5 Items That Need to Be On Your Maintenance Checklist This Spring

Espe­cial­ly here in New Eng­land, the end of win­ter can feel a lit­tle like emerg­ing from your house after a severe thun­der­storm. You step out­side, blink in the light, and slow­ly look around to see how much dam­age was done.

Well, that may be a bit of an exag­ger­a­tion, but you get the idea…

The truth is, win­ter does leave a lot behind. The extreme cold, fre­quent high winds, odd­ly warm days sprin­kled in, and high mois­ture lev­els put your exte­ri­or sur­faces through the wringer. The tem­per­a­ture fluc­tu­a­tions alone are hard on your coat­ings, com­pound­ed by the issues of cor­ro­sion, rust, and water dam­age that may become more and more appar­ent as the last of the snow final­ly shrinks away.

If you need help with your facil­i­ty main­te­nance, we hope you’ll reach out to us at Kaloutas! Until then, we have a few sug­ges­tions and project arti­cles that we hope will offer help­ful insight and a lit­tle inspiration.

What Is a Main­te­nance Checklist?

A main­te­nance check­list ensures imple­ment all need­ed repairs and reme­di­a­tions year-round before there are major issues. By main­tain­ing your facil­i­ty floor­ing, paint­ing, caulk­ing, mois­ture issues, fire­proof­ing, and more, you reduce repair costs, labor costs, lia­bil­i­ty issues, and more. Stay up to code and avoid fines by mak­ing these lists for each project, space, or season. 

Addi­tion­al­ly, work­ing with the same con­trac­tor on mul­ti­ple projects will save you time and mon­ey since they’ll already under­stand your build­ing and all of its needs. When a con­trac­tor takes on a project in your facil­i­ty, they can pay clos­er atten­tion to oth­er com­pro­mised areas, allow­ing you to make improve­ments before there are larg­er issues. 

Here are some projects we rec­om­mend be added to your main­te­nance checklist:

Exte­ri­or Paint­ing — It’s More Impor­tant Than You Might Think!

Let’s start with the clas­sic, most obvi­ous exam­ple of spring­time main­te­nance: exte­ri­or paint­ing. Not only does new paint cre­ate a refreshed (or total­ly updat­ed) style and enhanced brand recog­ni­tion for your com­mer­cial or indus­tri­al prop­er­ty, but it also offers an invalu­able lay­er of pro­tec­tion for your sur­faces. To name just a few, prop­er­ly cho­sen and applied coat­ings pro­tect against the wind, sun dam­age, decay, mois­ture pen­e­tra­tion, and cor­ro­sion, pro­vid­ing a blend of aes­thet­ic and incred­i­bly prac­ti­cal value.

A thor­ough, qual­i­ty com­mer­cial or indus­tri­al paint­ing com­pa­ny will also care­ful­ly pre­pare your sur­faces before paint­ing, and that in itself is a major ben­e­fit. What can this prep include? We’re glad you asked!

• Pow­er wash­ing (more on this below!)
• Rust removal and encapsulation
• Media blast­ing to remove old coat­ings, rust, and residue
• Nec­es­sary repairs

As an added ben­e­fit, invest­ing the time in repairs and prep like this con­tributes to a much longer, hap­pi­er life for your new paint and coat­ings. There’s just no downside.

Pow­er Washing

Let’s think big­ger than your neighbor’s pow­er wash­er that he uses every spring to clean off his deck. An indus­tri­al-grade pow­er wash­er in the hands of a skilled tech­ni­cian can ren­der an incred­i­ble trans­for­ma­tion around your prop­er­ty. From sid­ing to walk­ways, the pow­er­ful stream can remove loose coat­ings, dirt, mold, mildew, and more. It’s an invalu­able step in sur­face prepa­ra­tion for paint­ing, but it can be very worth­while on its own as well if your facil­i­ty sim­ply needs a fresh­en­ing up.

For a fan­tas­tic exam­ple of a trans­for­ma­tion that involved pow­er wash­ing, take a look at this exte­ri­or paint­ing project we com­plet­ed in Boston.

