Maintenance
These old houses require regular maintenance. Solving fundamental problems and certain complex or risky repairs require skilled technicians and craftspeople, licensed and insured contractors, or even experienced architecture or engineering consultants. Those rightly cost $$$$, so it helps a lot when members have the patience to DIY some basic appliance repairs and services that don't. How to recognize the difference is a subject Sustainability Committee discusses.
Did you mean yard and vegetation maintenance? If so go here.
To know what standards we must meet see this: Saint Paul Property Maintenance Code
Step 1: Describe the problem. What about it does not work or sounds|smells bad?
Step 2: Describe the device: Make, model number...
Step 3: Consult members and managers to see if any are familiar with the device.
Find someone to gather how to information
Someone to clean and gain access to what needs repair
Someone to actually complete the repair. Review professional & member options.
Post a "Don't use" sign if inoperable or when repair or servicing starts.
Unplug and shut off any water or gas.
Assuming you volunteer to fix the device:
Step 4: Identify the parts involved. What part in the machine is not working?
At this point you may already need to look up manuals and how-to videos to safely open up the device without loosing or breaking parts.
Step 4: Keep searching for part numbers, manuals, and how to remove, how to replace videos for the appliance. Find ones that look like what you have. Call for assistance.
Step 5: Simply cleanup what you can. Even if you call a professional, their work will be faster if the parts are clean and they can see what is there. Often when one reassembles enough for a professional to diagnose the problem, they discover that the problem has been fixed in the process of tightening any electrical connections loosened during cleaning, and letting anything wet from cleaning dry.
Lint stuck to wiring and coils, hairs wrapped around motor shafts, perhaps loose debris jammed in so that a part is out of position --all can cause failure and harm performance. If there are oil ports, or grease|oil|graphite were removed, fresh lubricant may let parts run smoothly again.
Step 6: Identify repair professionals that might help, and parts to replace, and their costs.
Are their related repairs to combine with the service call? The 1st hour is generally most expensive.
Beyond that we best take notes regarding situations where the service is not much more than buying DIY parts retail.
If you prepare key questions, and observe the technician, you may learn to better maintain or even perform minor services yourself.
Warning: YouTube is great, but there are pranksters out there. Just because a online video suggests that you clean a plastic carburetor orifice with a metal file does not make it smart to try it. Always get 2nd opinions to be sure you are safe and not about to make a situation worse.
Decreasing Maintenance costs is key to keeping rent low and investing more into improvements.
This requires strategy and planning. Out of control deterioration could leave us with crappy housing that is more expensive to run than the competition until volunteers are forced to give up a loosing battle. Major investments to maintain parts of systems we will be forced to (or compelled by performance cost savings) dispose of can burn through needed cash.
We can budget for predictable maintenance and improvements. Identifying poor quality or inappropriate building items allows us to promptly specify a better improvement rather than pay to maintain garbage. One way to identify bad items is if they fail prematurely, so predicting end of life can actually alert us to diagnose a problem or recognize quality (e.g. Wow that faucet lasted 80 years, are parts for it still available, can we get that quality today, is the situation protecting it somehow?, or why did this shower door last only 10 years when the average door life is 25 years?).
Benchmarks are key to evaluate what we have, and how it performs.
Here is a table of typical home item life spans. Often MSC continues to use durable goods well beyond typical life, because we are not fickle about keeping up with transient style or preserving a brand new appearance. We are more defensibly proud when we choose better quality products that last more like new, or age well in our intensely used and yet quaint old homes. This of course interests our Ssstainability Committee for environmental reasons.
When we differ maintenance it is vital to categorize the situation.
Will it be functional, perhaps unsightly, until replaced without causing greater damage?
Will rough operation, or increased stress due to deformation accelerate deterioration or propagate in damage to other parts of the house system?
Is their potentially increased risk to occupants or service people?
Does it relate to changes required to upgrade the house to better serve residents efficiently?
Does it require special skills, licenses to correctly fix such that it should group with profession related projects ( e.g. Plumber list, pipefitter list, electrician list, architect/licensed engineer list, stucco plasterer list, general contractor list)
Is a band-aid maintenance schedule cheaper than wholesale restoration on a 10 year horizon?
What is the decay pattern (does decay accelerate or plateau?, if it plateaus then for how long? Is their a change that will indicate we need to take action before harm results?)