Preventative Maintenance

Preventative Maintenance: Safety & Compliance

For safety and compliance, test smoke and CO detectors twice a year and replace batteries. Check fire extinguishers, emergency lighting, and exit signs to ensure they work. Ensure building and unit numbers are visible and unobstructed for emergency services. Regular inspections prevent issues during emergencies and ensure safety.
Best Practices
Hard Skills
Inspection
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Transcript

 On preventative maintenance for safety and compliance. You wanna test your smoke detectors and your co detectors at least twice a year and replace the batteries. I know a lot of us have gone to those 10 year lithiums, which is great. Good for you. You still need to test it. You still need to push the button, let it beep, or you've got the smoke spray you can spray up there just to make sure that it is working.

But if you're still on nine volts, you wanna be replacing those frequently because you do not want something potential. Have to happen because a battery was dead. Replace, inspect or inspect and replace those batteries as necessary, but at least inspect your smoked and co detectors twice a year. Check your fire extinguishers, emergency lighting, and exit signage.

If you're in mid rises or if you're in closed buildings. Make sure your exit signs are working. The emergency lights are working. The batteries are in good working order. You can test those with that little red button. Push the button. If the lights come on, you're good. If you push the button and the lights do not come on, battery's probably the issue.

Look into that again. Do not wait for an emergency to happen. In order for you to find out that your emergency lights didn't work. That is a quick way for a property name change, if you get what I'm saying. And then also ensure that your building numbers are lit, are visible, door numbers are affixed to the doors or next to the door.

They're clean of cobwebs. They're there. You have to have these identifying markers. So emergency services can identify a building and a resident number or an apartment number should it be necessary. So test your smoke and co detectors, fire extinguishers, emergency lighting, exit signage. Fire extinguisher.

Fire extinguishers are typically on a year schedule, and your property probably has some type of contract for that on an annual basis, but the emergency lighting and signage also needs to be a part of that. That's something you can personally do. You don't have to hire that out unless you want to. And then again, ensure your unit numbers and signage are visible and lit just to make sure that emergency services, emergency personnel, can make it to the building and to the unit number that they need to get to.