The city’s Facilities Services organise the maintenance and minor repairs of the buildings and facilities owned by the city and are responsible for the monitoring and development of the technical use of the city’s buildings. Our technical property managers ensure that the facilities and buildings used by the city are kept in good condition, and that property maintenance is in good working order.
Property maintenance handles the day-to-day maintenance of buildings. Typical tasks include outdoor work, i.e. the cleaning of yard areas and the maintenance of landscaping. Tasks to be completed in the wintertime include the ploughing and sanding of access routes in accordance with the service agreement. The technical property manager ensures that the maintenance of the property is carried out as agreed, monitors the condition of the property and places orders on any necessary minor repairs.
Property management is persistent work based on the life cycle approach. It is important to us that our facilities remain fit for their purpose – functional, healthy and safe – throughout their life cycle. We actively develop technologies and practices related to matters such as the energy consumption of the city’s buildings.
Building maintenance activities vary by season. Work done in the winter involves snow removal in yards, pathways and parking areas, anti-slip measures, slush removal, monitoring the snow load, and removing snow and icicles from the roofs. The winter season begins around 30 October (week 44) and ends around 21 April (week 16).
Our Building Maintenance Services take care of the winter work automatically, according to the maintenance plan and building maintenance agreement for the site in question. The areas covered by the maintenance agreement are marked on the winter maintenance map for each site. The map is available to the site supervisor.
Not all areas can be seen to before the site opens. The agreements specify the time by which the work must be complete. For example, the agreements for daycare centres, schools and playgrounds typically state that winter maintenance must be carried out by 9.00 on weekdays.
If necessary, the site staff can notify the maintenance services of their service needs themselves. In City-owned premises, the notification is filed via the BEM service records. If the yard maintenance is not working as agreed, please notify the technical property manager via a service request in the BEM service records.
Please notify the site’s property manager of any potential hazards immediately. If there are snow or icicles hanging from the roof, we recommend that you inform the staff in the premises about it immediately. The staff will inform the property manager of acute hazards.
The City generally does not have building maintenance agreements on rental or leasehold premises; instead, the building’s owner or the housing company is responsible for the maintenance.
In winter, snowfall, slippery ice and varying conditions are normal phenomena, and Building Maintenance prepares for them. We monitor the snow situation with the help of weather forecasts.
However, sometimes the weather conditions are so challenging that the resources reserved for normal winter maintenance are insufficient, and Building Maintenance becomes overloaded. Such cases are exceptionally high snowfall within a short time or the road conditions rapidly turning slippery.
In exceptional conditions, some sites and duties take priority over others. In practice, this means that a property’s winter maintenance may have to wait until the main pathways and emergency access roads of some other sites are cleared from snow.
If you notice that a path is slippery, please take caution when moving there. If the site has a gravel bin, you can take some gravel to make the ground less slippery. However, in most cases, gritting the pathways is not the responsibility of the staff working in the premises.
Once the snow has melted, our property management will start removing the grit from the yards of the city’s facilities. The grit and dust will be removed from the ground during April–May. The work belongs to the contracted tasks of property management and does not require actions from the users of the premises.
If the grit is not removed by the end of May or the facility’s staff have complaints about its removal, they should contact the site’s technical property manager via the BEM maintenance book.
When the grit has been removed, property management will also replace the filters of ventilation units in the buildings in the spring. In addition, swing seats and furniture that may have been removed for the winter will be returned to the yards.
We look after yards, vegetation and trees, add wood chips to yards if necessary and mow lawns in the spring and summer season.