The Hidden Costs of Neglecting Floor Repairs in Your Property

Neglect­ing floor repairs can get pret­ty expen­sive. Let’s look at the cost­ly con­se­quences of deferred main­te­nance and how Kaloutas can help you avoid these prob­lems and save money.

What Is Deferred Main­te­nance?

Deferred main­te­nance is the prac­tice of putting off repairs or oth­er main­te­nance activ­i­ties. Facil­i­ty man­agers usu­al­ly do it due to a lack of resources or insuf­fi­cient funds.

Deferred main­te­nance is some­times unavoid­able. For exam­ple, sup­pose you reached the allo­cat­ed main­te­nance bud­get for the month when a hair­line crack in the con­crete appeared. If the prob­lem does not pose imme­di­ate dan­ger, it might be accept­able to delay the repair. How­ev­er, it is impor­tant to address the issue as soon as pos­si­ble. Oth­er­wise, it can trig­ger more problems.

Deferred main­te­nance can bring unnec­es­sary expens­es, dan­gers, and dis­rup­tions. The risk is more seri­ous in heav­i­ly reg­u­lat­ed indus­tries, such as phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and health­care. For exam­ple, cracked floor­ing is a poten­tial source of con­t­a­m­i­na­tion. As a result, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal prod­ucts made there might cause harm to the public.

The Cost of Floor Repairs

Floor repairs can be cost­ly, espe­cial­ly if prop­er prepa­ra­tions are not made before­hand (e.g., clean­ing, clear­ing the area, paus­ing work in a giv­en area, etc.). Gen­er­al­ly, the more com­plex the repair project, the more expen­sive it gets. Hence, some choose to delay the repair, espe­cial­ly when there are bud­get restric­tions or more crit­i­cal expenses.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, neglect­ing floor repairs comes with its own set of hid­den costs. For instance, the dam­age may wors­en over time and become more expen­sive to fix. In a worst-case sce­nario, the floor­ing might require pre­ma­ture replace­ment, which costs much more than repairs. Your facil­i­ty may also expe­ri­ence unnec­es­sary down­time, affect­ing your oper­a­tions and bot­tom line.

The Hid­den Costs of Neglect­ing Floor Repairs

The hid­den costs of neglect­ing your facility’s floor repairs come in more forms than you might imagine.

Increased Repair Cost Over Time

Post­pon­ing minor repairs on con­crete floor­ing might not seem like a big deal. After all, they don’t pose an imme­di­ate dan­ger to the prop­er­ty and people’s safe­ty. How­ev­er, small prob­lems will even­tu­al­ly get big­ger and cost­lier to fix. On top of that, some floor­ing issues indi­cate a much more seri­ous under­ly­ing problem.

For exam­ple, a con­crete floor may crack due to mois­ture. Mois­ture in con­crete can trig­ger an alka­li-sil­i­ca reac­tion, which leads to expan­sion and sub­se­quent crack­ing. This, in turn, may lead to cor­ro­sion of the rein­force­ment steel with­in the con­crete. Neglect­ing a floor­ing prob­lem may com­pro­mise the structure’s integri­ty over time.

Equip­ment Damage

Besides caus­ing fur­ther dam­age to the struc­ture, neglect­ing floor repairs can also impact equip­ment like fork­lifts. Dri­ving on dam­aged floor­ing caus­es con­stant vibra­tion, accel­er­at­ing wear on the tires and oth­er crit­i­cal com­po­nents of your equipment.

Tires are expen­sive to replace. If you con­tin­u­ous­ly post­pone floor repair, the tires will like­ly require fre­quent replace­ment. The cost of reg­u­lar­ly replac­ing tires and oth­er dam­aged parts can add up quick­ly, result­ing in a sub­stan­tial ongo­ing expense. You might think delay­ing floor repairs won’t cost you mon­ey, but its impact on equip­ment should be account­ed for, too.

Facil­i­ty Downtime

Neglect­ing floor repairs can cost you valu­able time. If the floor dam­age wors­ens, the repair job might cause work dis­rup­tion. In an indus­try where time is mon­ey, even a few hours of oper­a­tion dis­rup­tion or unsched­uled facil­i­ty down­time can hurt your bot­tom line. Employ­ees will be unable to work because they can­not access areas under repair, which results in lost productivity.

Reduced Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty

Post­pon­ing floor repairs can also impact pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. When there are cracks, bumps, or any oth­er issues with the floor­ing, employ­ees have to be care­ful with their every move. When dri­ving machin­ery, they must slow down when approach­ing dam­aged floor­ing. This can lead to inef­fi­cien­cies and reduced productivity.

Rep­u­ta­tion­al Damage

Rep­u­ta­tion is every­thing for a busi­ness. It’s a key deter­mi­nant to build­ing a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage and becom­ing the pre­ferred provider in a mar­ket. Your com­pa­ny has prob­a­bly spent a lot of time and mon­ey per­fect­ing an image. How­ev­er, all this progress can be derailed if you neglect main­te­nance tasks like floor repair.

