A good maintenance checklist keeps a commercial property running properly, with problems logged the moment they’re spotted and a clear record to hand to any contractor brought in to fix them.
Left alone, small issues escalate quickly into structural damage, safety risk and a drop in the property’s value. “A cracked pipe joint doesn’t announce itself. It sits there until someone happens to look,” says George Edwards, Managing Director of Timberwise. “A checklist just means someone’s actually looking.”
Here, George outlines what property managers should be checking, starting with the outside of the building.
Exterior maintenance
“Slipped or missing tiles are the big ones,” Edwards says. “It’s a five-minute fix if you catch it early. Leave it over winter and you’re looking at decayed timber, maybe woodworm, and that’s a very different bill.” He recommends checking flashings, gutters and downpipes on the same pass, and any staining near the roofline gets flagged there and then.
Walls and windows matter just as much. “People clock the roof and walk straight past the walls,” he says. “Moss, cracked render, brickwork coming away, ivy creeping up the side, that’s all worth checking because it gives water a way in. Same with a perished seal round a window frame. Nobody thinks about it until there’s a damp patch on the inside wall.”
Damp, timber and pests
“Damp isn’t one thing,” Edwards says. “You’ve got condensation, penetrating damp and rising damp, and they need completely different fixes. A wet windowsill looks like condensation, so people just wipe it and move on. Every so often it’s actually a cracked lintel a couple of feet away, and the windowsill just where it happens to show up.”
He recommends checking bathrooms, kitchens and anywhere with pipework for musty smells and soft patches. “If timber feels spongy, don’t ignore it,” he says. “Same with tiny holes or fine dust round a joint, those are classic signs of woodworm. I’d rather someone flagged it and it turned out to be nothing than the other way round.”
Building systems and internal fabric
A regular look at pipework, heating and electrics, from leaking joints to sockets that feel warm to the touch, and any cracks or movement in a ceiling or wall are worth a second glance too.
“Basements are the ones everyone forgets,” Edwards says. “Barely any ventilation, so water sits there quietly doing damage for months before anyone notices. If it’s used for storage or work, it also has to meet BS 8102, the waterproofing standard. Fall short of that and you’ve got a compliance problem on top of the maintenance one.”
Prevention over cure
“I keep a log, dates, what was found, where, photos if there are any,” Edwards says. “It makes an audit painless and means nobody’s arguing about what was checked and when. By the time you’re dealing with an emergency, you’ve already missed the point where it would’ve been cheap to sort.”
