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PM Collective - The ART of property management
The ART of property management with Ashleigh Goodchild is a leading platform supporting collaboration not competition through an online community and events throughout the year with one purpose: to create happier property managers. She creates connections for property managers looking to create momentum in their careers and personal life. Join Ashleigh and her guests as they discuss challenges, struggles, mental health, mindset and give advice to property managers and anyone in the industry. To get the support in your property management career, join our PM Collective Facebook and Instagram community.
PM Collective - The ART of property management
Creating Value Through Maintenance Education - Air conditioning
Louis from West Oz Trades shares insider knowledge about air conditioning maintenance, helping property managers troubleshoot common issues and communicate more effectively with tenants and owners. The conversation explores practical strategies for reducing unnecessary callouts, preventing mold problems, and implementing proactive maintenance approaches that save everyone time and money.
• 50% of summer air conditioning callouts are simply for cleaning blocked filters
• Tenants should be educated on their specific system type and proper operation methods
• Property managers should consider labeling properties by air con type in their software
• Air con parts typically must be ordered specifically for each repair due to the variety of models
• Pre-summer maintenance checks prevent system failures during high-demand periods
• Winter shutdowns for evaporative systems reduce mold growth and system damage
• Property managers can quickly check for mold in split systems using their phone torch
• The Air Care Support Hub provides educational resources for troubleshooting common problems
• Portable air conditioners are useful backup solutions for vulnerable tenants during repairs
• Proper ventilation is crucial - evaporative systems need windows cracked open, reverse cycle systems need them closed
Check out the new Air Care Support Hub at West Oz Trades' website for educational videos and troubleshooting guidance that can help your tenants and reduce unnecessary callouts.
PM COLLECTIVE - GUIDE AND SHAPE AN ENJOYABLE FUTURE
We believe in making industry-leading education and support accessible to everyone. Our community is packed with free resources, expert insights, and innovative training designed to help business owners, property managers, and BDMs thrive.
This podcast is sponsored by West Oz Trades.
West Oz Trades are the team to service and install your air conditioning systems in Perth Western Australia. WestOz Trades Air Conditioning Services | Perth, Western Australia
This podcast is sponsored by MyConnect.
Todays Sponsor is MyConnect: They reward you generously for every successful connection we receive from your office. We also regularly run campaigns and exclusive events to reward our partners for their ongoing support.
Working seamlessly with popular trust softwares, the process is easy for property managers who can reap the benefit.
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I've nearly done that once before.
Speaker 2:Talking about my love language. Everyone, that's right. I'm a real man.
Speaker 1:All right, welcome to our special guest. Today we have Lewis from West Oz Trades joining us, and I don't think you have been on one of my podcasts, have you?
Speaker 2:No, this is a surreal experience for me, to be honest, to walk into this room. I feel very professional, so thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, looking professional as well, and not that anyone's going to be able to see it, but I can tell you right now he's looking professional and ready. So you haven't done any podcasts then before.
Speaker 2:Haven't done any podcasts before. Obviously, a lot of speaking in terms of educational stuff for you guys PM Collective and also go around to some other property managers we look after but never podcasts. So, yeah, I listen to a fair few, but yeah, as we were talking about Leila Hamosi, alex Hamosi, yeah, literally I was running the other morning, monday morning, went for a run in the rain, had Alex Hamosi on and I thought I actually love this. Maybe I'm getting old, but running in the rain and listening to podcasts, love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, excellent. So that's the tip I got from Lewis already this morning was that it was Layla.
Speaker 2:Layla Hamosi, layla Layla, layla Hamosi.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, so I'm adding that one to my list, which is great. Now, lewis comes from West Oz Trades, which is obviously a WA-based aircon service company, but what we're going to be talking about is quite generic for everyone who's listening around Australia in regards to air cons property managers getting better at sending work orders, maintenance, understanding. What we did at the Trade Education Day recently was great, because what it allowed for was property managers to become more confident with their maintenance, with their work orders. When a tenant calls and says I've got this problem having some sort of understanding.
Speaker 1:Property managers to become more confident with their maintenance, with their work orders.
Speaker 1:When a tenant calls and says I've got this problem, having some sort of understanding of what needs to be done so that then we can number one troubleshoot with the tenant, with maybe something that they need to check before we contact the owner, and then being more educated when we contact the owner with what a possible concern or what a possible cost might be.
Speaker 1:For example, when to know when to say to the owner listen, I think we just need to book it in for a service and get a quote for any repairs, or I think we should give the contractor a allowance or a budget of this much money and see where they can do it, that type of thing. Because along the lines I learned and this is like after 20 years in property management, I've only just this only just came up not long ago and it was to do I think I hope I say this right and I don't confuse people it was an evaporative air con that wasn't working and then, but then, before anyone went out to repair it, what happened was that the water had been shut off to the street so it'd come up with an error, but it was because there was no water and I actually didn't know that. So now, sometimes when a tenant would call with a certain problem, I would say to them do you have water supplied or is the water shut off to?
