Preventative vs preventive maintenance: What your building should know

What is preventative maintenance?

“Preventative maintenance” generally means scheduled upkeep, such as inspections, cleaning, servicing, and small adjustments done on a routine schedule to reduce breakdowns.
 

What is preventive maintenance?

“Preventive maintenance” is the more widely used term in facilities and building operations for the same idea: regular, scheduled tasks designed to keep equipment in good working order and extend its life.
 

Difference between preventative and preventive maintenance

“Preventative” and “preventive” maintenance mean the same thing. If you want to be consistent with vendors, “preventive maintenance” is usually the default.
 

Other types of maintenance

Reactive maintenance

Reactive maintenance is the “fix it when it breaks” approach. Work only happens after something fails, like a burst pipe or a broken light. It may feel cheaper at first, but it often leads to higher long-term costs, more disruption, and greater risk to residents and property.
 

Corrective maintenance

Corrective maintenance addresses items that aren’t working properly but haven’t fully failed yet. These issues are often found during inspections or routine checks. Fixing problems early helps restore equipment to normal operation and reduces the downtime that reactive repairs can create.
 

Predictive maintenance

Predictive maintenance uses data and monitoring tools to spot issues before they turn into failures. By tracking performance indicators such as temperature, vibration, or usage, teams can plan repairs at the right time. This approach improves reliability and helps extend the life of equipment.
 

Deferred maintenance

Deferred maintenance happens when needed repairs are delayed, usually because of budget pressure or competing priorities. Although it may provide short-term savings, it often leads to faster deterioration, higher future repair costs, safety concerns, and weaker overall building performance.
 

How reserve studies affect your preventive maintenance plan

During a reserve study, the experts predict when items will need to be replaced based on their current condition and average lifespan. Reserve studies assume that components will reach their maximum useful life.

However, if a preventive maintenance plan isn’t implemented along with your reserve study, it is highly unlikely that some components will ever reach their maximum useful life. The problem comes about when homeowner associations try to reduce expenses by not performing needed work — or by deferring maintenance for years.

Unfortunately, neglecting maintenance can cost your association much more in the long run, as the following example illustrates.
 

The impact of deferred maintenance

A community association had a mechanical component that the reserve study estimated would last another 10 years. The replacement cost was estimated at $30,000, so the board planned to save $3,000 per year to the reserve fund for its replacement. But the board didn’t implement the regular planned maintenance for that equipment, and it failed after seven years. The community was impacted in several ways:

• Lack of preventive maintenance cut off three years from its useful life.
   
• The association had to spend $30,000 three years earlier than expected.
   
• The reserve fund wasn’t fully funded, so the association had to take a loan to cover the remainder of the replacement cost.

A predictive maintenance approach would have helped this association preserve its valuable components.

"By conducting regular inspections of equipment, engineers can identify what is operating at optimum capacity, what appears to be on a path of requiring attention, and what needs immediate action. It also gives you an accurate picture of what recommended maintenance is actually happening and provides early warning for systems at risk for failure."

Bob Meyer, Director of FirstService Project Management

Tips for building maintenance

1. Set maintenance schedules with expert guidance

   Start by identifying your building’s key components and working with qualified professionals to set realistic schedules for inspections, routine service, and condition reports. Board members shouldn’t have to manage the technical side, so rely on your community manager to coordinate vendors, track deadlines, and keep the work on schedule. A strong manager can translate engineer recommendations into a practical, easy-to-follow plan.
    

2. Use maintenance checklists to keep work consistent

   If your building has an on-site engineer, consistent checklists make a big difference. Most buildings benefit from daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, and annual task lists. Many engineers also track separate lists by system, such as boilers, chillers, and fire-life-safety equipment. Regular check-ins between the engineer and manager help catch issues early, before they become costly repairs.
    

3. Add predictive maintenance tools for high-risk equipment

   Certain diagnostic techniques are integral to gaining the data needed to create a predictive maintenance schedule. These include:
    
   • Vibration analysis, which measures the vibration of moving parts in machines. Monitoring these vibrations, and their changes, can help you anticipate failures.
      
   • Thermal imaging, which does not necessitate equipment shutdown.
      
   • Laser shaft alignment, technology that will keep pumps, motor shafts, and impellers from damage and misalignment.
      
   • Trends analysis, which recognizes potential areas of fault in equipment.
      
   • Oil sampling and analysis, which identifies areas of wear, along with the lubricating ability of equipment oil 



4. Use building data to spot patterns and prevent failures

   Along with expert inspections, board members and their property manager should also look at trends in their repair invoices, maintenance logs, and utilities. An elevator with a rash of breakdowns might indicate the elevator is due for replacement. Water bills rising higher over time might indicate a leak somewhere inconspicuous or a problem with scale in the pipes that are due for treatment.
   
   Budget season can be an excellent time to review these records for the past year and identify rising costs. Keep this data with inspection reports and maintenance logs in a central location so the engineer or vendors can put their hands on key data when it is necessary.
    

5. Connect maintenance planning to reserve funding

   Armed with all this information, the board can make reasonable decisions about how to fund the reserves. Ignoring or minimizing the importance of adequately funding and planning for reserves is a huge disservice to the residents.
   
   While it can be tempting to avoid raising assessments to pay for projected expenses, this can become a disaster when repairs are required, and the building simply doesn’t have the money to pay for them. Consider how much it would affect your long-term operational costs if the system went down, along with how many residents would be affected in the event of a system failure. As shown in the example above, unexpected failure affects residents as well as other planned maintenance and the building’s financial future.

How a community association management company can help

An experienced property management company can guide you in many areas: finding a reserve study specialist, following recommended maintenance schedules, and educating boards and residents about effective budgeting.

With decades of experience and our database of Illinois inspectors and experts, FirstService Residential can help your homeowner association engineer a proactive program that maximizes savings and minimizes surprises.

Contact us today to learn more.

This information is provided for general informational purposes only and is not intended to constitute, and should not be relied upon as, legal, regulatory, financial, or operational advice, or as a representation or guarantee of any specific services, capabilities, or outcomes. Property management needs, regulatory requirements, market conditions, and available services vary by jurisdiction, property type, and community. FirstService Residential provides services through locally based affiliates and associates, and services and results may vary by community, region, contractual terms, and applicable law.