Planned maintenance – our plan for your home
Robert Panou, Director of Asset Strategy
I’m often asked, “what keeps you awake at night?” The answer is simple: Safety.
My job is exactly that, making sure that our homes are safe and free from hazards and that the information we have is up to date. The best way to do this is through our stock condition surveys.
These surveys, which you can find out more about on our planned improvement programme, tell us everything about your home, from the material of the walls through to the type of fan in the bathroom. Without this information, we wouldn’t know whether our homes and the people living in them are safe.
These surveys create the very foundation of our planned maintenance programme, telling us exactly what needs to be repaired or replaced in your home, and that’s why we ask for your help to make sure these surveys get done. You can learn more about the importance of these surveys here.
I want to take a moment to expose a common myth about these surveys – we don’t do them to judge you or how you’re looking after your home. We only do them to support you, to look after our homes and make sure that, if you’re due a new bathroom, kitchen, windows, roof or anything else, you don’t get missed.
Take a look at our most recent edition of Here to Help to see more on this
The surveyors that visit you have a huge amount of experience in looking at properties and seeing what needs sorting out. From obvious things like I’ve mentioned above, right through to those elements that you might not be able to see or didn’t know were there a like a missing handrail, a potential fire risk or a small repair that could get worse if left – it all needs to be checked.
For those customers living in flats, it’s also a chance for us to look at those communal areas to make sure everything is as it should be.
The information from these surveys tells us everything we need to know in order to build our maintenance plan for the year, budget for the things we need to fix and keep an eye on the things we need to. The surveys also tell us more about how much money we might need to make sure we do all the work that’s required, so that when we apply for grants and funding, we’ve got everything we in place. The more information we have, the easier it is to keep on top of it and get things sorted before they become a bigger problem.
You can view our recent Facebook live session on our planned maintenance and retrofitting efforts here.
At the end of the day, we want to make sure that your home is looked after, and that everything in it is working as it should. It’s all about being proactive and making your home more comfortable for you.
And this is the part we need your help with.
If you have a survey coming up, we need you to help us by letting us in when we get there, or by telling us that you need to reschedule. We know you all have busy lives, and we’ll be happy to make another appointment with you if you can’t make it.
I’m new to Stonewater, but I’ve already been really impressed with the attitude and dedication of the people working here. They all share my concerns about ensuring our homes are safe and free from hazards, and everyone wants to make a difference every single day. We really want to invest in our homes, but we can’t do this without access for surveyors to see what needs to be done. This really is a team effort between us and you, and I’m looking forward to working together.