Speaker 2:your home. You've learned from the mistakes, which is literally my whole career pretty much, and that's where we are at this point now, from 15 years of air con.
Speaker 1:Every mistake you could possibly make.
Speaker 2:I've made. That's kind of how we know how to deal with situations.
Speaker 1:And you can imagine, as a property manager, like booking in a contractor, for someone to go out and say, and it doesn't matter which contract, but it could be an electrician going out and saying, oh yeah, the fuse box needed to be turned on. Or the air con person going, oh listen, it was just no hot, no water Like. And then you have to then to explain to the owner, correct, like there was nothing wrong. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it comes down to education. I think that's why your, you know, your education days are so paramount. It's needed. I mean, that was even for the cheese and wine night that we'd done Ash as well. That was a big topic that we talked about. It was just general maintenance education and if we can maybe have a platform for that with PM Collective and just general knowledge given to your tenants, to your PMs, it's going to stop so many issues with, as you said, unneeded call-outs, unneeded money for your landlords, for sure.
Speaker 1:And it just plays maintenance plays a massive part. Like if I was to suggest, you know, probably 50%, easy. I think maintenance would make up easy, maybe more than that, but at the moment we've got lots of tenant issues, so it's probably a 50-50. But let's start getting into some questions. So we're going to start with some basics. So what I would love for you to help the audience understand is what would be, if any, the number one air conditioning issue you get called out in rental properties, like is there something that happens all the time?
Speaker 2:I mean it depends on the system right, and I've had my array of notes that I had before, so I'm just going to freeball with, I guess, my knowledge. But in terms of the call out that we get, the most is generally in summer because that's when we're so busy, but it's system not calling realistically. So if you've got a split system evaporative depending on the system type, but the main one that we deal with realistically is your split systems and your reverse cycle ducted systems not calling. But the main thing we're onto is filters. If filters are blocked then that's going to really impact efficiency of that system. So generally we go out to site if return filter is blocked 50% of the time.
Speaker 2:That's a call out in summer, just cleaning a filter. So if your tenants can understand where the filters are as an education standpoint, depending on who you work for property manager wise and if they're able to do it, I guess there's another thing you want to make sure that they're being safe. So just educating them on how to do it is the main thing. So they should be able to clean their own filters. So just educating them on how to do it is the main thing. So they should be able to clean their own filters. So if their filters are clean, generally in summer, that's 50% of work orders just blocked filters.
Speaker 1:Is there a problem, I guess, with people not using these systems, maybe during winter, and then all of a sudden using them? Is it recommended that people use or turn their air cons on during winter, even if they don't need them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I definitely think so for sure. So I mean, there's so many points we can go into that, but I feel for one, just going back, just knowing the system that they have is paramount and understanding how it works, that's the biggest thing. Because they might be trying to get their evaporative system, which is a cooling unit, on heating. So they're sitting there for 20 minutes trying to figure out. We get there. So it's just a calling only system.
Speaker 2:So one is education, um, but yeah, we generally recommend our pre-summer checks, um, which is we'll get into a little bit later uh, just a testing of the system prior to summer as well. You want to make sure those systems are working, which is the biggest thing. But if you leave them off over winter, you know, come to your first hot day in summer 40-degree day they're turning it on, it's broke. There's nothing worse than getting that phone call from you guys, from your tenant to the PM and then to us system's not working. So we get that influx of calls on that first hot day and realistically we can kind of pre-empt that if we're servicing them just before summer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we try to do quite a lot of proactive maintenance plans in our office and we do the servicing before summer and put out that request to the owners.
Speaker 1:So I think we are doing that in spring, like in sort of September, because we know you guys still get busy in the summer months, so we do that then.
Speaker 1:But even and this is just something I've just thought of as we're talking but to even go one step further and like you had said, about understanding what systems are in the property, there are a lot of property managers that don't necessarily go out and visit all properties because maybe they are more desk-based and they have outsourcing, and so being able to label in your system what the property has, instead of having to refer to a property condition report, would be something handy.
Speaker 1:Now I only understand PropertyMe as a software, so I'm not sure if the other softwares have labeling available, but it might be that labeling the property that it's got a split system, ducted EVAP, ducted reverse cycle, because then when we can start labeling and taking the time to do it, doing a bulk email out to the tenants to say with your you know, maybe it's one of your videos, for example of how to clean the filters in a split system and at the moment like I'm not doing it to this extent, but I like the idea, so I'm not going to make myself a mental note to maybe do this in my office. But when we sometimes send out bulk emails, for example for the servicing, we do put a disclaimer on there to say if you don't have air con, please ignore this email.
Speaker 2:Like.
