It’s a sad fact that of the millions spent on advanced building services very little is spent on maintaining them at their peak performance.

Most people drive a car nowadays and put it in for a service when so why don’t we maintain our boilers, AC units Fire Alarms and systems when we know that our car will only keep working if we maintain it?

In almost every case the building services install is a major cost in a new or refurbished building and contains advanced equipment like boilers, pumps, control systems etc that all come with a warranty that stipulates that if the equipment isn’t maintained the warranty is void.

It is also true that many clients/end users don’t understand the technology that has been installed, and to be fair as long as it is doing what it should why should they need to understand every detail about it? That’s why you employ a specialist installer and also why you should employ a specialist maintenance company isn’t it?

Some things you need to know:-

• In public buildings the gas regs say that the gas should be checked every 12 months for soundness by a qualified engineer.
• You should maintain your boiler every 12 months as it will lose efficiency and cost you money if you don’t, it also won’t last as long!
• Heating systems should be treated with chemical yearly or they will clog up costing you more to run and leaving cold areas and even causing the boiler to fail.
• Fire alarms should be tested yearly, this is a life safety system don’t be tempted to save money here!
• Emergency lighting needs to be tested, what would you do if the building caught fire, the alarm didn’t go off and you couldn’t see the exit because the batteries had failed through lack of maintenance?
• Lifts, no one wants a lift to fail when they are in it.
• Supply and extract systems, a dirty filter will stop the air getting to the room and increase the running costs, in London this may need to be done every two months, out of town maybe once every 6 months.

Not an exhaustive list you could add AC units, Light fittings, AV systems, Pumps, Chlorination of water supplies and many more advanced pieces of equipment.

Why maintain? Using the analogy of the car again what happens if you drive it until it fails?

When you talk to the garage and they tell you it will cost you thousands to repair and the warranty is void because it wasn’t serviced, or when you notice the fuel economy is dropping and you have to keep adding oil, or perhaps the police pull you over because the lights don’t work at night and find you have bald tires? In the end who has to pay for the lack of maintenance?

It’s not cheap but maintaining advanced building service systems will save you money on running costs and it will reduce the money you have to spend replacing faulty items that should have lasted for 15 to 20 years.

It’s not an expense its part of your investment, protect it!