Dear Maintenance Men by Jerry L’Ecuyer & Frank Alvarez
Dear Maintenance Men: What is an economical method of cleaning concrete driveways and sidewalks? The concrete has oil stains, chewing gum and organic matter stains. John
5: Write down and post this information in a public area of your apartment building, including emergency phone numbers and how to get hold of management. Alternatively; Post this information on the inside of a kitchen cabinet door in each rental unit.
Dear Maintenance Men: I want to create a seating and relaxing area in the middle Dear John: of my building’s courtyard. My thoughts are to use decomThere are a few things you can do to help clean up the concrete. posed granite and eliminate the current grass area. How do Oil stains can be spot treated with cat or absorbent litter. go about installing the surface without making a mess or a Spread the cat litter over the oil stains and grind the litter into future headache for myself. the stains with your shoes. Leave it for 24 hours and sweep up Bryan after. Chewing gum can be removed by chilling the gum with ice or CO2 spray and using a putting knife to lift and scrape Dear Bryan: the gum off of the concrete. Use detergent and a stiff brush to Decomposed granite or DG for short is a great way to add a remove the gum stain. Organic matter stains can be removed durable, natural and water wise surface. A few things you with power washer spray. If you have a large area of concrete need to know before you get started. The key word in DG is to clean, use a power washer. Set the power washer to 3000 “Decomposed”. In other words, this granite is decomposing. PSI and use the wide spray head. Be careful not to gouge the There are three options: raw DG for flower beds, stabilized concrete with the spray; keep the hand wand moving. Softer DG for walkways and resin-coated DG for driveways. For material like brick will need less PSI or more distance between your purpose you need to use a stabilized DG for walkways. It the spray head and the bricks. has a binder mixed into the DG. Non-stabilized DG is much cheaper, but will of course decompose, create dust when dry Dear Maintenance men: and slush when wet. To properly install DG, dig down three I have given my residents information on how to prepare a inches overall and use a wood, rock or brick border to keep personal emergency preparedness kit for their families. My the edges of the DG from crumbling. As an option, lay down a question is for you is: does my Apartment or commercial weed barrier cloth under the DG. Apply DG in one and a half building need an emergency preparedness kit? And if so, inch layers, water down (don’t flood) and tamp or use a heavy what should be in it? roller to compress the DG. Wait eight hours between layers to Diana let the DG settle. Repeat the above for each subsequent layer. When installed properly, the DG surface will be rock hard, Dear Diana: stable, dust free and will allow water to drain. A quick list of what should be in your family disaster preparedWE NEED Maintenance Questions!!! If you would like to see your mainteness kit: Flashlight with batteries, canned goods, a Gallon of nance question in the “Dear Maintenance Men:” column, please send in your water per person, a knife, Meds and blankets at minimum. questions to: DearMaintenanceMen@gmail.com Now this works ok for a family, but may not be appropriate for Bio: an apartment building. The residents may very well shelter in If you need maintenance work or consultation for your building or project, please place during a disaster and be fine. What may be in danger is feel free to contact us. We are available throughout Southern California. For an appointment please call Buffalo Maintenance, Inc. at 714 956-8371 your property! Start with a bit of preventive disaster mainteFrank Alvarez is licensed contractor and the Operations Director and co-owner nance. of Buffalo Maintenance, Inc. He has been involved with apartment maintenance & construction for over 30 years. Frankie is President of the Apartment Associa1: Locate the main water shut-off valve and any minor tion of Orange County and a lecturer, educational instructor and Chair of the shut-off valves. Make sure the valves are in working order. If Education Committee of the AAOC. He is also Chairman of the Product Service they are gate valves, it might be time to upgrade them to ball Counsel. Frank can be reached at (714) 956-8371 Frankie@BuffaloMaintenance.com For more info please go to: www.BuffaloMaintenance.com valves. Old gate valves are notorious for breaking valve stems Jerry L'Ecuyer is a real estate broker. He is currently a Director Emeritus and at the moment you need them to work. Past President of the Apartment Association of Orange County and past Chairman of the association’s Education Committee. Jerry has been involved with 2: Locate and clearly mark the main electrical panel. apartments as a professional since 1988. 3: Locate and mark the main sewer clean-out. Run a mainline snake or hydro jet at least once a year. (A Friday evening main back-up is a disaster.) 4: Locate and mark the main gas or fuel oil shut-off valve. 4
RENTAL ALLIANCE UPDATE November 2021
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