For the first year after the completion of the home, Wardell Builders schedules walkthroughs to address any problems the homeowner may have. The company also services homes built by other firms through a preventive maintenance plan that addresses emergency and necessary repairs as well.
Because many of these homes have unique systems, they require a skilled person who understands how all of the features integrate. Wardell’s maintenance program gives the homeowners access to knowledge that many typical maintenance companies won’t have, says Jean Rudman, the firm’s maintenance manager. Even with something that seems as simple as a door installation, “there’s a lot involved,” she says.
CREATING A PROGRAM To ensure the best possible outcome, a detailed checklist is essential. Gruber’s checklist has 57 key areas, including inspecting the home’s sealing, draining the water heater, and examining all door and window locks. “We discovered that not all customers wanted or needed everything on the list,” Gruber says. “So we began to customize it to whatever the customer requested.” In addition, the checklist has evolved over the years as new products have emerged or equipment has changed.
Croom and his team labored over the company’s maintenance program for two years, researching and developing procedures. “When we started to put this together, we were working on it on a part-time basis,” Croom recalls. He and two other key employees first identified every item in a home that would need maintenance. “Once we identified everything that could possibly benefit from a preventative maintenance program, we started to research what the procedures were,” he says. The team conferred with various manufacturers, then compiled thick binders of maintenance protocol. Each procedure has pages outlining how to perform it, what tools are needed, and information from the products’ manufacturers.
Croom then asked a handful of clients if the company could perform a free dry-run to work out the kinks and determine how much time each procedure required. From that, a pricing model was developed. “We spent a lot of time putting it together,” Croom says.
WhiteHall Professional Home Maintenance now has an extensive list of preventive maintenance procedures it can perform. Each list is customized for every home under contract. The program is divided into two components: preventative maintenance, where a team inspects the home over a span of three or four days, noting what needs to be accomplished; and a second part, which involves repairs that go beyond regular preventive maintenance. These additional services are billed separately on the owner’s authorization.
Wardell has fine-tuned the company’s maintenance program over 15 years. One of the obstacles in the beginning was determining how to price the service. “It is a very difficult business model to learn how to make money,” Wardell says. “It’s a real Achilles’ heel. It took us years to learn how to break even as opposed to make money out of it.”
While the direct costs are fairly simple to calculate and can be done as a cost-plus type of contract, Wardell says remodelers must be aware of the hidden costs. For example, a service technician expects to work 40 hours per week. “If you hit a lull in hours,” Wardell says, “how are you going to compensate the service tech and keep him, or where can you shuttle him within your firm so he’s being productive and not just costing you money?”
HIRING THE RIGHT EMPLOYEES Hiring qualified employees is always critical, but it’s even more important to find the right employees to staff a maintenance program. In general, the employee must have a variety of skills, including carpentry, painting, basic maintenance, and minor plumbing and electrical. “I look for people who like to do all kinds of different things,” says Gruber, who has one service employee who handles many of the smaller jobs. Gruber also emphasizes training and education. Employees attend seminars, enroll in classes, and even learn on the job from other professionals in the field.
“It really takes a special person to be a maintenance technician,” Rudman says. Solid carpentry skills are a must. And because they will likely work with subcontractors on bigger projects, some supervisory skills are also necessary. “It is also good to have knowledge of the systems of homes,” Rudman adds.