Speaker 1:Please ignore the message because it's just easier for us to send out that bulk. But imagine if we had labelled it and were able to specifically send that only to the properties, property owners that had the air cons, but then doing that one extra, which is the labels, with just the split systems. Here's a video on how to clean your filters and sending that through in July or August 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it saves you time and money. It's going to educate them, they're going to feel valued. It's like a win-win really. Yeah, and you can set your tabs up. I'm not sure what you use, but we use Go High Level so you can set your tabs depending on what tenant or client has what system.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you can send them an email out. We will even help you with that, for needed in summer is crazy. So summertime should be a triage time, as they call it. You're just repairing issues. You don't want to be servicing units in summer, so that's what we want to preempt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now I know the answer to this, but I want you to explain it to other people. No-transcript, but not necessarily be able to replace there on site. In terms of parts, why are they not stock in trucks and why do we have to order them?
Speaker 2:I think that's the biggest thing is just for property managers and tenants to realise we aren't the same as electricians. We can't go to CNW MMs and, you know, get your circuit breaker from the shelf. If it was that simple we would have a very profitable and easy business. Unfortunately it's not the case. But you can imagine how many different brands and models there are of different aircon systems. Say, for instance, you've got dakin. You might have 20, 30 different models of that and every model has got a different pcb or different reversing valve, different compressor. So for us to stock that many parts in a van we're going to be broke as a business for sure.
Speaker 2:So generally in terms of evaporative systems, which you're calling only units, you have a few amazing suppliers in perth called gamados and firmalek where we get our stock from all of our vans. For west coast trades our company are fully stocked with evaporative parts. Uh, every monday morning the boys have their bacon egg toolbox like we're talking about before. They'll stock their vans up pre-ready. So anything we can repair on site we will do generally for evaporative. If it's something basic on reverse cycle systems like your heating, cooling splits, reverse cycles generally, in some cases we can fix it on site. If there's gas issues, stuff like that, capacitors, which kind of kick-starts, fans et cetera.
Speaker 2:I bore you guys. We can fix it, but I'd say 50 of the time we can't so and we just. That's just the reason being we can't stock all them parts in her van. So, yeah, yeah, our process is generally go to site of in 24 hours. We'll have that report, invoice photos over to you guys, um, and with the rectification works needed. But in summer you can imagine how many aircon contractors are calling dacon or, you know, calling, calling LG, whoever. They've only got a certain number amount of people who work. So sometimes you're waiting, you know, three, four days for them to get back to you. Yeah, and you've got the tenants up our ass, tenants up your ass. So it's just educating them that unfortunately we're coming to look at it, but that doesn't mean that we might be able to fix it today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is?
Speaker 2:the hard conversation, Our, which is a hard conversation. Our boys are very thick-skinned through that whole process, as you can imagine. I just hate going to a job and telling a tenant I'm sorry. We just you know. So yeah, I think that's for us as a company. We strive to be good humans for one. So I'm not sure if we've dropped any portable air cons to your tenants, but a few of our clients we work with, like I'm a sucker for, if a client's got a baby, for instance, or they're elderly, we want to be able to offer them some calling, so we'll go and deliver portable air con. That's just what we do.
Speaker 2:So, hopefully we can kind of continue that as we grow. But yeah, that's the long answer.
Speaker 1:But only for the nice ones. If they're an arsehole, then I wouldn't be.
Speaker 2:If you're not a good human, then no, we're delivering you a heater rather than a caller. Exactly.
Speaker 1:We do have a portable air con in our office as well that we use for the same thing for elderly babies, special circumstances, yeah, and we actually have only really like we've only got one and that's actually satisfied, because we just have found that generally most people do get it and if you explain it and help them understand why. But there's only really the odd one here and there over that real summer spell where there's like four or five days in a row that is a problem.
Speaker 1:So that's a good tip for other agencies. Like honestly, I think we paid maybe $500 or something for this portable air con. Like just have one in the office, use it, it will come in handy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean depending how big your agency is, but, like you know, you might have three or four jobs that go completely wrong throughout the year. So if you've got that capacity to deliver them portable air con, if it's just a master bedroom, you know capacity then they're going to be thankful for sure.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely, yeah, no, definitely. As a contractor. What is a wish that you sorry? As a contractor, what do you wish property managers knew or did better with sending through work orders? What are we doing wrong with work orders?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had a chat to some of the girls in the office this morning about this. I mean, most of the guys we worked for are pretty good. I think I had actually one printed out from you guys that I had and it was quite a good kind of detail before I thought you were going to give us like a bad example that we did.
Speaker 2:Fixed air con. We get a lot of them Generally. I guess what type of system is paramount for us, like just knowing if it's a split system, if it's an evaporative system, we'd love to know that. But we're also scripted for the girls in the office to ask what system they have, what fault it's in. If there is a fault code, let us know the fault code on the work order. So it might be an E32 coming up on your controller or anything like that. If there's any kind of weird noises, if the system isn't calling.
