on the level

by Terry Meany

In some parts of the country, a yearly maintenance schedule includes very definitive tasks complete with equally definitive consequences. If you don’t hang the storm windows in Montana in October, you’ll regret it in November. Forget to service the air conditioning in Phoenix in the spring, and you’ll be roasting in June.
In the Bay Area, the climate is much more forgiving. Fog isn’t snow and winter temperatures aren’t in the teens. Nevertheless, there are still preventative chores to do and–given that San Francisco is one of the top five most expensive cities for facility maintenance and repair costs according to a 2005-06 Whitestone Research report–preventative maintenance is more important than ever.

Check Your Roof
As always, with winter weather approaching, check your roof. Talk with your top-floor tenants to confirm there aren’t any water spots in the ceilings. Snoop around your attic space with a good light and look for any suspicious water stains. At night, you might want to station someone with a cell phone and a good view of the roof (binoculars might be necessary) outside and shine your light throughout the attic space onto the underside of the roof. Your outside observer might pick up some breaks in the roof if the light is observed.

The best time to check is during or just after a heavy downpour, although timing this is a problem. If you see a drip or wet spot, be aware that it can start from a higher location; be sure to trace it for the point of origin. An observed leak that you’re going to repair as soon as possible can be marked by pounding a 16d nail up and through it from inside the attic space. This makes it much easier to find once you are actually out on the roof.

When it’s safe to do so, walk the roof and check up close for depressions, bounce, deteriorated flashing, ponding water and missing shingles. The next best inspection is from a ladder leaning against the eaves, and the least satisfactory is from the ground with binoculars. Any suspicious-looking areas should be attended to with appropriate repair materials, whether they are roofing cement or replacement shingles.

Do you have a masonry chimney? Is it intact, or is it about to lose a brick or two and resemble a jack-o-lantern? Replace any crumbling mortar and check for birds’ nests or worse–such as raccoons–inside the chimney. Remove any surface rust from sheet metal flashing with a wire brush or sandpaper. Clean off all dust and coat with Rustoleum or with a paint formulated for metal roofs.

Gutters have a way of collecting debris even when there isn’t a tree branch within 100 feet. Clean them out now before they are full of rainwater. If you have a composition roof, granules from the shingles end up in the gutters due to normal wear and tear from the weather and sunlight. Handling these can cause a skin rash, so be sure to wear gloves. Hosing the gutters out without first scooping the majority of the debris can clog the downspouts. If you do resort to the hose, be sure to remove the bottom end of the downspouts from their drains so the leaves and twigs stay out of the drain line and wash out into a pile in the yard or on the driveway.

Other Fall Maintenance Items
Any place your exterior paint is completely missing on a wood surface is a red flag. Unsealed wood deteriorates and can rot, leaving you with a much bigger maintenance bill later. If you find yourself repainting the same areas every year, look for the culprit causing the paint to fail. It can be a leaky gutter or simply a lot of weather exposure calling for a better paint repair. Window sills on weathered sides of a building are more likely to have paint failure than other sections of wood buildings. It’s a good idea to repaint them every couple of years when you inspect your units’ interiors. It’s much faster to paint windowsills from the inside of your building than from a ladder.

Remember, this is earthquake country and buildings crack, twist and moan when they shake. Check that your foundation looks the same as it did last year (assuming it looked good last year). Soil should be graded away from the foundation and should under no circumstances have any contact with wood siding or trim.

I think the ideal yard takes care of itself with the perfect balance of plants and critters that feed and support each other without any human intervention, yielding a perfect Sunset magazine landscape. Unfortunately, this perfectly harmonious yard doesn’t exist, so even if you’ve minimized your yard care requirements, be sure bushes and shrubs are pruned and clipped at least 18 inches from your building to prevent mold from developing. If you have trees growing near the sidewalk, check that the roots aren’t forcing the sidewalk up.

Are all your outside lights working? It’s always important for the security and safety of your tenants that they are, but even more so as daylight gets shorter and we’re more dependent on lighted walkways and entries. If these lights aren’t on timers, now is the time to install them. This way, you’re assured the lights are on when they need to be instead of depending on a tenant or manager to attend to them.

Do you need to replace smoke detector batteries? They should be replaced on a regular schedule. To recycle old batteries, go to www.sfenvironment.org for a household battery drop-off center near you.

When was the last time your furnace was checked? Call your dealer and schedule an inspection while the weather is still reasonable. You want to repair it now rather than over a weekend in December while paying overtime labor rates.
When the weather turns wetter, floors turn slipperier. Do you need to install some rubber-backed floor mats in your entryway? One slip is worth a thousand mats.

You can also use this time to do a walkthrough of all your units: check drains and GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter) receptacles, vacuum out the dust behind refrigerators, examine the bathrooms for mildew, and so on. I strongly recommend these walkthroughs be scheduled at least once a year. As I’ve said before–in fact, last year at this very time of the year–these inspections are a good time to educate your tenants about holding up their end of the maintenance chores. Some simply don’t know, others are apathetic, but education never hurts.

Solar in San Francisco?
The Bay Area isn’t Death Valley, but it gets enough sunlight to warrant considering solar panels. This past June, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced a joint initiative between the city’s Department of the Environment and CH2M HILL (an engineer-procure-construct company) to develop a solar mapping website. According to Google Maps Mania, the site “plots the locations of solar installations and activity throughout the city. Map markers indicate if the solar installation is residential, commercial or municipal, and unique installations are called out. The map also allows you to enter your specific address to learn more about what solar power can do for you as a home or business owner, based on the size of your roof and other factors.”

The San Francisco Solar Map portal shows an aerial view of individual buildings–just enter an address–and supplies the user with an analysis of the solar potential for that site. The site’s calculations are based on the estimated solar paneling the structure could support and the amount of energy it could generate; the potential decrease in electricity costs, including rebates; potential greenhouse gas reduction; and contact information for local solar contractors. This free service is available online at www.sf.solarmap.org.

Not every address will bring up detailed information, but it will display any installations near your address and list a contact phone number for more information. Because of California’s solar rebates (go to www.gosolarcalifornia.ca.gov/index.html for more information), it’s one of the few states where renewable energy installations make financial sense. Yes, there are certain hoops and hurdles to negotiate, a learning curve regarding solar installations and some additional maintenance if you install a battery-based system, but renewable energy isn’t going away. Existing notions of solar installations as appropriate only for back-to-the-woods survivalists living like 18th century share croppers are highly dated.

Is it worth it to you to install your own system? Like so much else in life, it depends, but investigating the possibility only costs some time. The San Francisco Solar Map site is a great place to start.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of SFAA or SF Apartment Magazine. Terry Meany is a former contractor and landlord. He is now a full-time writer and author of Working Windows: A Guide to the Repair and Restoration of Wood Windows, now in its second edition from Lyons Press. He can be reached at tfmeany@msn.com. Copyright © 2007 by SF Apartment Magazine. All rights reserved.