Strata Maintenance Schedule: A Seasonal Plan for Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley Buildings

A strata maintenance schedule is a written calendar of the inspection, cleaning and upkeep tasks your building needs, whether monthly, quarterly, yearly or by season, with who is responsible for each one. In Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, a schedule works best when it’s built around the seasons: clear drains, gutters and walkways in fall, protect entrances and watch for freezing in winter, wash and inspect in spring, and take care of exterior touch-ups and dust in summer.

This guide covers routine task lists, a season-by-season plan, a sample annual calendar, how work divides between cleaning crews, handymen, licensed trades and professionals, and the records councils should keep.

Why a written maintenance schedule matters

Section 72 of the Strata Property Act says the strata corporation must repair and maintain common property and common assets. A written schedule is how a council shows it’s meeting that duty. The Province’s guidance on repair and maintenance documentation recommends a maintenance plan that covers both routine work, paid from the operating fund, and less frequent work, paid from the contingency reserve fund, to complement the depreciation report.

The Province also suggests listing maintenance and renewal work for the next year, the next two years, the medium term and the longer term. It recommends putting preventive maintenance first and grouping tasks to save money or reduce disruption. Council members change, so a written schedule and log keep the building’s maintenance history from leaving with them.

The schedule also connects to your depreciation report, which estimates the repair and replacement cost and expected life of major items.

Monthly, quarterly and annual tasks

Monthly

• Walk the common areas, parkade and grounds, and note burnt-out lights, trip hazards, leaks or water stains, damaged doors and closers, graffiti and signs of pests.
• Check entrance mats, floors, and garbage and recycling rooms against your cleaning standards.
• Clear visible debris from walkway drains and catch-basin grates after heavy rain.
• Review the cleaning crew’s visit logs and issue flags, and send each issue to the right person.

Quarterly

• Sweep the parkade and check trench drains and ramps.
• Dust vents, ledges and light fixtures that can be reached safely, and detail the interior glass.
• Work through a handyman list: door closer adjustments, touch-up paint, loose handrails, fence boards, signage and minor fixtures.
• Check the weather-stripping and door sweeps at entrances, and look for lifted pavers on walkways.

Annually

• Wash the parkade and pressure wash walkways, plazas and entries, usually in spring. Shaded sites often need a second walkway wash before the wet season.
• Schedule carpet extraction and exterior window cleaning. Our guide to common area cleaning frequency covers the rest of the cleaning calendar.
• Have gutters and roof drains cleared by a contractor equipped for roof work. Sites with large trees often need more than one visit in fall.
• Book inspections and servicing of fire and life-safety systems, elevators, backflow prevention devices, boilers and roof anchors with qualified contractors, and file the certificates.
• Review the depreciation report and the year’s logs before the budget goes to the annual general meeting.

A season-by-season strata maintenance plan

Fall (September to November)

• Gutters and drains: clear gutters, roof drains, area drains and parkade entry drains once most leaves are down, and check again after the first big storms.
• Walkway surfaces: treat moss and algae and wash shaded walkways and stairs before the rain settles in, and log lifted pavers or loose handrails for repair.
• Exterior lighting: walk the site at dusk and log dark fixtures. A handyman can replace lamps in fixtures that are easy to reach, but wiring faults go to an electrician.
• Weather-stripping: replace worn door sweeps and weather-stripping on common entrances.
• Trade bookings: book heating system servicing, roof inspections, and the shutdown of irrigation and exterior taps with qualified contractors before the first freeze.
• Entrances: put wet-season mats in and increase how often entrance floors are cleaned.

