Can your facility weather winter?

An ounce of prevention can go a long, long way.

At Brightly, we talk a lot about the power of preventive maintenance because it helps businesses safeguard assets to ensure they live long and healthy lives by avoiding breakdowns or easily overlooked minor issues that can be fixed without majorly interrupting the flow of business.

And sometimes, it’s all about getting ahead of the storm before it’s even a blip on the radar.

With weather patterns becoming more unpredictable than ever before, if you’ve never winterized your facilities before, consider this your official warning: Winter is coming!

Still not convinced?

3 reasons to winterize your facility

Winterizing a facility is an important process that involves preparing a building or property for the colder months to ensure it remains functional, efficient, and safe during winter.

1. Winterize to prevent damage from cold temperatures

Cold temperatures, freezing water, and ice can cause significant damage to a facility's infrastructure.

Frozen pipes that burst lead to water damage and potentially costly repairs, not to mention can send your facility into costly downtime.

A few winterizing best practices involve insulating pipes, shutting off exterior water sources, and maintaining proper heating systems to prevent freezing and minimize the risk of damage to plumbing, equipment, and structural components.

2. Take action to unlock energy efficiency and cost savings

Ever feel like it’s impossible to keep your facility warm in the winter? Or worse, are you cranking up the heat only to still be left in the cold AND with an impossibly high heating bill?

Winterizing a facility is an easy way to improve energy efficiency. By sealing gaps and leaks that can allow cold air to infiltrate the building and warm air to escape, you can achieve substantial cost savings on heating bills because your facility's heating systems won't need to work as hard to maintain a comfortable temperature. Properly insulated windows, doors, roofs, and walls can all help to reduce heat loss and keep your energy consumption in check.

3. Winterize to keep your facility’s occupants safe

Whether you’re worried about tenants, workers, or a combination of the two, winterizing ensures the safety of your facility's occupants — failure to satisfy this obligation can result in costly OSHA violations or give renters a viable reason to vacate your premises.

With safety top of mind, you can take proactive steps to ensure your facility is winter ready. Before it’s too late, make sure you have:

• Adequate insulation to prevent indoor temperatures from dropping to potentially dangerous levels
• Snow and ice removal strategies, such as salting walkways and driveways, to help prevent slips and falls, reducing the risk of accidents and injuries.
• A well-maintained heating system to provide a comfortable environment for employees, customers, and any other individuals using your facility during the colder months

Winterizing a facility is essential to prevent damage, improve energy efficiency, and maintain safety and comfort for occupants. Proper winterization measures can save money, prevent costly repairs, and ensure the facility's overall functionality throughout the winter season.

Build winterizing into your preventive maintenance practices

Though unpredictable, winter is repeated year after year. So fold it into your preventive maintenance routines.

The best way to accomplish this? Through an asset management solution, which can simplify the process of preparing for winter within the framework of your preventive maintenance.

By allowing you to compile a comprehensive inventory of assets requiring winterization and establish an optimal maintenance schedule, an asset management solution can automate the creation of winterization tasks and enable documentation of activities or any identified issues in an optimized way that works for your organization.

Hooray, winter!

A winter walk on the Brightly side

Failure to winterize puts facilities at risk, but taking preventive measures before freezing temperatures hit will protect your organization from wasted energy, high electric bills, frozen or leaking pipes, rodents and other pests, and more.

This season, don’t put off critical preventive maintenance to protect your assets. Asset Essentials™ helps you tap into your data to protect your business against the unexpected.

Want to learn more? Check out our Winter is Coming infographic, or schedule a call with a Brightly expert today!