a list of every piece of equipment in your facility that needs to be maintained. This is often a surprisingly long list, even for smaller facilities. HVAC systems have multiple components, each with maintenance requirements. Most commercial facilities have at least a small kitchen including a refrigerator, dishwasher, and possibly an ice machine, moving up to full commercial kitchens that contain multitudes of equipment from walk-in refrigerators, slicers, flight dishwashers, to specialized ovens, and more. Laboratories utilize unique combinations of highly specialized equipment, each with specific requirements from the manufacturer, including annual calibrations as well as compliance with certifying organizations. Building a list of all of the equipment in your facility with its minimum required maintenance is where you begin to draft a maintenance plan.

HVAC equipment needs a minimum of spring and fall maintenance, so almost all maintenance plans have a fall and spring rotation. If a facility opts for quarterly maintenance, then other equipment can be moved to a summer/winter schedule. Below is our suggested preventative maintenance scheduling infographic with categories of equipment, their most common preventive maintenance schedule, and any additional equipment type-specific recommendations. You can use this graphic to get a general sense of how you want to schedule your facility's maintenance.

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A Comprehensive Maintenance Approach

Once you have your equipment list and an understanding of the manufacturer’s maintenance requirements, then you can start optimizing for your facility's unique needs and specifications.

Water quality is another major factor in how equipment performs over time. Any equipment that has water moved through it will have mineral buildup that will cause problems. Ice machines will often fail first from water quality issues, with other equipment such as water heaters, dishwashers, steamers, boilers, and water-cooled equipment falling next.

Even if your facility is brand new, your equipment will need maintenance. New equipment needs regular maintenance to keep the warranty valid. Most facilities’ equipment is in various stages of its expected useful life: from new and under warranty to serviceable to obsolete equipment that is past its expected life. Serviceable equipment needs to be maintained to keep it running, and obsolete equipment needs maintenance and, most likely, responsive maintenance (aka repairs) to continue to push it until you’re ready to replace it. All equipment in use needs to be maintained; however, deciding how to handle the responsive maintenance items generated from the inspections may vary depending on the equipment’s age and condition.

Considerations:

Usage considerations (high & low-use equipment)
Equipment condition
Equipment location (in a high traffic or dirty area)
Environmental considerations (examples: water & air quality)
Industry-specific requirements
Lease specific requirements
LEED / Green Building / corporate responsibility requirements
Equipment operator’s ability to perform daily cleaning and maintenance
Budgeting (including planned equipment lifecycling)

In-House vs Contractor

Operator maintenance tasks need to be performed daily, weekly, and/or monthly, depending on the task. Deciding which maintenance tasks can be done in-house by either operators or a maintenance crew versus by a specialized contractor depends on your staff's willingness and capability, as well as the budget. While replacing a filter is generally straightforward, it involves several steps: ordering the correct filters, having the necessary hand tools to access the filter, being willing to properly dispose of a dirty filter, and maintaining a tracking system to confirm that the work has been completed. Whether a facility has staff that is capable of a filter change is often the deciding factor for bringing in a contractor twice a year versus quarterly. Many of the annual tasks require specialized, expensive equipment that most facilities do not own and don't have staff trained to operate.

Most facilities find the best balance in bringing in contractors either quarterly or twice a year, depending on the capability of the facility's maintenance team.

Here are some great resources to help in choosing a contractor:

The ACCA’s Checklist for choosing a contractor in their “Standard Practice for Inspection & Maintenance of Commercial Building HVAC Systems”
The ACCA’s “Quality Maintenance of Commercial Refrigeration Systems”
The US Dept of Energy, Better Buildings “HVACR Maintenance Contracting Best Practices”

Supporting Your Success

This is a lot of information, data points, decisions, and long-term planning. Building a maintenance program requires time, thoughtfulness, and expertise.

At RJH, we don't just maintain equipment; we support your business goals. Our team of qualified technicians, service managers & dispatchers work diligently to ensure your systems operate reliably, efficiently, and safely. We take pride in our role as a trusted support system for your operations. Investing in a preventative maintenance plan ensures that your systems not only function well today but also continue to serve you reliably in the future. While we pride ourselves in a fantastic response time with talented technicians who can diagnose complex problems, the best service we can provide you is not any of that. It’s preventing you from needing those impressive repairs. We offer free consultations for maintenance plans that include creating the equipment list and a comprehensive site walk-through to encourage our customers to set themselves up for the best possible service.

Our maintenance commitment:

Timely and efficient service
Clear communication about your equipment's condition
Proactive recommendations to prevent future issues
Respect for your time and facility

Building Your Facility’s Ideal Preventative Maintenance Schedule