Speaker 2:I guess just as much info as you can give and also a big one for us is with a lot of property managers we work for in the city is just access. If access is going to be an issue for us, if we need to get roof permits or we need to give them our swims, that's like a whole different ballgame in itself. So sometimes the PMs maybe don't know that, depending if it's a new site, so we'll go to site, we'll get to the indoor unit, the outdoor system we'd access on top of the 10-story bloody building and the building manager says, oh, you need to give us your roof permit, et cetera. So the tenant gets pissed off that we can't sort it on the day. So just having that input for us to kind of preempt it, we want to get there, we want to get it fixed for you guys. We don't want to have to come back.
Speaker 1:I would imagine that there's lots of property managers that wouldn't know that. No, they just don't know until it happens, I guess.
Speaker 2:And then we move on for next time, but generally we've worked on enough buildings in Perth. Now we know what buildings require and what don.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and another tip for PMs is that if that happens to you, you send out an air con person, they advise that they need you know a different permit. Then again, using that labeling system, put it in for next time, because generally we're not relaying that message back into our system, we're just going oh, bad luck, and then going to the next, you know task.
Speaker 2:And your sparky girl there did the same thing, or your plumber. So yeah, it's definitely paramount that you can kind of note it down somewhere for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, definitely. Can you walk us through what a proper winter air con maintenance actually looks like, and are there any risks if we skip it? Like, are there the like, for example and you might have to separate this answer but like do all air cons need to be maintained every year, or are there some systems that they don't and you just repair them when they?
Speaker 2:need repairing. There's no actual legislation to systems to be service maintained annually On a commercial setting 100%, generally depending on the type of commercial property. But resi, there's nothing in kind of the legislation that says annually All your manufacturers will say the system needs to be maintained annually to keep up with their warranty spec. We kind of go off that. We've got a few governing bodies like your ERA and AMCA who recommend yearly as well. So we generally say once a year for resi is ideal.
Speaker 2:But yeah, especially if you've got evaporator systems, like evaporator systems in a hole is it's a water cooled system? So we'll delve into that a little bit soon. But yeah, basically it's four pads on your roof. Water goes up to your your system on the roof, uh water pump starts that water and it will trickle down your pads. Then your fan will kick in. So you've basically got that transfer of cold air into the house.
Speaker 2:But because water can be stored there for so long, there's always been horror stories of Legionnaire stuff like that. But the biggest thing for that is just mold spores you don't want. But I've got two kids, you've got kids. The last thing you want is to see your contractor showing you a bunch of moldy pads because they haven't been serviced for a while and in theory you can have all these, you know, purifies inside your kids rooms etc. But if you've got moldy pads on your aircon then that's sucking that mold inside. So winter shutdown, as you said, helps with that, because we'll basically come and do a complete shutdown of the system. We'll shut your vents inside your property because that can obviously bring in cold drafts down inside the house, which you don't want, and then we'll also put a canvas cover on the system itself, so the pads that generally go moldy are kind of retained a bit better but you know in Perth.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm a palm originally, as you can tell. We are used to the cold for one, but in terms of Perth weather it goes hot to cold very fast, perth winter, for instance. All of a sudden it'll be freezing when it goes to winter, but then there might be some real hot days. So that change in temperature, if it isn't covered, will increase the amount of mold buildup on your evaporative system.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, it's probably feeling like summer for you these days. Is it Our winter?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm too sure. I know it's beautiful.
Speaker 1:The sky's blue, I'm still pasty, though, so. It is funny. Yesterday I'm chatting to my daughter and we were saying how beautiful like. Because she was like how good is this weather? Like it's winter, the sky's blue, like it's cold, but it's still beautiful, and she goes. It's hard to believe that this is someone's summer Like, and this is our winter. Yeah 100%.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's hot in England at the minute, though, so I think it's like 34 degrees at the minute. So Lin's back yet, and he reckons that it was sweltering over there. It's a different heat over there and that's the thing. I'm English and Pommie and I've come over here. I never knew what air con was until I moved to.
Speaker 1:Australia when I was 16. Yeah, and now it's my whole business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Isn't that weird? Yeah, it's crazy, yeah, but it's becoming a big thing in England as well. Air con, I was just going to. Yeah, the big thing with that is ventilation as well into winter, and that's a big thing that we are doing a lot of these days of indoor air quality and no one thinks about that. You can have these multi-million dollar houses but the way they've been designed there's no ventilation at all and that increases your mould. You're decreasing indoor air quality, all that stuff. And then, regards to the winter shutdowns on the split systems and reverse cycles, you have mold buildup on your fan scrolls.
Speaker 2:I think I'll give you guys a bit of a tip and trick last time at the PM Collective where generally, if you've got a split system mounted on the wall bear in mind, make sure it's turned off you can pull that flap down from that indoor split system. You can literally get your phone torch and you can have a look inside when it's not running. You can see your fan scroll. If you can see mouldy bits of spore, mould spore on there, you know that it needs to clean. In summer you get away with it a little bit because it's cold air, but in winter, as you can imagine you're using that on heating. That's going to increase the amount of kind of mould growth so it's just going to push that hot mouldy air into your house. So just have a look at that and make sure they're clean. Before winter is ideal to look at that and make sure they're clean before winter is ideal.
