Why does planned maintenance matter for commercial glazing?
As human beings, we’re often guilty of being creatures of convenience, but when it comes to maintaining your business’s commercial glazing, you can’t afford to take the easy option!
To put this into perspective, would you continue to drive your car if you knew it wasn’t serviced regularly?
The likely – and legal – answer to that question is “no, of course not.” But if that is indeed the case, why should this differ when it comes to commercial glazing? All serviceable parts, whether automotive, technical or glazing-related, have a life expectancy and that means they need regular checks to guarantee they’re working to the high standard required of them.
Remember that safety is paramount
In-keeping with the car analogy, if you don’t keep up to date with maintaining your car and its components, you’re not only likely to lose money – having to pay out for problems that have spiralled out of control into costlier replacements – but safety and performance levels also drastically decrease.
The issue is that many businesses are ill-informed about the up-keep of their glazing installations, with very few even considering it as one of their priorities to have on the radar. Windows and doors are fine as long as they’re working, right?
Wrong.
Even if they don’t ‘look broken,’ they still need to be frequently maintained, to ensure that any breaks or cracks are prevented before they have chance to occur, and spiral into an even greater safety hazard.
For doors, if they’re catching on the floor or if there’s some wear and tear on the hinges – which isn’t always visible at face value – there’s a risk that the door could break off and hit someone. And if you think that an average door weighs 70-80kg, that could easily be a fatal accident.
But the safety threats aren’t always so blatant either. If you can see daylight seeping in around a door, this is likely letting rain in too, which of course can lead to wider issues of damp. And in the case of windows, there can be draughts coming in or weak spots within the glass itself, which if not maintained properly cannot only cause visible cracks but could result in the glass collapsing completely.
Protect your bottom-line revenue
For many years, organisations have pointed the finger at budgeting restrictions for their glazing downfalls. For example, we often hear, “but we don’t need to set aside money for things like that,” sometimes even perceiving that they’re being ‘sold to’ when glazing firms start talking about maintenance options. However, the stark reality is that contingency planning should be part of every company’s corporate strategy – especially when it comes to the maintenance of windows and doors!
From offices and hospitals, to schools and restaurants, all have windows and doors – many of which are operational 24/7. Therefore, a maintenance budget is a business’s way of safeguarding its bottom-line if glazing issues do occur.
As with anything, the more preventative measures you can take to deter an issue, the less likely the problem is to occur in the first place – and if it does, it will be cheaper to remedy, than if it has been left to worsen and deteriorate over time.
Really, it’s no excuse that there’s no time or budget to take care of your firm’s glazing, because planned maintenance is both a long-term economic benefit as well as a priceless tool of reassurance, that your building is fully optimised when it comes to safety.
To find out more about our glazing maintenance surveys, check out our recent blog – or to discuss your requirements with one of our team, please give us a call!