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01 - Overview
What a Maintenance Programme Actually Covers
It starts with an asset register, because a programme against an unknown list is just visits. Every board, every emergency fitting, every portable appliance, every circuit that matters, written down with what was last done to it and when it is next due.
Then a schedule against that register: the testing that has to happen at intervals, the inspections that catch things early, and the small repairs that are cheaper done on a planned visit than on their own.
Then a report after each attendance. What was checked, what passed, what was repaired on the spot, what needs a quote, and what falls due next. That report is the deliverable as much as the work is, because it is what lets a manager, a committee or a head office see that the building is being looked after.
The short version
- An asset register built first, so the programme has something to run against
- Testing and inspection on a schedule rather than on a phone call
- Small repairs done on the planned visit instead of becoming their own job
- A written report every attendance, and the register stays yours
- Priority attendance when something does go wrong between visits
02 - What's included
Everything a Visit Can Cover
01
Switchboard Inspection
Visual and thermal checks on boards that run continuously. Heat is the earliest warning a connection gives, and it gives it long before it fails.
02
Test and Tag
In-service testing of portable appliances to schedule, with each item on the register rather than merely stickered.
03
Emergency and Exit Lighting
Periodic testing including the discharge test, with the logbook maintained on site so it is there when somebody asks.
04
RCD Testing
Push-button and trip-time testing on safety switches. Two different tests, and only one of them is the one that usually gets done.
05
Common Areas
Stairwell, corridor and car park lighting, intercom and gate supply, and the common-property boards that feed them.
06
Repairs on the Visit
Failed fittings, loose connections and dead circuits fixed while we are there, rather than booked as a separate attendance.
03 - Why it matters
What the Register Is Really For
Two things go wrong with unplanned maintenance, and neither is about the electrical work.
The first is that nobody can prove anything happened. Testing done by three contractors over six years, with no shared record, counts for very little when an insurer or a building surveyor asks. We have walked into sites where everything was compliant and none of it was demonstrable.
The second is that spending becomes unpredictable. A building with a register has a forecast: these four boards are due, this lighting is at end of life, that is roughly what next year looks like. A building without one has a series of surprises, each of which arrives as an emergency.
So the register comes first, and it stays yours. If you change contractors it goes with you rather than with us. That is deliberate: a maintenance programme that holds your records hostage is not a service.
‘The building that has never had an emergency callout is not lucky. It is the one where somebody keeps a list.’
Peter, licensed electrician & owner
Sources AS/NZS 3000Energy Safe Victoria