Speaker 1:So for property managers, like when you do a final bond inspection, like I don't know whether there's many people that would physically go in and use their phone torch to check- that For sure. Yeah, so that's probably a good thing. Someone could add on to their checklist for final bonds.
Speaker 2:You just don't want your tenant freaking out, because you know what it's like. As soon as your tenant sees mould oh, that's the last you're going to hear of it.
Speaker 1:I got a bad Google review once from someone that had mould and it was. I was really genuinely. The way that they were carrying on was like the whole ceiling was full of mould and I went out to the property straight away because they did a bad Google review and they were carrying on about this. And I'm not bullshitting you when I say that there were three dots, three dots of mould On the ceiling. They were on the ceiling and they were underneath in the bathroom but they were trapped underneath our light fitting and, in fairness to them, the light fitting that was used was like, sort of like an open oyster and it wasn't properly designed for a bathroom. So what happened was moisture sort of went, you know, to the ceiling but it sort of got stuck. So where the mould was was just sort of on the ceiling but underneath the fitting. And I was so gobsmacked that I had said to the tenants are you shitting me Like? Is that what you'll put a bad Google review on? I couldn't help myself.
Speaker 1:It was just so ridiculous.
Speaker 2:And then I Nothing worse than a bad Google review and it was like a it was just like a fitting on a bayonet.
Speaker 1:So I literally said, listen, I'm going to remove that light fitting because that light fitting is no good for it.
Speaker 2:And I just literally, just I think I probably even used my jumper to wipe the three spots off, or just pick up your phone and say Ash, I found this, what can we do about it? And you help straight away.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. But people freak over even one spot. And it's interesting because, as like I don't actually freak over mould, like I just go, oh, clean it, but then I guess I don't know. People are reading I mean, I know that it's serious, like I'm not saying it's not, but there's mould and there's mould.
Speaker 2:I mean, we've dealt with it for years, right for sure. But I think, yeah, the longer we live, the more I guess evidence and facts facts are behind. I guess what it can do, and I think maybe that's what scared people. Maybe and the whole COVID, I guess pandemic as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's a big thing for us with the ventilation and stuff, and we kind of present some information on that. Just a few tips and tricks. If you walk into a property and you can get that musty smell in the first 60 seconds, you know that there's a ventilation issue, whether that's, you know, water on carpets, or whether they're drying their clothes without you know opening a window, et cetera. There's loads of tips and tricks in regard to that. Your ceiling exhaust fans Sparkies will have this little tip and trick as well. If your exhaust fan's on, you get a little bit of toilet paper, chuck it up on your exhaust fan and that should be able to hold up there. If it doesn't, then you can tell straight away that you've got a ventilation issue or your exhaust fan has failed.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So that's a good tip for property managers when they're trying to work out whether it's enough suction, because there are tenants that might say, oh, it's not suctioning enough or it's not working enough. So that's a good tip. A couple of things that come up that I think will be relevant for property managers are the ducted EVAP. When you have turned it on and you haven't used it for a while, that musty smell you're saying you're going to get, is that something like? Would it be reasonable for us to say to a tenant listen, it's because you haven't used it for a while. Just blast it for like I don't know half an hour and just wait for that smell to go? Would that be fair or not fair?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it generally depends on the system and most systems now have, like they call it, pre-wetting cycle, so that means that they're not going to turn the system on. It's going to be dry air in the house because you'll get that smell a lot more significantly. But if they've got the pre-wetting cycle the water will drip down the pads and then the fan will kickstart. But yeah, generally, if they can have it go through that cooling cycle first, perfectly, the old school ones have got like a switch on their wrist on pump fan free switches. Just make sure, depending on like how much they know, that they're turning the pump on before they turn the fan on, otherwise you're going to get that stout musky kind of smell, got it, and then they freak out again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but it's good for us to understand that, because it is a call that a property manager will get.
Speaker 1:So if you can sort of help them work through that before getting someone out there, just in case it's not needed. Then the other thing you mentioned about closing vents. Now, the first thing that a couple of things come to mind. The first thing was could a tenant just close the vents? Because, just because our way, I mean every state will be different, but in WA there might be times where people want to use it in winter.
Speaker 2:Like I sort of like feel like a bit funny about recommending a shutdown when it's like, but they might want to use it.
Speaker 1:So if we were to just if tenants were to just close the vents, would that do any like long-term damage with that?
Speaker 2:you know, I mean, obviously you've got a bit of air velocity getting in through the system. The pads that are open, you're still gonna have a bit of wind velocity getting in through the system. Yeah. The pads that are open, you're still going to have a bit of wind going down there. Yeah. But no matter how much you close them vents, they're still going to pass through a little bit of air, yeah. So I can't see it doing too much damage realistically, If anything you might have a.
Speaker 1:It's not like it's airtight or anything?
