Reviewed by Gary E. Wilson, President & Designated Broker · Managing Greater Seattle rentals since 1982
Commercial building maintenance divides cleanly into two activities with opposite economics. One is responding to things that have broken, which is unavoidable, expensive, and disruptive to tenants. The other is preventing things from breaking, which is cheaper, schedulable, and invisible.
Every building does both. The ratio between them is what separates a well-run asset from one that is quietly consuming its own value — and the ratio is a management choice rather than a property characteristic.
There is a commercial dimension too. In a building where expenses are recovered from tenants, maintenance spending is partly the tenants' money, which means it needs to be both defensible and correctly classified. Work misclassified as operating expense when it is capital ends up disputed at reconciliation. See CAM Reconciliation.
Wilson Management maintains commercial property across Bellevue, Seattle and the Eastside. For the wider service see Commercial Property Management.
The Systems That Decide a Building's Costs
Roofing. The highest-consequence system in a Pacific Northwest commercial building. Roof failures damage tenant property, interrupt tenant operations and generate claims. Inspection twice yearly and after significant weather, with drains and scuppers kept clear, catches the great majority of problems while they are still repairs. Membrane roofs in particular fail at seams, flashings and penetrations rather than in the field, so inspection means looking at the details.
HVAC. The largest controllable operating cost and the leading source of tenant complaints. Preventive service on a schedule, filters changed at appropriate intervals, coils cleaned, belts and bearings checked, and controls verified against actual conditions rather than trusted because the display looks right.
Building envelope. Sealants, glazing, cladding and flashings, all of which manage water. In this climate envelope failures produce interior damage relatively quickly, and sealant has a finite life that nobody tracks unless someone decides to.
Plumbing. Domestic water, drainage and any specialty systems. Water leaks in occupied commercial buildings are expensive because they damage tenant property and finishes, not because the pipe costs anything.
Electrical. Distribution, panels and emergency systems, with infrared scanning of panels being an unusually high-value check — it finds developing faults before they become failures or fires.
Life safety. Fire alarm, sprinkler, extinguishers, emergency lighting and exit signage, all on required inspection and testing intervals. This is the category with the least discretion.
Parking, paving and grounds. Surfaces, drainage, lighting and landscaping, which are what a prospective tenant sees before they see anything else.
Preventive Programmes That Actually Run
A preventive maintenance programme that exists on paper and is not executed is worse than none, because it documents the standard the building is failing to meet.
The programmes that run share a few characteristics. Tasks are assigned to a schedule with an owner rather than listed aspirationally. Completion is recorded, so that the question "when was this last serviced" has an answer. Findings feed forward — a technician noting a component approaching the end of its life produces a budget item rather than a note nobody reads. And the schedule is reviewed against what actually failed, because a system failing between services is telling you the interval is wrong.
Service Response
Tenant requests need triage, because treating everything as urgent is expensive and treating nothing as urgent loses tenants.
Genuine emergencies — anything affecting life safety, security, or the tenant's ability to operate — get immediate response. Interruptions to a tenant's business are the ones that damage relationships fastest, because the cost to the tenant is far larger than the cost of the repair.
Requests come through a system that timestamps and records them, which matters for three reasons: it establishes what was reported and when, it allows response times to be measured rather than assumed, and it produces the history that shows a system failing repeatedly.
That last point is where reactive maintenance turns into useful information. Three service calls to the same unit in a season is not three incidents; it is one asset telling you it is finished.
Vendors and Contracts
Commercial buildings run on specialist trades — mechanical, electrical, roofing, fire protection, elevator, janitorial, landscaping — and the quality of those relationships largely determines both cost and response.
Service contracts should be read rather than renewed automatically. What is included versus billed extra, response time commitments, whether parts are covered, and escalation for after-hours work all vary considerably, and a contract that looked competitive on its headline rate frequently is not once the exclusions are read.
Scope is defined before work and reviewed after. Competitive pricing on significant work, with the incumbent invited to bid, keeps pricing honest without disrupting a relationship that is otherwise working.
Where Maintenance Meets Capital
Every maintained system eventually needs replacing, and the useful management act is knowing which are close.
A building with a documented inventory — each major system, its age, its condition, its service history — can plan replacements, sequence them sensibly, and fund them. A building without one replaces things when they fail, at emergency pricing, with tenants affected, and often in the worst season for the work.
The classification question matters commercially as well as physically. Repairs are generally recoverable operating expenses; replacements generally are not, except where a lease permits amortisation. Deciding that at the point of spend keeps reconciliations clean and keeps a landlord from either forgoing recovery it is entitled to or claiming recovery it is not.
Who Is Responsible for What
A surprising share of maintenance disputes are not about whether work is needed but about who has to do it, and the answer is in the lease rather than in convention.
Allocation varies widely. In a triple net single-tenant building the tenant may carry almost everything including roof and structure. In a multi-tenant office building the landlord typically handles base building systems and common areas while the tenant handles what is inside its premises. Industrial leases sit at various points between.
The boundaries that generate arguments are predictable: HVAC units serving a single tenant's space but sitting on a shared roof; plumbing within a demised area but connected to base building systems; electrical distribution downstream of a panel; and anything at the point where a tenant's installation meets the building's.
Establishing these from the lease before a failure occurs, rather than in the middle of one, avoids the pattern where the landlord makes an emergency repair to keep the tenant operating and then argues about payment afterwards from a weak position. Where the landlord does perform work that is the tenant's responsibility, doing so expressly on the basis that it is recoverable — and confirming that in writing at the time — preserves the position.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the highest-consequence system in this climate?
Roofing. Failures damage tenant property and interrupt tenant operations, and membrane roofs fail at seams, flashings and penetrations rather than in the open field — which means inspection has to look at the details.
Why does HVAC generate so many complaints?
Because tenants experience it continuously and notice immediately. It is also the largest controllable operating cost, so the same preventive attention serves both the relationship and the budget.
What is infrared panel scanning for?
Finding developing electrical faults before they become failures or fires. It is one of the higher-value checks available relative to its cost.
How should tenant requests be prioritised?
By triage. Anything affecting life safety, security or a tenant's ability to operate gets immediate response, because the cost to the tenant of an interruption dwarfs the cost of the repair.
Why record service requests formally?
It establishes what was reported and when, allows response times to be measured, and builds the history that reveals a system failing repeatedly. Three calls to the same unit in a season is one asset telling you it is finished.
Should service contracts be renewed automatically?
No. Inclusions, response commitments, parts coverage and after-hours escalation vary widely, and a contract that looks competitive on its headline rate often is not once the exclusions are read.
Is maintenance recoverable from tenants?
Repairs generally are; replacements generally are not, except where a lease permits amortisation. Classifying at the point of spend is what keeps reconciliations defensible.
Get Started
The ratio of preventive to reactive work is a management choice, and it decides what a commercial building costs to hold. Wilson Management, Inc. has been making that choice for Greater Seattle owners since 1982.
Request a free analysis or contact us. You can also reach our Bellevue office at (425) 453-0089, 1380 112th Ave NE #203, Bellevue, WA 98004.