Conversations around building maintenance often focus on interior maintenance tasks like floor cleaning, ceiling repair, plumbing, and so on. However, interior maintenance is only half the property maintenance equation. Your building’s exterior deserves just as much attention and care as its insides. A secure exterior will minimize the number of problems you encounter inside your facility. In this way, exterior and interior maintenance are two sides of the same coin. Here are some key ways to show your facility’s exterior the same TLC as your interior.

Create a Unique Exterior Maintenance Schedule

The importance of establishing and optimizing a maintenance schedule to reduce downtime to ensure that your facility remains safe and compliant is unmatched. While interior maintenance tasks might be your main day-to-day focus, don’t forget to include exterior maintenance duties on your checklist. It might be even better to create a separate maintenance schedule for exterior processes to reduce confusion and streamline assignments. This checklist won’t include as many items as the one for interior maintenance, nor will these duties be as frequent. Still, having a clear document that breaks down what needs to get done to maintain your building’s outdoor fixtures (e.g., inspections, cleaning, landscaping, trash cleanup, etc.) will increase accountability and ensure that key tasks don’t get neglected, even if they’re months apart in frequency.

Inspect Your Roof Regularly

Your facility’s roof is responsible for protecting your interior from all sorts of threats such as moisture, sunlight, pests, wind, falling debris, and more. And because there’s nothing protecting your roof, it’s wide open to the whims of the weather. If your roof experiences a breach of any kind, you might run into various interior issues, so keeping a close eye out for cracks, heat differentials, and other warning signs is crucial. Conduct regular inspections with handy tools like an infrared imaging device to maintain a secure roof.

Maintain Your Landscape

While your landscape isn’t a part of your building, per se, it’s undoubtedly an aspect of your property, and an important one at that. A neglected landscape can quickly become not only an eyesore but a paradise for various insects and rodents that might wreak havoc on your building inside and out. Hiring landscape maintenance services to keep your grass mowed and tidy, fertilize your soil, prune your trees and shrubs, etc., will go a long way toward improving and protecting your facility as a whole. And while we’re discussing the areas around your building, keep your parking lot and sidewalks clean and stable so employees, customers, and guests can safely get from point A to point B.

Perform Exterior Building Cleaning Periodically

There’s no way around it: your building’s exterior will get dirty thanks to mother nature. This doesn’t mean you just leave it filthy, however. While it’s not feasible or necessary to power wash and/or scrub your building’s exterior each and every day, thoroughly cleaning these surfaces quarterly, twice a year, and/or no less than annually is essential for protecting its surfaces from further damage, blasting away any dirt, grime, mold, or mildew that’s accumulated, and keeping it looking fresh. You might conduct exterior window cleaning more frequently than all-around exterior pressure washing, as windows tend to get visibly dirty more quickly than other exterior surfaces. Plus, if you stay on top of interior window cleaning, you’ll want to get both sides for the full effect.

Invest in High Durability Exterior Coatings

While periodically pressure washing your building will help keep its exterior surfaces safe and sound, there’s no substitute for high-quality exterior paint. Depending on your location, building materials, and the nature of your operations, you might invest in different types of durable coatings for your building’s exterior (e.g., alkyd coatings for galvanized metal, masonry paints for brick and concrete, etc.). Whatever the particulars, specialized coatings with resistance to moisture, sunlight, rust, pests, and other threats should be prioritized.

Seal the Outside of Your Building

Lastly, keeping your exterior surfaces properly sealed via caulking, tuckpointing, and other methods will prevent outdoor threats from entering your building. Window and door frames are prime culprits for these small gaps to form, so pay special attention to these parts of your facility. The best caulking only has a lifespan of about five years, so take the time to inspect your current caulking at least once a year and replace the parts that have dried out or dissolved.

The Outside Matters as Much as the Inside

As important and frequent as interior maintenance is, exterior maintenance cannot get pushed aside; ignoring the condition of your building’s outsides will exacerbate its problems on the inside. The best facility maintenance companies understand this delicate balance. This is why we at The Budd Group offer a wide range of both interior and exterior maintenance services. To learn more about our services and values, give us a call today at 800-221-8158!