Speaker 2:is it Evaporative systems compared to reverse cycle systems, which Paul kind of goes into the support hub? Air care, which we'll get into in a bit, is when you're using an evaporative system, you need to have your doors and windows open because it's such a high velocity of airflow. So you've got to make sure that when the vents are open normally when you're running it in summer, if you're sitting in the living area, your living room window or door needs to be cracked somewhere because the air needs somewhere to go. If it doesn't, it's going to whistle the hell out of the house and that's when you start to get cracked ceilings because the air is trying to escape but it can't. So just knowing how to use the system for one is massive.
Speaker 1:I feel like that should just be such common knowledge.
Speaker 2:It's not, though, and then we'll go to reverse cycle ducted systems, where they've got doors and windows open, and they'll be like, oh well, that's how we got told to use it. I'm like, no, you've got the wrong way around. So yeah, so that's obviously letting in hot air. It's just like you run into, yeah, crazy issues that shouldn't be issues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I have asked this question before, but when with the evap units and when you are obviously making sure that tenants have got the windows cracked, it doesn't need to be a lot, does it it?
Speaker 2:doesn't need to be a lot. Maybe 100 mil, 50, 100 mil, I guess. Yeah, yeah, what's 100 mil of that? Yeah, yeah, but obviously it's helpful if you've got fly screens. You don't want to be letting bugs and stuff in the house. Correct yeah, yeah, be mindful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. Now let's get into the air care support. So you've just launched, I think, the air care support hub. Can you explain a bit about how that works, how it's designed for property managers or for tenants?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have been launching this for like two years pretty much. We started it as just an education portal for us. One of my good friends was like a digital creator at the time, so he would come into kind of studios like this with the camera set up and he would record me doing a few videos that we always had to end up telling tenants and property managers. So we recorded a fair few videos. We made it a tenant portal so tenants could log on. There was a username password which was like tenant underscore tenant.
Speaker 2:The idea behind it is, if tenants have got issues, this is their first point of call. Over the years it's kind of progressed and we're going for a few final stages now which I'll get the PM collective team to have a look over. Their input would be actually really valuable on this. So, yeah, basically just an open platform just on our web page called the air care support hub that's a new name as of maybe a week ago, yeah, and basically it's open to everyone.
Speaker 2:So it was first just tenants, but then we thought, look, we deal with a lot of resi tenants, a lot of commercial tenants and a lot of private clients as well, and all the information on there is realistically for all of them, to be honest. So yeah, we've created it as a first point of call for them to go to. It will basically give them education on the system they've got. The big thing is sometimes you'll go to a house, property, not sure what system you have got, so for them on the portal itself is how to identify one the system they have got and then it will kind of go through a kind of a chat flow of issues. So, for instance, maybe I can do it on my phone now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and while you're looking for that, so is it something that like generic enough that if people are in a different like state that are listening to this podcast, they could still use it because it's still giving them information about like the split system? A?
Speaker 2:hundred percent. Yeah, I guess your PM collective guys over recent stuff they might not use. Or you know, queensland et cetera might not use evaporative systems but they might use reverse cycle. So all of this stuff is realistically Australia-wide for sure. Let's see if I can maybe just put something up here. Here we go.
Speaker 1:I have to edit this out, because it's all these little tools and stuff for property managers that um that are going to be helpful to educate, isn't it?
Speaker 2:yeah, we don't want it to be confusing. We've had a few property managers say I don't need another portal, we get it. There's so much out there that you can use. But I guess the difference between as and like other chat gbt kind of plugins is like it's so broad chat dbt but for us we spent like months and months basically reverse engineering the issue. So if the issue is, uh, water pumps failed, we reverse engineer all of the questions and answers that they would have to go through. The idea is it they get to a stage where they know what system they've got. The tips and tricks they've been given based on that situation are kind of right in front of them and then it will link them to like instructional videos how to clean your return filter, how to find your isolation valve on your evaporative system. There's so many videos that are kind of targeted to their issues they're having and then if we can't help with a video, then it will tell them what photos and information to let you guys know. As the property manager.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amazing that's the idea behind it, because we get sent out as I've said before so many times on mundane issues that we don't need to. So if we can stop that happening and have them rectify the issue safely, then it's a win-win for us and for you guys really.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so this is basically the report hub.
Speaker 1:I know obviously people are just saying but yeah.
Speaker 2:So Aircare Support Hub, we'll click on there.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Chatting page, aircare Support Hub, and this is complete beta at the minute, so we're still kind of working on it really Okay.
Speaker 1:so it sort of works as a bit of a chat so you can go back and forth with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, correct, yeah, so this has just been sorted for the aircon side of things for now, but we will have plumbing electrical on there as well. So at the minute what I'm reading is what type of air-conditioning system are you having issues with? It will give you a list of kind of systems. So, for instance, if I say I've got a wall-mounted split system, it will then come up what is the issue with? Your wall-split system Will not turn on not calling, leaking, smelly, strange noise, other not sure. We'll click on leaking and then it will say is the system leaking inside the property, down the wall onto the floor inside, outside? If we click outside, it will then send them to a video of how systems are supposed to run. It's normal for systems to be draining water externally on calling etc. But we'll click inside.
