Baby It's Cold Outside - How To 'Cold Proof' Your Rental Property

Welcome to Canada's Property Management Podcast, your number one resource for investing, managing, and maximizing the value of your real estate assets. And now here's your hosts, Carla Browne and Adrian Schulz, Canada's rental property experts.

Carla Browne:

Okay, we are back, Adrian, after a short break. I hope our listeners missed us, but we are going to talk about cold and I think you started this one off earlier. We've named it Baby, It's Cold Outside, and-

Adrian Schulz:

Baby, It's Cold Outside, mainly because my understanding was that you are going to sing the song as an intro of this episode.

Carla Browne:

I'm so sorry. I leave the singing to you. You should know that by now. I'm in Saskatchewan and you're in Manitoba, and we have just come through a very cold and snowy, snowy, more snow episode, right? Actually, all of Canada has been getting snow and getting an unreasonably cold weather, in my opinion.

Adrian Schulz:

But you're the only one who got cut off by Sunwing Airlines.

Carla Browne:

Right? Well really, I hope that's going to date this one, because I hope this is just a moment in time.

Adrian Schulz:

Hopefully for you.

Carla Browne:

I was traveling over the holidays, because I was working. I had two in-between trips. I had cancellations, delays, got caught up in the whole mess, but never had as much heartache as some people. But I do know people that were stranded due to the Sunwing pullout in Saskatchewan. So, not good. And coincidentally, I am on Sunwing at the end of February and the travel agent has assured me that the flights will be going out of Saskatchewan for that week, so I hope so.

Adrian Schulz:

I think the staff and plane shortages have concluded. It was just over that intense travel week over the holidays, right?

Carla Browne:

Hope so.

Adrian Schulz:

Everyone was trying to get away from the cold and the cold, the ice cold, has a real effect on property.

Carla Browne:

Oh, it's so hard on properties. So hard. Properties and cars. We think it's hard on us, but you know what? We can usually get inside. But the cars and the workings of a property, it is so, so, so hard. And then actually, you add in some melt too, right? Because as soon the temperature then rises, the sun comes out, especially in sunny Saskatchewan, then that causes some havoc as well. So lots of furnace issues happening, and a lot of that could have been prevented. And it's a heartache when we see that, because that old furnace filter just never got changed on time, and that's sometimes all it that it needed.

And we're trying to solve for this, but we are running into a lot of new-to-Canada residents who this is the first time they've spent a winter in Saskatchewan and they don't understand when the furnace goes down and they turn the thermostat up, why the temperature isn't rising. And so sometimes, they're waiting a long period of time to even let the property management companies know. So I always think that when there is a problem, it's kind of like how do you solve so that that problem doesn't happen again?

Adrian Schulz:

Smart thermostats.

Carla Browne:

Yeah. Well, not in every property, probably. And then snow. So in a rental property, snow needs to be removed, right? So who's responsible for the snow removal?

Adrian Schulz:

According to the postman, the letter they left in our mailbox, we are responsible. It was a yellow note. Yeah. We had ice and pieces of carrot on the steps. They were leftover from the reindeer, because my kids put out carrots for the reindeer and of course they nibbled and then they had some falling out of their mouth out of the way out.

Carla Browne:

Messy reindeer.

Adrian Schulz:

These reindeer, they went out the door on the front steps, but Santa went up the chimney. It's confusing. But anyway, back to-

Carla Browne:

Don't try to figure it out at this point.

Adrian Schulz:

And the postman was going to slip on the ice with the carrots, so there you go. But case in point is in single family properties, it's critical that the tenants are doing it, but if they're not doing it, you're equally liable. So that's why regular property checks are important, even at single-family properties. But we're more used to it in the multi-family side.

Carla Browne:

Yeah. And we have sent out communication, kind of reminding the tenants all the time. And because there can be fines, too. So if you don't clear the sidewalks, the city's going to fine you and the owner is going to fined, not the tenant. You can always try to collect, but we know that's not always easy.

Adrian Schulz:

Yes. Good luck.

Carla Browne:

Yeah. So what else do we see with cold weather? So the furnace is the big one.

Adrian Schulz:

Well, ice slip and falls, right? So we talked about ice and the slip and fall. So if you have someone slip and fall on the property, you're liable. And yes, if you have proper rental property insurance, yes, there is slip and fall coverage. However, a lot of first time investors leave their initial primary home insurance on the home instead of converting it to a proper rental property insurance.

Carla Browne:

No, they don't do that, do they?

Adrian Schulz:

They do. They do. And then you could be void of coverage if you don't have the proper coverage in place. It's also to protect your tenants if they slip and fall, right? We recently made it a habit, even, of placing, and I'm not sure how this is in every province, but placing sand buckets at all the properties. There's companies that do them. They went around and they put them out and then they come and get them in the spring, what's not used. It's not great on the property, using that sand, but it sure does protect the people coming and going. So slip and falls, you need to protect yourself against those.

And then unfortunately, in the spring, those roofs that are not properly insulated, that where it was running into the eaves and then they ice up and then it looks like you're building ice blocks inside of your eaves, that becomes really damaging. And your husband is a builder, so he'd probably say this with a lot more romance, but the ice in the eaves, if it doesn't go away fast, it can actually create damage to the underlay, to the wood planking or sheets underneath the shingles, which then creates mold and bigger issues. So there's really a lot of things to be considered. Again, case in point, make sure you have a qualified property manager to take care of your rental investments.

Carla Browne:

Yeah. So the ice damming or the ice buildup on the roofs is a big one, so getting the snow off the property. And investors, really important that if you are working at the property manager, make them aware if you've ever had issues, because they usually will repeat themselves. So if you've had ice damming in the past, don't assume that your property manager's going to be getting the snow off because you've had a bunch of snow. Let them know.

Adrian Schulz:

Show them, right? Show them the problem areas. It's so much easier to deal with it if you're aware.

Carla Browne:

Yeah, then they can get it off. Same with grading. We see a lot of properties, especially in new builds, where the grading around the property isn't correct. So if you've got all this snow that's fallen and you've had the tenants out there shoveling and they're shoveling the sidewalk along the house and shoveling up against the house, when all that snow goes to melt, it's going to go straight down your foundation and possibly into the basement. So you want to make sure that you're moving snow away. And these are things that we can try to educate tenants on. But if we are doing regular inspections, if our owners have hired us to do that at some of the different packages that we offer, then we're there, able to try to fix those. We can see what's happening. But I got my fingers crossed that we have a slow spring melt and not a fast one, because it is going to cause some havoc, for sure.

Adrian Schulz:

If your property manager does offer the auxiliary service of additional routine inspections of your property, I would argue that those probably pay you back in multiple fold, because you're preventing things that can cost hundreds and thousands of dollars, versus a nominal monthly or a per routine inspection fee. So I would strongly encourage you to consider those auxiliary services if they're available, because they will save you a lot of money in the long term.

Carla Browne:

We can't protect what we don't inspect.

Adrian Schulz:

Wow. Look at you with the one liners.

Carla Browne:

Simple. Simple. I don't know.

Adrian Schulz:

And I said that your husband could describe construction with romance.

Carla Browne:

Romance, yeah. I can't wait to tell him that one. That's definitely going to be a separate conversation tonight, Adrian. Now that's real property management.

Thanks for listening to Canada's Property Management Podcast. If you like this episode, please subscribe and give us a rating, which will help us reach more listeners. Until next time, connect with us on social media and online at www.realpm.ca.