Maintenance · guide
The economics of preventive maintenance
Reactive maintenance is not cheaper — it is just billed later, with a refund attached. A model for moving spend upstream without gold-plating the portfolio.
Key takeaways
- Price a failure at its full cost: the repair, the emergency premium, the refund, the review and the blocked nights.
- Only four or five asset classes justify a scheduled program — HVAC, water heating, drainage, appliances, access hardware.
- Track the reactive share of maintenance spend. Below 40% is a healthy portfolio.
Ask an operator what a failed air-conditioning unit costs and they will quote the repair bill. The real invoice includes the emergency call-out premium, the nights you refunded, the review that will sit on the listing for a year, and the guest who would have rebooked.
The full cost of a failure
1.6–2.4×
Emergency premium over scheduled work
2–4 nights
Typical revenue lost per in-stay failure
12 months
How long a 3-star review depresses conversion
Once a failure is costed properly, the preventive case usually makes itself. The discipline is not spending more — it is spending earlier, and only on the assets whose failure is expensive and predictable.
What actually deserves a schedule
| Asset | Interval | Why |
|---|---|---|
| HVAC filters and service | Quarterly / annual service | Highest in-stay complaint driver, fully predictable |
| Water heater | Annual flush and anode check | Failure is total, immediate and floods |
| Drains and traps | Biannual | Slow-building, cheap to prevent, disgusting to discover |
| Smart locks and access | Battery on a calendar, not on a warning | A dead lock at 11pm is a five-star review lost |
| Washer, dryer, dishwasher | Annual | Blocks the turnover, not just the guest |
Predictive, not just preventive
COOChief scores each unit's assets against age, usage and reported symptoms so the schedule adapts to the property rather than the calendar.
How do I sell preventive spend to an owner?
Show the twelve-month reactive spend and the blocked-night revenue alongside it. Owners rarely object to maintenance; they object to surprises.
Is a maintenance reserve necessary?
Yes — commonly 3–5% of gross revenue per unit. Without it, every failure becomes a negotiation.
Operations Practice
Operations & maintenance
Turnover design, vendor management, preventive maintenance and the unglamorous systems that decide whether a portfolio scales.