Throughout the nation, many areas are still enjoying the colors of fall. But right around the corner comes freezing temperatures, icy parking lots, and the potential for frozen pipes. Now is the time to start working toward your winter maintenance strategy to prepare.

Preventative maintenance can help keep your facility running smoothly once those colder temperatures hit. We’ve put together a list of the maintenance you should be doing now to ensure a good winter.

Check your heating system

Even if your heating system has already begun to run during the fall months, take some time to take a look at it. Check for dirt or dust that could make it run less efficiently or lead to breakdowns. 

Look for any parts showing serious signs of wear. To protect your facility, you might consider pre-emptively changing out important parts in your heating system to prevent a breakdown, leading to a very uncomfortable situation. At the very least, make sure you have those parts on hand in case they wear out this winter. 

Winterize outdoor machinery

Some facilities have outside machinery that must continue to run through the winter. If you do, you should winterize these machines to protect them. Your computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) should have a detailed plan for how you winterize such machinery. 

Winterizing outdoor machinery might mean ensuring it always has at least half a tank of gas, stays up on all necessary fluids, and has time to warm up before heavy use. These winter tactics all help prolong the life of your machinery and protect it throughout the winter.

Review the outside grounds

Before the ground starts to freeze, take a look around the grounds of your facility to look for any opportunities for prepping for the winter. Make sure trees and bushes are trimmed and far away from important electrical wires. In an ice storm, such branches could cause serious damage.

You should also review the status of your parking lot and look for major cracks. When the ice hits, those cracks and potholes will only get bigger and cause more harm. And under a blanket of snow, large potholes can lead to serious hazards for your staff.

Prepare for winter with maintenance management plans

While emergency maintenance can happen any time of year, winter tends to bring some more urgency to the situation. If you don’t have a clear workflow now for taking maintenance requests, assigning them to a technician, and resolving them based on the level of urgency, now is the time to put this in place.

Using your CMMS, you can accept maintenance requests, update the request with a proper level of urgency, and assign it quickly to a technician. The technician will then get a notification and can decide whether he or she needs to drop everything they are doing and respond, or finish up their current project and then give the request attention.

You can also schedule preventative maintenance. That way, you never have to worry that your outdoor machinery is running without proper winter protocols or that your building will be without heat for several days, causing damage and financial losses.

Eagle CMMS integrates with a variety of tools and makes it simple to manage your facility’s maintenance, no matter how many locations or assets you have. Call us at 262-241-3845 or send us an email or schedule a demo to learn more about the software and how we can help.