Since the start of the pandemic, the assurance that businesses can run uninterrupted has become more essential than ever.

Whether you manage one or twenty commercial properties, having a trustworthy and experienced electrician on your side will help to keep businesses running smoothly. From fixing issues to preventing issues from arising, here are some measures you should be taking to avoid costly downtime.

Health and safety

Ensuring that the work performed on your managed properties is legitimate and creates minimum disruption starts with one simple step: making sure the tradesperson is certified and registered.

However, cowboys have (and unfortunately always will) exist. And with materials becoming increasingly difficult to obtain, DIY jobs are likely to become more common. Using an uncertified electrician can have profound implications. From making the property liable to non-compliance to the potential to cause injury, it simply isn’t worth the risk.

Luckily, there are a few easy ways to weed out the bad from the good:

• Check your electrician has a current Practicing Licence
• Ensure they have reputable health & safety accreditation such as SiteWise or Prequal
• Check to see if they have experience working on commercial properties (i.e., do they have a good reputation with customers/are they familiar with compliance regulations.)
• Ask if they have a COVID-19 Health and Safety policy – A trustworthy electrician should demonstrate their commitment to reducing the transmission rates of COVID-19 by providing commercial property managers and tenants with a clear plan on how they plan to do so.

Having a maintenance plan

The best way to deal with a problem is to prevent it from happening. This is precisely the purpose of preventative maintenance.

The programme can be developed with your electrician and will outline when to test key electrical components of your managed building or buildings. Preventative maintenance can provide you peace of mind by identifying potential risks in the building’s electrical systems that could result in serious and costly interruptions for the business. For certain electrical equipment, it may also be necessary in order to receive a Building Warrant of Fitness (BWOF).

The maintenance plan should include:

• Emergency lighting
• Switchboards
• RCD testing
• Lighting sweeps
• Test and tagging

Thermal imaging

Thermal imaging has increasingly become a valuable tool for businesses looking to reduce commercial insurance premiums, prevent switchboard breakdown, and minimise production downtime.

For commercial properties, it is recommended that thermal imaging tests be performed once a year on switchboards. Thermal imaging is used to detect poor connections, deteriorating insulation, excess heating, or any other potential electrical hazards.

This is a non-invasive test and causes little disruption to businesses’ daily activities.

Supply issues

The pandemic has impacted almost every aspect of our lives, impacts that have a ripple effect across the globe. The importation of building materials has increased pricing and wait times for these goods have caused frustrations for tradespeople and property managers alike.

As a property manager, it is important to keep this in mind if there is an electrical issue as it could cause lengthy disruptions for the property’s business owners. Work with the tenants or building owners to plan ahead of time. For example, lighting supplies used to be 3 to 4 weeks waiting time. You can now expect this to be 10 to 12 weeks.

To avoid the potential costly disruptions these wait times could create, you should be engaging with an electrician who has established relationships with suppliers.

Use No Shock

No Shock has a certified team of electricians with extensive commercial property experience. We have robust health and safety procedures, including COVID-19 policies that protect both customers and staff.

We can help you develop preventative maintenance programmes unique to individual businesses’ requirements and carry out important thermal imaging to identify any serious faults.

At No Shock, we have established relationships with suppliers, which help us to combat New Zealand’s struggle with importing materials.

For the safety and continuity of your managed commercial properties, get in touch with one of our experts.