Speaker 1:Okay, amazing. So with that, for those that are listening, it's sort of like a chat bob but specific for air cons. For those that are listening, it's sort of like a chat bot but specific for air cons.
Speaker 2:Great idea for property managers to be able to help triage that problem, and then I can just see as well. Like what it does, it will link my dodgy English accent video to, for instance, why is my air con leaking internally?
Speaker 1:Cool, and then it links that video Beautiful. So then you can then educate yourself. So tell me, if a tenant was to do that, hypothetically, is there a way that they could copy or save the chat that they've had in that and send it to the property manager?
Speaker 2:100%. Yeah, I think that's our next step just getting all the information that we've given and they've answered yeah, and then even coming to a point where they can send an email to you from that somehow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm not sure how that's going to work or, you know, the information has been copy and pasted, should we have to copy that chat, I would imagine, because I've been playing a little bit with that sort of with other PMC stuff, yeah, so what is really great about that? So make sure you let us know when that's all ready and launched because we will put it into our system and I'll share it with the PM collective community.
Speaker 2:But, like I use, our office uses TAPI, which obviously is a great platform as well, which is great absolutely.
Speaker 1:But there are a lot of people that don't have TAPI, number one and number two it's probably not specific like that.
Speaker 1:One is specifically with the how-to videos and all of that. So what I'm sort of thinking is that imagine if you had a tenant report maintenance to you in whichever way the capacity they do and to be able to have, like, a response to them to say thanks for your air con maintenance, Would you mind logging the information through here so we can, you know, make sure we are sending through a specific work order to the contractor? It only takes them a few minutes. If you don't want to ask the tenant to do it, then you as a property manager could do it and ask them the questions. Maybe it's that a property manager is using that, while they're on the phone to the tenant, tenant's called about the air con, they click onto that hub, they're writing and asking all the questions for the tenant, putting it in there and going great, I'm just going to send you through a video. Can you just quickly watch this? Yeah, and let me know if that works Like that type of service would be amazing.
Speaker 2:A hundred percent, and that's what the girls in the office do Like. If they feel like a video can help the tenant watch, your email, send you this video, watch it. That's what we want. That, the hub to be designed for realistically.
Speaker 1:I love that. And then can we just get you know all the other contractors to do the same, so we've got one for each person.
Speaker 2:So the premise is to have electrical and the plumbing on there, the basic issues Obviously like. This is like the simple stuff and we don't want people to be electrocuting themselves for one. So it's within safe reasoning how to do stuff Correct. But yeah, I mean you could almost use this kind of platform as when you first lease a property to a tenant, yeah, Send them this, make them kind of look over it. For one, they're looking at what system or finding out what system they have got, and number two, it will give them how best to run the system. So already you're eliminating. You know, if we have to go to site and they're, for instance, opening their doors and windows for reverse cycle, they already know the system they've got, how to run it.
Speaker 1:So you could put in there. Can you tell me the best way to use the system?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, straightaway, it will have what you're working on now. What type of system? Wall-mounted system. Do you know how this system operates? Yes, no, obviously. They're hopefully going to press no and it will give them a full video of my ugly mug speaking about you. Know how to operate an evaporative system, what to watch out for, tips and tricks. So, straightaway, they've got that info. Whether they use it or not, like for you guys as a client, if you can offer that to your clients, that's just like you're head and above shoulders.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, there's so many ideas Like I'm even thinking that you have an email that goes out even seven days after the tenant's moved in. Hope you're settling in well, here's a little bit more information about your property.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's just like the Bible. Like you said back about cheese and wine night, and that's what really sent me to to get this back in action was yeah, just, tenants just don't know, and pms don't know either sometimes. So, like and they shouldn't have to really, unless you've got that system in your house, you understand it. But we have got a property manager portal as well, which is we'll just basically have our pricing, insurances, that stuff for them to log on to. Yeah, and there's also a lot more kind of intricate videos on there in regards to, like, what's a PCB? Because your owners are going to ask you the questions and there's videos there for it. So, bear in mind, we're always up for a phone call that's what we're all about or a FaceTime for tenants. That's all we do.
Speaker 1:But if you've got the information at hand to give to your owners and to your clients, then it just makes you look like you know what you're doing, and there's so many new property managers out there as well, young property managers out there as well, young property managers so that will help them be more confident and act more like an expert.
Speaker 2:So I love it. I mean, you've got chat, you've got TV. If you've got someone in Perth WA speaking about the issues that we run into, it's just a no-brainer really.
