When your dad told you that you would be managing the rental apartment building, you thought that it was too big a responsibility for you at that time. You just graduated from college and still didn’t acquire the experience that you needed in managing one of your family’s businesses. It was sort of a practice run for you in your chosen career of business management. Your father told you that raised mound preventive maintenance was going to be the first lesson.
It was a mandatory thing for you to make sure that you studied every detail of the building. The first thing that you wanted to know about was the raised mound system. The building was built in an area that had a high water table. It needed a raised mound to take care of the wastewater treatment. The plans of the apartment area showed you where the exact position of the raised mound system was. You wanted to have the septic expert in the area to provide raised mound preventive maintenance for the coming year. Sudden malfunctions and failures were not in your book. Even if it had to take up a significant amount of time, you wanted to have it done at the soonest.
When the septic expert called you back, he said that he had to get the latest number of units in the building. Your father had a brand new floor built for new tenants. You immediately gave the new set of information to the septic expert again. The following day, the septic expert arrived together with his team. Proper raised mound preventive maintenance was started immediately with the following essentials:
1) Yearly assessments/inspections
The septic expert needs to check the following during annual inspections:
Presence of hardwood plants and trees over and near the sand mound
The sludge level in the raised mound’s tank (should be at normal levels)
Septic odors, wet grass, and pooling of raw sewage, which are indicators of malfunction or failure
Damaged raised mound components
Contents of the tank
Soil compaction brought about by heavy foot prints, vehicles, and construction
2) Suggested practices
Non-biodegradables should not be dumped
Repairs should be conducted when necessary
There should be a schedule for maintenance
Avoid using harsh cleaners
Only use color safe oxygen bleach
3) Treatments
Regular pump outs
Application of activator treatments to bring back the normal number of bacteria
Application of porosity restorer treatments
Application of maintainer treatments to get rid of odors; improve the breakdown of grease, paper, and detergents; and protect drains
Your septic expert stressed that there should be an additional tank and dry well installed. Since there will be another floor of people in the building another tank and another dry well will help the raised mound system to function well even when the water load is increased. You agreed to this and the modifications were immediately started. Flyers were also printed and distributed to the tenants for them to help in the proper preventive maintenance of the raised mound system. Everyone in the apartment building should cooperate so that the raised mound system would not suffer from any malfunctions or even failures especially when heavy rains set in.
Preventive maintenance is very important in making sure that the living environment stays safe from diseases and impurities. It is already given that there should be a budget for raised mound preventive maintenance. Contrary to what most homeowners think, it is not that expensive at all. It is a lot cheaper compared to 30,000 USD in repairs or replacements. Any smart homeowner would choose to have regular preventive maintenance for their raised mound.
You started to manage the apartment building a month after the raised mound preventive maintenance was done. New tenants started to move in and contracts included the rules with regard to the proper usage of the raised mound system. With this good start, surely you would prove to be an ideal manager for your family’s other businesses as well.