Preventative Maintenance Plan

by Diane M. Calabrese | Published June 2026

 

 

The good, the bad, or the ugly may apply to a preventive maintenance plan.

A formal plan is subject to the same perils as any agreement. (There should be a document if it’s a formal plan.)

But let’s pause regarding liabilities of plans and emphasize the positive. Begin with all that’s good about preventive maintenance plans.

In our industry a plan may cover equipment. End users of equipment may also offer plans to the customers to whom they provide services (e.g., exterior cleaning).

Consequently, some members of our industry, such as contractors, may be evaluating the utility of two types of maintenance plans. There is the one they may obtain for their own equipment. And then there’s the one they may offer to their residential and commercial customers in conjunction with recurring maintenance.

Recurring maintenance that’s scheduled in advance and sealed with a contract can be a good way for contractors to keep their workflow smooth. And the preventive maintenance contract they hold on equipment can ensure they minimize their downtime.

Still, there can be problems with preventive maintenance plans, so much so that one vendor told us off the record that he simply gave up offering them.

But back to all that’s good about such plans, whether on equipment or property. To evaluate the good, think as a pragmatist, not a Pollyanna.

For a perspective on a balanced look at the preventive maintenance plan, we put a few questions to Bruce Tassone, president of HydraMotion Cleaning Systems in Pottstown, PA.

 

Pragmatic Outlook—Bruce Tassone responds to questions from Cleaner Times

CT: Does your company offer any type of preventive maintenance plan to customers?

Tassone: The SideWinder is built to take a significant amount of abuse. The cover is virtually indestructible, and the swivel can nearly always be repaired instead of replaced. That being said, we do recommend visual inspections of the swivel weep holes and spray bar.

Inspecting the swivel for leaks will let a contractor know he is likely losing pressure at the nozzles, and this could impact cleaning effectiveness. This indicates it is time to replace his seals. Similarly, we recommend inspecting the nozzles monthly and at the start of every cleaning season. Our goal with our preventive maintenance recommendations is for the contractor to periodically check wear items and to ensure he does not go down unexpectedly. If these parts are in an end-user’s tool kit, they can be repaired in minutes, and the job can be finished on time and within budget.

CT: What is the benefit of a preventive maintenance plan for equipment?

Tassone: The benefit of preventive maintenance or inspection is two-fold: first, to avoid a premature failure and downtime; and second, to make sure there is not secondary damage to good components.

An unexpected equipment failure in the middle of any job is costly. There is the lost production time along with the negative impact of not completing a client’s project on time.

The second benefit is to avoid collateral damage to parts that are in perfect condition. As an example, worn or clogged nozzles in a surface cleaner create an imbalance in the spray bar. This imbalance generates excessive force and associated wear on a high-pressure swivel. So, in many cases a contractor can save the cost of an expensive swivel repair by checking the nozzles in their spray bars periodically for proper spray pattern and alignment.

CT: What is the benefit of a preventive maintenance plan for structures or components of structures (e.g., exteriors)?

Tassone: This is not in our core skill set, but the same factors are associated with structures. Avoidance of a problem is less time consuming and less costly because it can be performed on a scheduled basis when time allows. Unexpected repairs are more costly and in many cases must be expedited. Again, like equipment, secondary damage to components is always a key element to preventive maintenance.

CT: Is there a general kind of evaluation that the prospective purchaser of a preventive maintenance plan can use to weigh cost and benefit?

Tassone: It is hard to share a general rule for preventive maintenance cost versus benefit for all equipment and structures. However, customers can weigh the cost of the preventive program versus the potential cost of downtime.

Additionally, through a comprehensive program, a contractor can extend the life of all their equipment and save on their yearly cost of use. Take a pressure washer as a specific example. If it has a four-year life, and we can extend that to five years, we have lowered our cost of use from 25 percent to 20 percent. Over the life of a business, those savings can be tremendous when a company has a fleet of machines in operation.

 

Practical Is Good

Taking a practical approach to maintenance plans by providing customers with recommendations instead of a specific agreement can be a good thing. Such an approach encourages the owner of equipment or property to be engaged.

True, if an equipment seller or a service provider enters into a formal agreement regarding when and how maintenance will be done, and the buyer who agrees to the plan follows it scrupulously, that can be a beautiful thing.

But the adage to never let the perfect be the enemy of the good persists for a reason. Perfection is rare, and one or more buyers holding a formal maintenance plan inevitably will fail to comply.

Noncompliance with a formal agreement could mean not bringing a machine in for routine service or waiting too long to clean an exterior. Neither sort of transgression is a tragedy, but it is an example of something that effectively voids a formal agreement.

The problem is to prove it. And does a business owner who offers formal maintenance plans really want to spend time haggling about something that has gone wrong because the formal maintenance plan was not followed?

A recommendation that’s not followed can be lamentable, but an agreed-to requirement that’s not met can be actionable.

Going back to our unnamed source who is no longer enthusiastic about formal maintenance plans, we can ask what diminished the enthusiasm? Quite simply, it dimmed because owners of plans were not meeting their obligations—one of which was to abstain from do-it-yourself modification to equipment or property covered by the plan.

A recommended maintenance plan is good. It keeps owners on track, and it frees the seller from potential hassles.

 

Balancing the Good with Reality

Engineers and mathematicians both involve themselves in theoretical analyses regarding service contracts. The theoreticians try to develop models that allow the maintenance contract provider to promise the most (thus winning customers) while taking the least risk.

The modelers consider variables like reliability of equipment and usage of equipment. (The analog of this on structures would be things like exposure to harsh elements.)

An important variable to modelers is the age of the equipment or structure that will be covered by the maintenance plan. A plan for something new ought to be different than that for the not-so-new or older.

If offering a formal service plan, the provider of the plan must determine how things will be made right if there’s a problem. Will the owner of a pressure washer that fails and cannot be repaired get a new pressure washer if the machine has been in service for only a short time? What amount of time?

Sellers based in our industry can and do develop maintenance plans based on qualitative information. But theoreticians note the optimal plans are developed from quantitative information on usage, environment, etc.

Industrial users of high-pressure and ultra-high-pressure equipment do develop maintenance plans by using quantitative data, including performance over time. Moreover, many industrial users tap the expertise of third parties to develop maintenance plans and follow through on executing the plans for them.

In fact, maintenance subcontractors will want a formal maintenance plan agreement to be in place. Thus, in many ways the scale of the maintenance to be done will dictate the formality of the preventive plan.

Large industrial users of equipment often outsource preventive maintenance and restrict corrective maintenance to in-house staff. There are several reasons for this approach, but security, access, and cost are three of the biggest.

Preventive maintenance plans in large industries differ in another significant way from the plans offered by sellers who operate at a smaller scale. Some industries may offer a bonus to contractors who provide preventive maintenance plans when those plans result in consistent performance of equipment.

When writing a formal maintenance plan, don’t overpromise. The concept of “inevitable decay” (derived from the second law of thermodynamics) tells us that the best constructed and maintained equipment and structures will deteriorate as time passes.

Be candid (practical) when recommending a preventive maintenance plan or offering a formal plan. Keep the expectations of the buyer in check so that the buyer remains satisfied.

Nothing lasts forever, and a seller does not want a buyer to get the idea it will.