Garage Door Maintenance

Protecting an Investment - Planned Maintenance for Property Managers

Garage Doors are often overlooked. I see it all the time. We get called to fix one thing at someone’s house and when we arrive on site it quickly becomes apparent that the homeowner hasn’t given any thought to their door in a long time. This problem is even more prevalent when the home is rented. Often tenants won’t notify the landlord of any issues until the door stops working completely. And on the flip side, the landlord doesn’t pay any attention as long as the rent is paid on time. It’s kind of an out-of-sight out-of-mind scenario.

Obviously, this can lead to costly repairs. Neglect is the most common cause of our residential service calls. Fortunately, there’s a solution that is quite cost effective. It’s called a planned maintenance program.

Commercially, planned maintenance is much more common. A lot of businesses don’t see any issue with spending money on maintenance. Business mangers seem to be very aware of the old saying “an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure”. However, homeowners don’t seem to have ever heard the saying! Service calls on doors that are neglected can quickly add up. If you only have one or two doors, you can likely get away by just calling for service when you need it, and it probably won’t break the bank overtime. If you’re a property manager and you have multiple residential assets to take care of, or if you are a landlord with multiple dwellings for rent, then planned maintenance can save you a lot of headache and money.

Let me explain how it can make your life easier.

Firstly, let me ask you think question: Have you ever thought “I wish I was getting more phone calls from my tenants about broken appliances and other issues they have with their homes”. No? I didn’t think so. The best tenant-landlord is when the tenant rents a home, keeps it clean and takes care of it, pays on time, and never bugs you about anything. A planned maintenance program for your doors will do a few things to help with ameliorating the tenant/landlord relationship between yourself and your tenants.

The first thing it will do is reduce the need for your tenants to call you to complain about something. If the doors are maintained on a regular basis, the odds of it failing are much lower. That means the odds of your tenant calling you in a panic at 6:30 in the morning because the door won’t open and he needs to get his car out to get to work, are much lower. Unless you enjoying dealing with disgruntled tenants early in the morning, a planned maintenance program is for you.

The second thing it can do for you is it will help you get ahead of worn parts and give you the option to replace them before they become an issue. We commonly catch frayed cables on the verge of breaking and we can change them much more effectively if they are changed before they break. Usually when a part fails, it causes more damage, and the repair is more expensive to fix than if the part had just been changed prior to it failing. If a cable breaks, it usually bends tracks and rollers and hinges. That all adds up to a more costly repair.

The third advantage is that it protects your investment. Real Estate is an investment and it deserves to be taken care of. A house can be worth a lot, but a house that is in disrepair can quickly depreciate and it can take years to sell, if it sells at all. Garage doors are the biggest moving piece of equipment in any home. They play an important role in curb appeal and they can quickly decrease or increase the value of a home, depending on their condition. They are also the most effective upgrade one can make to their home. Studies have shown that replacing garage doors can yield a return on investment between 90 and 100 percent. In comparison, kitchens and bathrooms are around 25 percent. So any money you put into your garage doors is always money spent wisely.

Benefits of Planned Maintenance

At Eagle Overhead Door, our planned maintenance is designed for peace of mind. The main advantages are:
We keep a record of your doors on file to quickly address issues and order the correct parts and minimize trips to site, this reduces repair costs We provide the owner with inspection reports for each of their doors at all their properties We offer a 10% discount on parts and unscheduled labour when repairs are needed We offer a 5% on new doors

You can’t go wrong with a planned maintenance program. It helps protect your investment, keeps your tenants from complaining and saves you money in the long run. At less than $100 per door for the year, you can’t go wrong. If you would like a quote to get your doors on our planned maintenance program, give us a call or send us an email at j.carrier@eagleoveheaddoor.ca.

Call for more information about planned garage door maintenance programs (306) 861-7736