A Lesson in Scheduled Preventive Maintenance for Your Home

Scheduled preventive maintenance plays a key role in keeping a healthy home on the inside and out

You may not realize this, but Attic Dek is produced in the Midwest by a custom plastic injection molder, Metro Plastics Technologies, LLC.

One of the many things that the producer of Attic Dek does to set themselves apart from other molders is to put in place an extensive scheduled preventive maintenance program; this is done for the facility, equipment and molds that are used to produce the plastic products.

Preventive maintenance may or may not be a term you are familiar with, but it means maintenance to avoid any future issues or breakdowns from occurring.

You may not have as many items to which you can apply the concept, but your home could benefit from a small-scale preventive maintenance program! Don’t you agree?

Here’s a very helpful list provided on heightslibrary.org that you can use to start your own uniquely scheduled preventive maintenance program:

Yearly Home Maintenance CheckList

Preventive maintenance will save you money in the long run.

Here’s a personal story where deferred home maintenance cost a staff member a lot more cash than if they had just performed the preventive steps:

This particular winter was one of the coldest of the past decade with howling winds and sub-zero wind chills for 3 days and nights.

The single-story home had a heat-pump system that the homeowner was not familiar with since they were used to traditional gas heat. No matter what they did, the heat could not keep up with the bone-chilling fight. At first, assuming it was just the way of a heat pump, extra heating was brought into the sleeping area in the form of ceramic heaters (which of course means higher electric costs). After a day or two, it seemed that the unit was getting louder and struggling to run at all, and not raising the temperature above a teeth-chattering 50 degrees. The homeowner finally gave in and called a service technician. Afraid they would need a whole new system, they waited with anticipation wondering how they would afford such a large emergency bill.

The technician gave the unit a thorough check-up and finally asked the owner to come to look at the unit. The tech held up the furnace filter so that they could see the layer of dust and buildup that seemed to barely cover the filter. The technician asked the stunned owner to listen to the smooth sound of the heating unit while the filter was not in and then slid the filter back in place…the unit instantly let out a struggling moan. Noooo!! It was a simple dusty filter causing them to shake and shutter through the coldest days of the year?! Yes, a simple more frequent filter change would have solved it all!

A medium/high range filter costs between $16 and $30; the service call was around $100…ladies and gentlemen, do the math.

This is a simple example of how routine maintenance could apply to your situation. The owner didn’t think the filter looked like it needed to be changed, so they allowed it to remain unchanged for a bit longer never guessing it would have that effect. The same could be said for a material dryer in a plastic manufacturing facility. We think you get the point.

So, put together your own scheduled preventive maintenance list and reap the benefits.

^Be sure to check out Attic Dek and see how you can use them to better your home maintenance, organization, and safety.

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