All buildings require regular maintenance, including churches. Seasonal maintenance can prevent systems from breaking down, ensuring your plumbing, electric, and HVAC systems work correctly throughout the year.
Churches also have ongoing maintenance needs related to church events. While some congregations opt to meet in homes and use volunteers to handle maintenance duties, many churches maintain dedicated church buildings and hire a janitor or maintenance team to look after the building. Let’s look at the ultimate church maintenance checklist your church maintenance staff must perform to maintain your church building.
Restock the essentials.
Although church attendance has declined in recent decades, 24 percent of people in the United States attend church each week. When people attend church, they use resources and create garbage. Church maintenance involves tasks such as emptying garbage cans and removing trash from buildings.
It’s customary for congregants to give money to support their church during church services. Many churches use offering envelopes when collecting donations. Congregants can put their names on the envelope, enabling them to claim their tithes on their taxes. Congregants may be able to designate what the funds are for. Suppose your church is fundraising to replace its roof and supporting missionaries in another part of the world. Congregants have the option of indicating which fund should receive the money.
Restocking these envelopes is an ongoing task that should be performed before any service where the church may collect offerings. While this typically applies to Sunday morning and evening services, churches hosting midweek or Saturday night services may need these envelopes restocked several times each week.
Look after event-specific maintenance tasks.
Event-specific maintenance involves tasks related to special events. For example, churches acknowledge several holidays throughout the year and may put out holiday decorations. Church maintenance staff should check stock levels, determine which items should be used, and put up the decorations.
Examples of event-specific maintenance involve hanging Christmas lights, putting out Advent wreaths and candles, and hanging church banners. Your maintenance team may coordinate with your ministers to determine which banners should be used. Event-specific tasks also include preparing communion supplies before communion services.
Maintain major systems
Preventative maintenance can prevent your HVAC unit from breaking down, preventing your church from incurring the costs of expensive repairs. Certified HVAC technicians perform crucial tasks such as cleaning condenser coils and replacing filters, ensuring your system’s ready to heat or cool your building.
Maintenance teams should also make a note of any signs of rodents in the building. Mice can chew through electrical wires, causing electrical issues and increasing the risk of an electrical fire. Investing in pest control at the first sign of rodents can protect your electrical system.
Lighting’s crucial for churches, and inspecting your interior and exterior lighting is an important task. Exterior lighting protects people when they’re walking to and from their cars. It ensures people can safely enter the building and avoid obstacles that could make them fall. Lighting also protects people inside the building, ensuring they can move throughout the structure without tripping or falling.
Your building’s plumbing system is another critical system. Invest in plumbing services in Ottsville, PA, if you notice any issues with your building’s plumbing. Signs of leaks include water spots on ceilings and mold growth. Plumbers can locate leaks, clear clogged drains, and prevent sewage from backing up inside your building.
Churches should be kept clean.
Cleaning’s a crucial part of ongoing church maintenance. Clean entryways, sanctuaries, and meeting rooms before church events. You’ll also want to dust surfaces, remove smudges from walls, and clean and restock bathrooms.
Maintenance staff may need to shovel sidewalks during the winter and apply salt to prevent ice buildup. They may also need to clean the entryway during church events to remove moisture tracked in by congregants. This can prevent people from slipping at entrances. There are also seasonal cleaning tasks, such as cleaning your windows and gutters, that should be part of your annual church maintenance duties.
Church maintenance involves multiple tasks. These tasks include daily and weekly duties, such as restocking supplies, and seasonal tasks like shoveling snow. Making weekly and seasonal checklists is a great way to stay on top of church maintenance.
