Caulking is often an overlooked strategy for saving money and keeping your commercial building healthy, but this small task can provide innumerable benefits. If left untreated, poorly done or old caulking can degrade the integrity of your building and even cause health issues for tenants, employees, and customers. While seemingly small, the benefits of caulking can be easily realized. All you need is a commercial general contractor like Omni Facility Maintenance Services to perform proactive maintenance and keep your building in pristine care.
Saves Money
Having your commercial building professionally caulked can save money in several areas of your business. First, it can help prevent water from seeping in through the cracks and causing water damage or mold to your ceiling, doors, windows, and flooring. The cost of replacing these things and having mold remediation is far more expensive than paying for regular caulking and maintenance. Plus, if you have employees, you could lose money on potential sick days should they come into contact with any mold. Black mold especially can cause sick days as it can produce symptoms of dizziness, irritation, cough, and fatigue.
In addition to saving money by neglecting to allow water to come in and wreak havoc on the building’s structure, you save money on energy used for heating and cooling. By ensuring your windows and doors are properly sealed, you prevent the cool and hot air from seeping out, as well as preventing cool and hot air from seeping in. This prevents your HVAC system from working too hard and driving up energy costs. Between saving money on potential water damage and energy costs, having your building checked for leaks and opportunities for new caulking should be a no brainer. However, if you’re still not convinced, there are two more immense benefits of caulking.
Prevents Pests
Similar to preventing drafts of cool and hot air from entering the building, proper caulking can prevent pests from coming inside as well! Over time, caulking will deteriorate and lose elasticity, making it easier for bees, ants, beetles, spiders, and other bugs to make their way through the old, faulty caulking and into the building. This can concern employees, customers, and even tenants! To prevent pests from finding shelter inside no matter the season, make sure your caulking is properly filling the spaces between windows and doors. A professional team like Omni Facility Maintenance Services can check your caulking for you and determine if it’s time for a new application. In some ways, this could save you money, too, depending on the degree of infestation that occurs from faulty caulking letting pests inside and how long it goes unnoticed for.
Improves Appearance
Old, faulty caulking will crack and isn’t very appealing to the eye. While not that important compared to the other two benefits of caulking, your building’s curb appeal is still valuable for several reasons. First, if you ever wanted to sell, the building looks as if it has been taken care of which can raise its value. Second, your customers, tenants, and employees will notice. Nobody wants to shop, live, or work in a building that is falling apart, molding, wet, or riddled with pests. With caulking, you can prevent these unsightly issues from occurring and make those who are inside or simply walking by feel as if the building is well maintained and cared for.
The benefits of caulking your commercial building are numerous and not limited to those listed here. While the biggest savings may be your pocketbook, also consider how being inside the building affects others and if they are taken into account when providing routine and preventative maintenance for your commercial building. In the long run, preventative maintenance is guaranteed to save you money. Just hire Chicagoland’s preferred general contractor, Omni Facility Maintenance Services, and we will take care of the rest.