Your commercial property welcomes customers, holds inventory and acts as the headquarters for your enterprise. It should be a top priority, especially as the weather turns cold. Depending on your location, you may need to prepare for snow. Otherwise, you’ll have to pay for expensive repairs later.
Your Commercial Property: Issues to Address
Your commercial property is essential to maintain. Fortunately, you can avoid issues with winter preparation.
Find a Snow Management Company for Your Commercial Property
Customers won’t appreciate navigating a walkway covered in snow and ice. Your plants may also suffer if buried under feet of snow. A snow management company clears the necessary areas, so you don’t have to worry. To ensure you get a great deal, reach out to a snow management company before the weather turns, as this sector gets busy once winter arrives.
Update Your Commercial Property Insurance
Reviewing your property insurance at least once a year is a good idea. As your business grows or you change locations, your needs may change. It’s better to update your property policy early than to find out it doesn’t cover something when you really need it.
What does property insurance cover? A comprehensive policy should provide coverage for equipment breakdown, loss of income, and damages inflicted by natural disasters.
Prepare Your Lawn for Winter
Some plants are sensitive to cold temperatures, so you should wrap them before winter hits. Even cold-hardy perennials require care to survive frost, so your best bet is hiring professional landscapers. These experts know how to protect all the plants on your property, whether trees, flowers, or shrubs.
Additionally, you need to drain and shut down your irrigation system. Grass goes dormant when temperatures drop, so you won’t need to water it until early spring. In the meantime, water in your irrigation system can cause rust or even burst lines.
Clean Out Your Gutters
Autumn means lots of leaves — which means clogged gutters. During the winter, sleet, snow, and ice can pile up in the gutter system, causing it to buckle and pull away from the eaves. To prevent this, you should clean the gutters in the fall. You can hire professional maintenance or power washing companies to take care of this task.
Take Care of Energy Sinks
Windows and doors are energy sinks, as they don’t have insulation against cold weather. As a result, heat usually escapes through them. The more heat your property loses, the more you have to spend on energy. To minimize heat loss, look for energy-efficient upgrades and apply weather stripping where possible.
Insulate the Pipes
When water freezes inside pipes, the expanding ice puts pressure on them. Eventually, they’ll give, creating a flood. You may overlook the worst cases until the walls or ceilings show water damage.
Fortunately, you can prevent this catastrophe by insulating your pipes. Insulation keeps the plumbing warm, ensuring the internal temperature never drops below freezing.
About Haughn & Associates
Founded by Michael Haughn in 1986, Haughn & Associates is a full-service, family-owned, independent insurance agency based out of Dublin, Ohio. H&A strives to provide the best possible price and unique insurance solutions across a myriad of industries, including construction, IT, Habitation & Commercial Property, Agriculture, and Engineering. Devoted to providing the best of business insurance, life and disability insurance, personal insurance, employee benefits, and bonds, H&A is proof that success lies in long-standing client relations and satisfaction. To learn more about how H&A can be of service to you, contact us at (877) 802-2278.
