Dear Maintenance Men | February 6, 2009

Written by AACSC | 25 January 2011

Dear Maintenance Men: I am a new owner of a 1965 four-plex. I am living in the front owners unit. It truly is a great place to live but I am quite concerned about my privacy and the fact that I can hear my tenant’s conversations, their TV or radio through the common wall between the units. I figure if I can hear them, they can hear me. I do know I probably lack insulation but do not want to make the expense of ripping drywall out and so on. Do you have any other suggestions? Tom

Dear Tom: We agree, the worst job to do in an occupied unit is significant drywall work. The dust and debris are awful no matter how good your dust control method. Fortunately, in your case you can address this problem by using a product called Acoustic-coat #150 which is basically a lightly textured water based flat latex paint, formulated with hollow ceramicmicro-spheres and sound-absorbing fibers and resins. To spare our readers a crashcourse in chemistry, we will give you the basic highlights.

Acoustic-coat #150 is a sound reduction paint, which can reduce sound transmission by 30% and will also dramatically reduce sound echo in the room. Acoustic-coat #150 can be used on walls and ceiling and also has excellent insulating properties. This sound reduction paint is most effective for speech range frequencies. The paint can be bought premixed or as a powdered additive and added to yourpaint. Please refer to this web site for more detailed info: www.ceramicadditive.com

Dear Maintenance Men | February 6, 2009

Written by AACSC | 25 January 2011

Dear Maintenance Men: I am a property supervisor for a local property management company and I am looking for solutions to my maintenance issues. How do I keep the cost of maintenance down while still maintaining good living conditions for my residents? Sally

Dear Sally: Prioritize and bundle is the short answer. To elaborate, you will want to prioritize all of your non-emergency maintenance work by unit, building and area and then bundle enough work for each unit, building or area to use your maintenance tech or vendor efficiently. The less your tech or vendor needs to travel between jobs, the lower the cost of each job will be. Essentially, you would accumulate all non-emergency routine maintenance work placed on a P.O. or work order and forward it to your vendor or tech as authorized. This dramatically reduces the costs related to gas, trip charges, mobilization, purchase hours, etc. (It works even better if your parts are already on site.)

Establishing a “time and material” (not to exceed) approach to billing vs. a per unit price method would also give you more bang for your buck. Talk to your vendors or techs about bundled service to help cut costs. Most will appreciate a more organized approach to servicing your properties.