Winter (December to February)

• Entrance and floor protection: use extra matting and more frequent floor care while grit and water are being tracked in.
• De-icer residue: sweep up gravel and clean hard floors regularly so residue doesn’t build up on finishes or get tracked into elevators.
• Freeze precautions: after cold snaps, check parkades, stairwells and service areas for frozen or leaking pipes, and make sure exterior doors and gates close fully. Plumbing problems go straight to a plumber.
• Wind: in the Fraser Valley, strong outflow winds scatter debris and loosen gates, fence panels and signage. Walk the site after windstorms and log the damage. Anything on the roof or building envelope goes to a qualified trade.
• Snow and ice: confirm who clears walkways, ramps and parkade entries, and when.

Spring (March to May)

• Post-winter walkthrough: photograph damage to walkways, curbs, parkade ramps, railings, paint and caulking. The dated photos become your repair list.
• Pressure washing: wash walkways, plazas and entries to remove winter grime, de-icer residue and moss.
• Parkade washing: clear winter grit and oil staining from drive aisles, ramps and drains.
• Glass: clean exterior glass that can be reached safely, and detail lobby and amenity glass.
• Carpets: book extraction for the end of the wet season.

Plan for wastewater, too. In Vancouver, for example, the Sewer and Watercourse By-law prohibits discharging contaminated water or wastewater to a storm sewer, and pressure-washing water carries dirt, oils, metals and detergents. Ask how your contractor will contain and dispose of it before you book pressure washing or parkade cleaning.

Summer (June to August)

• Exterior touch-ups: touch up paint, repair fence boards and gates, and adjust doors and hardware. Assessing cladding, windows or the building envelope is work for qualified professionals.
• Dust, pollen and smoke: clean glass, ledges and vent grilles more often during dry spells. In smoky periods, keep common doors closed and ask your mechanical contractor about ventilation filters.
• Water restrictions: in municipalities supplied by Metro Vancouver’s regional water system, Stage 1 runs automatically from May 1 to October 15, and washing hard surfaces is allowed. At Stage 2, it’s limited to health or safety reasons, preparing a surface for painting or similar treatment, or aesthetic cleaning by a commercial cleaning operation. Stage 3 allows no aesthetic cleaning, and Stage 4 allows it only when a regulatory authority orders it for health or safety. Abbotsford and Mission run their own stages. At their Stage 2, hard-surface washing needs a hose with an automatic shut-off and a permitted purpose.
• Plan ahead: get quotes for fall gutter and drain work and for trade inspections.

Sample annual maintenance calendar

Here’s how the plan can look across a year. Shift tasks to suit your site, your contracts and the timing of your annual general meeting.

Who does what

Most scheduling problems start when a task lands with the wrong people. A simple split:

The Province notes that repair and maintenance work should be done by qualified people and companies that meet WorkSafeBC requirements, so ask every contractor for a clearance letter. Our guide to WorkSafeBC clearance letters explains why. In line with the Province’s advice to group tasks, minor items can be bundled into a single handyman visit.

Record-keeping and condition reports

Records turn a schedule into proof. The Strata Property Act requires the strata corporation to keep copies of any reports it obtains about the repair or maintenance of major items, such as engineers’ reports, and the Strata Property Regulation says they must be kept until the items they relate to are disposed of or replaced. The Province also recommends collecting records of repairs and replacements, service agreements, quotes and planned work, and safety and test certificates for items such as elevators, roof anchors, fire suppression systems, boilers and backflow prevention valves.

The Province describes a maintenance manual that keeps these documents in one place, and maintenance logs that record the work and help spot trends and repeat problems. It recommends storing records electronically, with a secure backup kept in a separate location.

What a useful condition report includes

• The date, the exact location and who recorded it
• Clear photos, including one wide shot for context
• What was observed, described plainly without guessing at the cause
• Urgency (safety issue, repair soon, or monitor) and who should handle it
• Status updates until it’s closed, with the invoice or report that closed it

These records pay off at depreciation report time. The Province notes that gathering maintenance and repair documentation for the provider can reduce the cost of a first report, and that a summer inspection might not reveal problems that only show up in winter. Dated photos from every season fill that gap. Our strata cleaning visits include photo-documented condition reports, so issues crews spot reach council with a date and a picture.