Planning a maintenance budget from a findings register

Start from evidence

After a Revive inspection the owner holds the findings register, where every defect has a reference, a photograph, a location and a priority. If the inspection was bought with recommended repair works, there is also an itemised quotation, where every priced line refers to one of those findings. Nothing is bundled and nothing is priced that has not been shown.

Phase by priority

The priority of each finding already tells you when its money is needed.

• Immediate: a safety risk, made safe on the day of the inspection. Any permanent repair goes first in the budget.
• Urgent: affects habitability, or the item is likely to fail soon, so it belongs in the first phase.
• Medium: deteriorating, and best done before it becomes costly. This is the core of the year's planned works.
• Routine: cosmetic or wear. Can be grouped with planned maintenance or a redecoration budget.

Because a quotation can be approved now, phased or postponed item by item, the phases become the budget: what must be spent now, what should follow before small defects become costly, and what can wait for the next cycle.

Group by trade

Within each phase, group lines by trade. A plumber, an electrician or a waterproofing crew mobilising once for several items costs less, and disturbs occupants less, than the same trade returning five times.

Keep capital items on their own line

Capital replacements such as air-conditioning units, water heaters, pumps and tanks, together with structural or waterproofing works, whole-area re-tiling or repainting and any work needing statutory approval, are always quoted separately. Revive quotes them item by item and the client approves them first, under every care programme. Give each its own budget line and an expected year, so a compressor at the end of its life becomes a planned purchase rather than a summer emergency.

Compounds and portfolios

The same method scales. Because every unit is scored on the same eight systems, a portfolio can be ranked by condition and the budget directed to the units and systems where the score, and the risk, say it should go. Re-scoring on the same checklist then shows whether the money is improving the asset.

Where a care programme fits

Under Gold, routine labour for planned maintenance is included; under Platinum, planned maintenance, reactive call-outs and everyday parts are included. Capital replacements remain separate under every level, and each programme is priced against the actual property after Revive has inspected it.