A planned preventative maintenance (PPM) survey is a detailed report to help owners and tenants manage and maintain their commercial properties. Rather than waiting for problems to arise, a PPM survey identifies what repair and maintenance needs your property has and provides a plan to manage them before they escalate.

Here, we’re exploring PPM surveys in full, including who’s most likely to need one and the main benefits, including reducing the cost of repair work, matching the maintenance schedule to your funding availability, and supporting compliance.

What is a planned preventative maintenance (PPM) survey?

A planned preventative maintenance (PPM) survey (sometimes referred to as a planned maintenance programme or PMP) systematically catalogues every potential building element failure over an extended period. It’s far more than a list of work that needs to be carried out. It’s a detailed schedule of maintenance activities needed to keep your property safe and fit for purpose while carefully considering logistics and budget.

PPM surveys are especially useful for owners and tenants with complex commercial properties spread over multiple buildings or sites, such as universities and care homes. PPM removes the logistical headache of maintaining several buildings, providing a clear plan of what maintenance and repairs are needed and when, grouped together to minimise hassle and cost.

How does planned preventative maintenance save time and money?

Prevention over reaction

Commissioning a planned preventative maintenance (PPM) survey gives you an overview of the current state of your property and what maintenance will likely be needed over the next 10–15 years to keep it in a good state of repair.

This means that you can carry out pre-emptive maintenance before issues escalate into emergency repairs, which are often far more costly when considering factors like emergency call-out fees and correcting additional damage.

Logistics and economies of scale

One of the most significant benefits of a planned preventative maintenance (PPM) survey report is that it takes a top-down view of all your buildings and sites – it doesn’t just consider each aspect of your property in isolation; it streamlines complex maintenance schedules.

For example, your PPM survey may find that one building’s roof will require maintenance in 12 months’ time, and guttering will need to be replaced in 18 months’ time. When creating your maintenance plan, your surveyor is likely to recommend completing both pieces of work at the same time whilst scaffolding is in place.

Not only does this reduce the effort of renting, erecting and dismantling scaffolding twice, but it could save you the cost of doing so multiple times.

Working to budgets and maintenance cycles

Relying on reactive maintenance when things go wrong makes it harder to plan budgets and maintenance cycles. In contrast, using a planned preventative maintenance (PPM) survey to see an overview of what work needs to be done and when allows you to better manage your overall strategy.

At Bradley-Mason LLP, we take into account your funding and preferences when creating your PPM survey report, grouping recommended maintenance work according to funding availability to give you one less thing to worry about.

For commercial tenants: mitigating dilapidations

As a tenant of a complex, multi-site property, planned preventative maintenance (PPM) can help you avoid costly dilapidation charges at the end of your tenancy. Carrying out works identified in your survey report throughout the course of your tenancy keeps your property in a good overall condition. It also helps you spread the cost of maintenance as opposed to facing one lump sum, and often means that the work costs less overall too.

For property owners: increasing resale value

If you own the property you manage, planned preventative maintenance (PPM) can enhance the resale value of your property. Providing a historical PPM schedule accompanied by evidence of the work carried out offers reassurance to prospective buyers that the property has been well maintained. It also decreases the likelihood of surveyors identifying unaddressed issues which could either devalue the property or delay the sale from going through.

Staying compliant

Whether you’re planning to sell your commercial property or not, planned preventative maintenance (PPM) helps to centralise and streamline your record-keeping. Your maintenance plan can act as a structured index to evidence servicing and other statutory work, making it easier than ever to demonstrate compliance.

Is a planned preventative maintenance (PPM) survey right for you?

While complex, multi-site commercial properties benefit from planned preventative maintenance (PPM) surveys, they’re not necessary for every commercial property type. For more straightforward portfolios, a condition survey is likely to be sufficient to understand the condition of the property and any work that needs to be completed.

Ultimately, for those managing complex commercial properties, a PPM survey is an essential asset management tool. It prevents surprise costs and supports sustainable maintenance, addressing potential areas of concern before they become urgent (and expensive). 

If you’d like to discuss building a tailored PPM survey for your commercial estate or property portfolio, get in touch with the Bradley-Mason LLP team.