Creating Healthier Buildings with a Living Reserve Fund Study
Reserve Fund Studies (RFS) are crucial for supporting a healthy lifecycle of any building. The issue with how many RFS’s are conducted is that, while they should be conducted and updated every five years, they then remain stagnant and quickly become outdated. This creates challenges for property management reserve fund planning, as there will always be a margin of error that continues to grow between what your board has actually done to maintain your building versus what was outlined and recommended in the RFS.
BiLD, an innovative building intelligence technology company located in Calgary, Alberta, noticed that there was a disconnect between people who decide capital planning and those who are responsible for operations and maintenance. However, because capital planning and building operations, including the property management reserve fund, are so intertwined in what they need to know to have a building function correctly, BiLD created their Living Reserve Fund Study application to bridge this disconnect.
A dynamic application, your RFS becomes a living document where, if your board has an additional inspection or has updated certain aspects that impact your building’s reserve funds, you can update the information directly within the RFS. This allows the condo board to realign when major maintenance needs to happen for any part of the building, along with seeing what’s happening on a day-to-day basis within your building.
Living Reserve Fund Study Benefits
Over and above this access to current information about your building, your living RFS:
• Increases your ability for more effective capital planning and better management of the property management reserve fund,
• Is easy to maintain and track updates,
• Centralizes data for all approved individuals to access and update,
• Offers real-time asset monitoring,
• May provide cost reduction opportunities through building comparisons, allowing you to better understand how your building measures up against similar ones, or
• Based on the data, provide a projected replacement date for building components that can extend or reduce the design life.
Five-Year Studies Required
It should be noted that while your RFS can now be updated as your board improves your building, the living RFS does not replace a comprehensive RFS study completed every five years. It does, however, better inform the engineer who will be conducting the study by providing them with the most up-to-date documentation on things you’ve already done. Ultimately, the living RFS is about data capture, helping to better assess and potentially mitigate the risk within your building and its property management reserve fund lifecycle.
Add more value to your building and your reserve fund studies by ensuring you’re working with the most accurate and up-to-date information about your building. To inquire about how your board can implement the living reserve fund study software or to learn more about the program itself, contact Catalyst today!