Touch-Ups and Ongo­ing Maintenance

Have you invest­ed in new paint recent­ly? Excel­lent! Rather than let it slip off your radar, you have the per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty to main­tain and touch up your paint as need­ed. This keeps your sur­faces look­ing their best, and also elim­i­nates those tiny weak points before they can grow into a com­plete coat­ing fail­ure or more wide­spread issue.

These are the indus­tries that we have observed most often tak­ing advan­tage of main­te­nance pro­grams:

• Retail Stores
• Restau­rants
• Schools
• Offices
• Med­ical Facilities
• Fac­to­ries
• Ware­hous­es
• Car Deal­er­ships
• Fit­ness Centers
• HOAs and Prop­er­ty Managers
• …and more!

Con­crete Floor Repair and Resurfacing

We can hear you say­ing, ​“Wait a sec­ond; weren’t you going to talk about exte­ri­or maintenance?”

Def­i­nite­ly.

The floors in your indus­tri­al or com­mer­cial facil­i­ty, how­ev­er, bear more signs of the out­doors than you might think, and cer­tain­ly expe­ri­ence win­ter dam­age. Sand, salt, dirt, and mois­ture are tracked inside, then ground into the sub­strate under­foot and by the rolling of machin­ery. Because of that, we’ve include floor care and main­te­nance to this list.

Not only can dam­aged, neglect­ed floor­ing pose legit­i­mate safe­ty issues, but they also can cre­ate a snow­ball effect of decay. Much like exte­ri­or paint­ing, car­ing for your floor­ing becomes much more cost-effec­tive than deal­ing with a larg­er-scale breakdown.

If your con­crete has nev­er been coat­ed, stained, or pol­ished, now is cer­tain­ly the time. Depend­ing on the nature of your oper­a­tions, you may also want to con­sid­er a rugged epoxy coat­ing, or an effec­tive and prac­ti­cal ESD floor sys­tem.

If you aren’t quite sure how best to care for your floor or meet your facility’s needs, be sure to con­tact us! It would be our plea­sure to help. Our vari­ety of floor­ing ser­vices includes:

• Shot Blast­ing
• Con­crete Polishing
• Thor­ough Sur­face Prep and Repair
• Epoxy Sys­tems
• Expert­ly-Installed ESD Con­trol Systems
• Mois­ture Mitigation
• Antimi­cro­bial Flooring
• … and more!

Indus­tri­al Clean­ing and Degreasing

The buildup of grease and residue that accu­mu­lates dur­ing the dai­ly oper­a­tions of an indus­tri­al facil­i­ty can, and will, take its toll over time. For an in-depth look at degreas­ing and its ben­e­fits, be sure to click over to our recent arti­cle: Why Indus­tri­al Degreas­ing Needs to be a Part of Your Main­te­nance Strat­e­gy.

As you may have gath­ered, we’re pas­sion­ate about not only cor­rect­ing prob­lems, but also avoid­ing, reduc­ing, and elim­i­nat­ing them. This can be done with just a lit­tle plan­ning and strat­e­gy, and the help of some­one who under­stands your needs and goals. If you have floor­ing, paint, and coat­ing ques­tions, please don’t hes­i­tate to con­tact us at Kaloutas. We’re here when you need us!

Kaloutas is New Eng­land’s pre­mier con­trac­tor for com­mer­cial & indus­tri­al paint­ing, floor­ing, and relat­ed ser­vices. Estab­lished in 1987, Kaloutas has become a trust­ed resource for gen­er­al con­trac­tors, facil­i­ties man­agers, and build­ing own­ers from Con­necti­cut to Maine. Our team prides itself on high qual­i­ty work­man­ship, jobs done on time & bud­get, and tack­ling com­plex projects that oth­er con­trac­tors don’t have the expe­ri­ence or resources to han­dle. Con­tact us today for a paint­ing or floor­ing esti­mate, or give us a call at 978−532−1414 to learn more.