Speaker 1:And did you mention something about like a QR code and maybe like a magnet?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so every real estate that we use, every tenant at a job, we'll leave a magnet on the fridge with, obviously, our details and a QR code which will link to that portal. Yeah, and we'll kind of go over that portal with them before we leave. So this is your first point of call. Bear in mind there's going to be a few elderly people who don't use that technology, which is fine, but, yeah, we want that to be the first point of call for the tenant to use that before annoying and calling you.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's great, Really really cool. And when we've just started doing a. When I say we, I mean Marissa has been creating in our office our own hub. So the hub will be a like when you open up your computer and your Safari you'll have a hub for our office and pretty much you'll have like the short links.
Speaker 2:It's quite a pretty looking platform. Like a dashboard, Like a dashboard correct.
Speaker 1:So it's a SoCo dashboard. So it'll have like DocuSign, rei, like PropertyMate, it'll have sort of all. So pretty much the team just go in there, they just click on whatever they're using and it also has things like links for their. They just click on whatever they're using and it also has things like links for their minor modification form, pep approvals, et cetera. So that will be amazing because that's how and this is more just to let the listeners know of how like we use things like this, because a property manager would be like that's cool, but you know we don't want another app.
Speaker 1:We don't want another thing to link on. So how do we make that nice and easy for people to have in their day-to-day? So for me, that just simply goes into our hub. So that's the home dashboard for our team. We've also got like Plumbing Bros, for example.
Speaker 2:They've also got their videos Recording platform as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we've got that linked in it, so that the team just knows straight away. Here are all the videos for air con. Here are all the videos for this. Yeah, I've got Joe's old videos on this as well.
Speaker 2:We'll see a young, um unmature Joe for sure, but yeah, they're offering some real good information in the plumbing side, just the basic stuff. So if you've got that electrical plumbing air con, I mean we can add, you know, retick anything you want to add to it. That can be the Bible for them to go off and it's going to help everyone really for sure.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And so yeah, and property managers or business owners just need to work out, like, where is your hub, like where are you putting all of this easy access stuff for property managers to use? And, yeah, recommend that they also create that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, you talked about before the podcast, just the systems that we're trying to as a business owner and you're a business owner just the systems you want to implement to help delegate the mundane tasks that we get asked all the time. So, whether it's you know a script to send to this tenant, or we send this PM video to these guys, like just knowing you've got that hub dashboard and systemize it then, yeah, it makes everyone's time a bit more valuable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's even like, just like from a BDM point of view. I'm just thinking from like new business. Imagine being that office that you explain to your new clients that are, you know, choosing whether to list their property, with you going through all the offerings for tenants. Listen, we have you know. These are the videos that your tenant will receive when we lease out the property. I can see you've got a reverse cycle and just knowing about it like there's just so many ways to look like an expert 100%.
Speaker 2:yeah, as I said before, we don't need to recreate anything.
Speaker 1:We're just using what's there, absolutely, and you guys obviously need to use it.
Speaker 2:It's paramount for you. So even stuff like making sure that your contractors that you use, because we know everyone's not going to use West Australia, but anyone can use it. Originally we had a login and password. That's been gone now so anyone can log into it and use it, which is going to be easier. But, yeah, even like checklists on what should be carried out on servicing is going to be on there as well, what photos should be being attached, so it will help you see what your other contractors are giving you compared to what should be the standard.
Speaker 1:Could I put in like a prompt of can you please help me script an email to my owners about servicing you know? Their air con units. This summer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure That'd be cool. Yeah, we could do like a topless video of like the West Coast boys cleaning an air con Whatever we need to do to get traction.
Speaker 1:Not sure that's going to match my clients, but it might match my tenants. My tenants will be like can I please book that guy in or that guy in yeah.
Speaker 2:It's yeah, the owners. The owners might be the yeah, not the.
Speaker 1:West Oz calendar. No, but hey, that's a good idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I think of the PM Collective. We thought was it Barra and Plumber's all coming together and West Oz. It could be a PM Collective firefighter calendar. You have been thinking about that, haven't you that?
Speaker 1:didn't just come out of your brain just now. Maybe I'm thinking about it too much. To be honest, I am married.
Speaker 2:I like that, but I like the idea of PMC calendar. Yeah, pmc calendar, that could be cool. There you go, that's right, a Christmas gift.
Speaker 1:I really like that. That'd be fun.
Speaker 2:Okay, give me six months to get this body sorted.
Speaker 1:Well, everyone got little gold nuggets today, didn't they? I just got some, the audience got some and yeah, no, that's really awesome. I really love it. So I hope that that sort of this was definitely trying to be more of an educational listen for people. Just to understand number one, you know why parts can take so long, how to be the expert when it comes to your tenants and your owners. Little gold nuggets, like having a portable air con, like just things like that, are really, really helpful for people to have and, yeah, super, super helpful. That was a great discussion. I enjoy it and I'm sure that everyone will get a lot out of that. So thank you for your time, thank you.
Speaker 1:And I look forward to the launch of that hub. When it's ready, please let me know, because I'll get that out to the community as well to start using, and definitely something in our office that's going to be super helpful.
Speaker 2:We'll post it on LinkedIn just as a beta, so we'll get you guys' feedback for sure that would be appreciated Amazing. Thank you.
