If you’re hiring a strata company, like Civium, maintenance of your building should be one of the key considerations of your decision process. When it comes to the overall health of your building, and how that will be sustained, you might have the following questions in mind:
- What does a building manager do?
- What is the difference between a building manager and a strata maintenance team?
- When should we consider getting a building manager?
What does a building manager do?
Capacity
A building manager can have either a part or full time role looking after your building.
Physical Presence
They are on site everyday, walking around, checking on property issues and organising the trades if anything needs to be done.
Organise specific trades
Your building manager will liaise with the trades and the committee for any strata repairs, replacements and maintenance duties in the building.
Organise keys, fobs & swipes
The building manager is the person to contact if a resident has any issues with their fob or garage remote control.
Conduct onsite inductions
One of the most important parts of the building manager’s job is to organise onsite inductions so when trades come on site, they can ensure that the trades understand how the building works and what needs to happen before they can conduct any work.
Quality control
They help with the quality control and make sure there is some consistency in the building management. For instance, they give feedback to the strata company about the trades as they are physically on site and can see what’s happening, how they work and how the trades conduct their works.
Conduit for communication
The building manager is very important and acts as the conduit of communication between the residents, the strata company, and the committee, when it comes to the overall health of your building.
What’s the difference between a building manager and a strata maintenance team?
If there is no building manager on the property, residents make use of a strata maintenance team from a strata company.
The biggest difference between the building manager and the maintenance team is that the maintenance team is not on site.
The maintenance team will:
- Organise quotations for the committee to review,
- Organise trades,
- Facilitate all the work that needs to be done in the building,
- Liaise and communicate with the committee and the trades.
However, because they are not on site permanently, things might take a bit longer to get done. For example, when something needs to be repaired or a new remote control for the garage needs to be replaced, it will take more time if you don’t have a building manager, as the maintenance team needs to organise and facilitate such works remotely. They will still have a very good understanding of the building and still work with the committee, but it might take a little longer to get things done.
When should we consider getting a Building Manager?
If you’re part of a large scheme
If you have a large strata scheme, it is worthwhile considering a building manager. It does bring a lot of value for the residents and the community to have someone on site who could liaise with the trades when building repairs are needed. The quality control can be more strictly monitored and building maintenance can be organised more proactively.
If you’re scheme is undertaking large scale projects or capital works
Also getting a building manager should be considered for large projects or works such as large scale painting projects. Large building maintenance projects can be smoother if you have someone on site who can deal with the trades, and report on a weekly or monthly basis with the committee.
Summary
To summarise, the building manager is on site and makes sure the building is well maintained and well looked after. If you don’t have a building manager you can use the maintenance team to similar effect. Building managers are beneficial for larger schemes or any other schemes undertaking large scale projects.
