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. 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 Pasadena rental property’s air filters regularly is very important. These filters keep your property’s HVAC system clean and running efficiently. Because of this reason, it’s clear to see that changing the air filters in your rental home is an important part of seasonal maintenance. As the winter months draw near, your tenants would want to keep out the cold since they’ll be spending more time indoors. They would then have the furnaces work harder. 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 neglect would cause strain on your HVAC system, reducing its life and the efficiency of the unit.
Fall would also be the ideal time to test and change the batteries in your rental property’s smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. These devices need to be working well to make sure your tenants will be safe. Imagine if one of your smoke detectors stop functioning— say it ran out of batteries— and your property gets damaged in a fire and one of your tenants get hurt. You can be sure that you’re getting sued. In other words, it’s critical that these devices are kept working properly.
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. But regardless of what kind of battery your devices have, you should still have them tested on a regular basis. And if any of the batteries fail the test, have them replaced right away. Hundreds of people are injured or killed in house fires every year. Some of these tragedies could be attributed to the smoke detectors in their homes not going off when it should have. If you let this task fall into the hands of your tenants, how sure are you that they would do it and do it every time? 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. Your rental property’s water heater must not be neglected. It should be cleaned regularly to keep it working efficiently for many years. 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 takes time to do but it should be done so your expensive water heater unit can work efficiently. 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 could result in expensive repairs in the future. But requesting that your tenant change or clean the filters, batteries, and water heater in your Pasadena 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 East San Gabriel Valley, and they can do all the work for you. We have a full range of maintenance services that will keep your tenants safe and your property in good condition. With us by your side, you can be free to focus on growing your real estate investing business! Contact us today for more information.
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