It seems like a no-brainer to draw up a contract and let someone else deal with the stress of scheduling and performing maintenance. Preventative maintenance is a necessary and incredibly beneficial expense for a facility, and when handled by a service contractor, it doesn’t even distract your staff from their day to day responsibilities. It increases efficiency, reduces the risk of downtime and expensive reactive maintenance, and increases the lifetime of the equipment. So why doesn’t everyone purchase a preventative maintenance plan or service agreement?
The truth is, there are a lot of reasons businesses say no to services agreements – almost all of them lead back to cost, and almost all of them are misguided. Trying to save a little money now could cost your business a lot of money later. Simple things, like cleaning coils or replacing filters, increase the longevity of your equipment. The best thing is, when it’s time to perform the maintenance, there’s no additional expense. The scheduling and maintenance work itself is done by your service contractor saving you time, money, and headaches.
A service agreement creates shared risk for the owner and service contractor. Without this shared risk, there is a chance that maintenance will be performed poorly, or not at all, leading to repairs or replacements that could have been avoided. Sharing risk ensures the service contractor is motivated to avoid costly repairs and downtime.
It’s important to find a quality service contractor who’s willing to share that risk. There will be a higher cost associated, but you will have peace of mind knowing that you are working with someone who will continuously provide the best service, and who wants to help you avoid service calls. It’s easy to get pulled in by a low price point, but once the equipment is installed you may be on your own – or paying for frequent service calls or failures.
When you decide not to do preventative maintenance because of the cost, all you’re doing is borrowing money from your future budget – which you’ll pay back with interest when you have to pay for rental equipment while your equipment is repaired, or even worse, when purchasing a replacement.
The truth about preventative maintenance is that most facilities can’t afford to not do it – Harshaw Trane is here to help you save money and stress in the long run, and to keep your facility running smoothly. Call us at 502.499.7000 to find out more.