Plumbing Maintenance: Building a Pipe Maintenance Plan

Plumbing is often the most overlooked part of modern day living. It’s not glamorous, it’s smelly yet, without it you’ll certainly miss having a fully functional plumbing system. As a property manager in Baltimore, Annapolis, Rockville, or Frederick it’s your job to maintain the facility and that certainly includes the plumbing. Plumbing may be out of site – hidden in walls, floors, and lawns, however by developing a plumbing maintenance plan it can keep plumbing front and center in your mind! What’s the point of having a plumbing maintenance plan? It gives you the ability to effectively manage and budget for your pipes and lessen the likelihood of plumbing emergencies that set your residents reeling. Your plumbing might be one of the largest repair and maintenance costs you’ll pay on your property  – by planning for your pipes it can alleviate those costs over a span of time. Here are a few key fundamentals to base your routine plumbing maintenance program off of.

Video Pipe Inspections

The value of having your pipe system inspected can be critical in determining a current plumbing problem or assessing the overall condition of your pipes for future maintenance or repairs. Especially if you haven’t conducted an inspection recently – it may be time before any plumbing failures result in costly emergency repairs. When building a plumbing maintenance program this should be one of the first things on your list. Inspections will help you determine the material, age, and condition of you pipes which overall means you, your maintenance staff, and association board members will be able to budget, plan, and maintain the property’s pipes accordingly. Pipe inspections are the foundation of your plumbing maintenance plan because it assesses what condition and repairs your plumbing may need for the future.

Routine Maintenance Schedule

Based on your results of the pipe inspection, this will heavily determine how the direction your maintenance plan will proceed. If you have several cracked sewer lines that are causing immediate problems, chances are you’ll want to address that first. However, repairs and overall maintenance in many cases do not need to be done all at once. A phased program of pipe cleaning every year to maintain flow in your drains may be what your pipes need to remain backup free.

Every property’s plumbing is different. Keep this in mind when planning routine maintenance cleanings or a phased repair project. Especially if you happen to manage more than one property – plan for a different maintenance process.

Every property’s plumbing maintenance plan is going to vary based on the pre-existing conditions of the pipes. Each property is unique and depending on the original installation, pipe material, and maintenance of the plumbing during the lifespan of the property all these factors will determine the plan you set in place. Whether you have a phased plan to clean your vertical pipe stacks every year to maintain flow or are immediately installing structural CIPP lining in a cracked drain line to address a current problem – at the end of the day, your property’s plumbing needs to be maintained to remain functional.