Academy/Maintenance Fundamentals
What is preventive maintenance?
The scheduled work that keeps a small repair from becoming a big one.
Preventive maintenance is work performed on a common area component on a schedule, either a calendar or a measured condition, before that component fails. It is planned, not a reaction to a breakdown. Skip it long enough and it becomes deferred maintenance: work that should have happened and did not.
How preventive maintenance gets scheduled
Preventive maintenance runs on one of two triggers: a fixed calendar or a measured condition. A parking lot is typically sealcoated on a set cycle, roughly every two to three years for lower traffic surfaces, whether or not a crack is visible yet, according to paving industry guidance. Outdoor lighting works differently: LED fixtures are serviced when their light output degrades to about 70 percent of the original level, not on a fixed date, per lighting industry guidance describing IES/NALMCO recommended practice. A roof follows a hybrid pattern: inspected twice a year, in spring and fall, plus after any severe storm, according to guidance describing NRCA recommendations. All three share the same goal: act before something fails, not after.
What happens when it doesn't happen
Skip preventive work long enough and it becomes deferred maintenance. APPA, a facilities trade body, defines the term directly.
"Preventive, predictive, or corrective maintenance that assets and systems should have undergone but have not yet done so."
Source: Deferred Capital Renewal and Deferred Maintenance, APPA
The consequences are not only financial. The same source links deferred conditions to fiscal instability, lost use of the facility, and moisture working its way into a building's envelope. A board that treats a postponed repair as purely a budget question is missing half the picture. This lesson stays at the definition; see Deferred maintenance for what to do once it has already happened.
Preventive maintenance is not your reserve study
A reserve study is a funding tool, not a maintenance checklist. Its physical analysis splits into two separate tasks, described by a firm summarizing the CAI National Reserve Study Standards: a component inventory, identifying and quantifying which components the association is responsible for, and a condition assessment, rating each component's current physical state. A component the association is obligated to maintain can still be missing from the reserve study entirely if it doesn't clear the study's own funding thresholds. Preventive maintenance covers the work either way.
Check yourself
Answer before you read the explanation, recalling it is what makes it stick.
Your community's asphalt lot has no visible cracks this year. Which approach counts as preventive maintenance, not reactive?
A vendor offers a fixed two year fixture replacement calendar. Your research says LED fixtures are better served on measured output. Which matches preventive maintenance done well?
A board postpones a leaking roof repair for three years to save money. APPA warns this choice mainly creates:
Sources
- Deferred Capital Renewal and Deferred Maintenance, APPA
- Understanding the Asphalt Lifecycle and When to Sealcoat, Doctor Asphalt LLC
- Jim Brodrick on LED Lumen Maintenance and Light Loss Factors, LightNOW
- Regular Roof Inspections: NRCA Recommendations, Priority Roofing and Restoration
- National Reserve Study Standards, explained, Association Reserves
Related elsewhere in the Academy
Maintenance Fundamentals
Next, see how preventive maintenance differs in practice from reactive repair, and exactly where it turns into deferred maintenance: Preventive vs reactive maintenance.
Whether a specific component is the association's responsibility or the owner's depends on your CC&Rs, and some systems, such as fire alarms, elevators, and pools, have inspection intervals set by locally adopted code rather than by board choice.