Right now, power outages are occurring across the Houston area due to major snowstorms. In these unprecedented times, things that were once rare phenomena are now happening more frequently. While losing power for a couple of hours or even half a day doesn’t do much except make people appreciate the value of electricity in their lives, longer outages can have longer-lasting effects.
These situations pose a special challenge to those with rental properties. You, as a property owner, are responsible for your properties but may be too distant to do anything about it except tell tenants to wait for the power to go back on again. Unfortunately, an extended power outage, especially one in a period of very low temperatures, can lead to significant damage.
While some tenants and landlords might panic during a power outage, it is important to keep calm and make sure tenants have what they need to stay warm and dry, and reassure them that you will help them get through this.
The real problems one has to confront are not actually issues of no electricity but of understanding what no electricity means to all the other life support systems in the house. In homes with electric appliances (which is most newer homes), there isn’t much that will work unless it is gas-powered or wood-burning.
In this situation, one of your main dangers is that the water pipes might freeze. The first thing you to do is tell your renters to turn on every faucet in the house to a trickle, hot and cold. Moving water is much less likely to freeze and burst your pipes than standing water.
Keep in mind that doing this in homes that use well water may quickly drain the pressure tank and the water might cease to flow. Don’t be alarmed. At least you will have gotten a large part of the water out of those pipes before the freeze sets in deep.
The next most urgent danger comes if you have an electric water heater in the house. These systems have electrodes inside the tank which heat the water. If there is no water in the tank, which will happen if your water inlet freezes, it can burn out in less than a minute. So have your tenants turn off the breaker on the hot water heater until the power comes back on. Even if you still have water flowing into the tank, pop the breaker anyway, just in case.
As soon as the power is back on, you want to do a quick survey to make sure that everything is back to working properly. You’ll also want to check that water is flowing in every faucet and can get hot.
Specialized Property Management Houston can help you manage your rental properties in any situation. We’ve got the resources and tools to make sure your properties stay in good condition, and your tenants stay safe.