Defer­ring main­te­nance might make your facil­i­ty appear unpro­fes­sion­al. It might cre­ate a neg­a­tive impres­sion of your busi­ness and brand to your vis­i­tors and busi­ness asso­ciates. It may also deter poten­tial clients.

Increased Risk of Acci­dents and Liability

A dam­aged floor can be a health and safe­ty risk in your facil­i­ty. Employ­ees may file a claim for com­pen­sa­tion if they suf­fer injuries from trip­ping and falling while working.

The aver­age set­tle­ment for minor injuries is around $10,000, although it varies depend­ing on the loca­tion and cir­cum­stances. If the injury is seri­ous, your facil­i­ty may have to pay hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars. Aside from the set­tle­ment mon­ey, there are also asso­ci­at­ed legal fees. You can avoid these expens­es by keep­ing up with floor main­te­nance and ensur­ing safe­ty in your facility.

Reg­u­la­to­ry Violations

Final­ly, neglect­ing floor repairs can lead to com­pli­ance issues. The Occu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Admin­is­tra­tion (OSHA) requires facil­i­ties to keep work­ing sur­faces safe. If an inspec­tor dis­cov­ers the dam­age, they will like­ly issue a cita­tion that requires the facil­i­ty to com­plete the repair by a spe­cif­ic deadline. 

If you don’t com­ply with the cita­tion, the reg­u­la­to­ry body will like­ly treat it as a will­ful vio­la­tion. If an injury occurs because of neglect­ing the repair after get­ting a cita­tion, your facil­i­ty will face even more severe penal­ties and fines.

Tips to Avoid and Over­come Deferred Maintenance

Deferred main­te­nance is not a new prob­lem. Regard­less of the type of facil­i­ty you man­age, chances are you have dealt with deferred main­te­nance at some point, which can be chal­leng­ing. For­tu­nate­ly, you can avoid and over­come this practice. 

Invest in Qual­i­ty Materials

Invest­ing in high-qual­i­ty floor­ing mate­ri­als that ensure dura­bil­i­ty may be more expen­sive upfront. How­ev­er, their longevi­ty and dura­bil­i­ty will save you mon­ey in the long run. The ini­tial invest­ment pays for itself over time by reduc­ing the need for repair and replace­ment expens­es. Also, you should ensure you choose the right con­crete floor fin­ish.

Get More Funding

The most com­mon rea­son for delay­ing repairs is a lack of funds. Although it requires more effort, secur­ing addi­tion­al fund­ing can address this problem.

Work with your finance team and strive to allo­cate floor main­te­nance funds to your oper­a­tional bud­get. This ensures you’re finan­cial­ly pre­pared when repairs or pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sures are required. Include the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hir­ing pro­fes­sion­al main­te­nance and repair ser­vices when deter­min­ing your budget.

Adopt a Pre­ven­ta­tive Main­te­nance Program

Adopt­ing a pre­ven­ta­tive main­te­nance pro­gram is one of the most effec­tive ways to pre­vent sud­den floor repairs and deferred main­te­nance. A floor­ing con­trac­tor can help ensure all floor­ing main­te­nance tasks are done on time, elim­i­nat­ing the asso­ci­at­ed risks.

Con­duct Reg­u­lar Inspections

Reg­u­lar inspec­tions are a crit­i­cal floor­ing main­te­nance task. Make it a point to sched­ule rou­tine check­ups to iden­ti­fy minor wear and tear before it wors­ens. The check­ups should include a visu­al inspec­tion of the entire floor area.

Pay close atten­tion to high-traf­fic zones, like entry­ways and hall­ways. Sim­i­lar­ly, be mind­ful of mois­ture-prone areas, like kitchens and bath­rooms. Look for cracks, gaps in grout­ing, loose tiles, and uneven surfaces.

Let’s Make Your Facil­i­ty Main­te­nance Easier

Keep­ing up with floor­ing main­te­nance can be chal­leng­ing when you have an end­less to-do list. How­ev­er, neglect­ing floor­ing repairs isn’t ide­al due to its cost­ly con­se­quences. In this case, the best solu­tion is to get help from the experts. At Kaloutas, we offer a main­te­nance pro­gram, so you won’t need to wor­ry about delay­ing emer­gency repairs again.

The Kaloutas main­te­nance pro­gram com­pris­es a vari­ety of ser­vices, includ­ing floor­ing main­te­nance. You can count on us to keep your pol­ished con­crete floor in its best shape. Our team can also cus­tomize our facil­i­ty main­te­nance ser­vices to ensure they meet your facility’s needs and com­pli­ance require­ments. When you part­ner with us, we’ll take the main­te­nance load off your shoul­ders so you have more time for oth­er cru­cial tasks.

Share your main­te­nance con­cerns with us, and we’ll fix them for you. Con­tact us today.