If you're new to FM, the language can be confusing. Reactive maintenance, PPM, break-fix, planned, scheduled. Different providers use different words for similar things. The actual concept underneath is simple, and getting the balance between them right is one of the most important decisions in operating a property.

What is reactive maintenance?

Reactive maintenance (also called "break-fix") is maintenance carried out in response to a fault or breakdown. Something stops working, you call someone, they come and fix it.

Examples:

  • A leak in the toilets
  • A lighting circuit tripping out
  • AC failing on a hot day
  • A locked door that won't open
  • A blocked drain

Reactive work is unpredictable. You don't know when it will happen, you don't know what it will cost. But it's unavoidable: even the best-maintained property has reactive jobs.

What is PPM?

PPM (Planned Preventative Maintenance) is maintenance carried out on a schedule, before things break. Servicing boilers, testing fire alarms, replacing filters, inspecting emergency lighting. The point is to catch problems early, extend asset life and stay compliant.

Examples:

  • Annual commercial boiler service and CP12 certification
  • Six-monthly fire alarm service to BS 5839
  • Monthly emergency lighting function test, annual full-duration test
  • Quarterly air conditioning service and F-Gas leak check
  • Annual EICR (every 5 years for the full report, but ongoing checks in between)

PPM is predictable. You know when it's happening, you know what it costs. It also covers most of your compliance obligations.

The cost trade-off

The conventional FM wisdom: £1 spent on PPM saves £4 to £8 on reactive. That's a rough industry rule, but it's directionally true:

  • Reactive jobs cost more per visit (urgency, out-of-hours surcharges)
  • Reactive jobs often involve damage that's avoidable (water damage from a leak that PPM would have caught)
  • Reactive jobs disrupt operations (kitchen closed, store closed, tenant frustrated)
  • Reactive jobs accumulate: failure to PPM means more breakages

The flip side: PPM has its own cost, and over-PPMing (servicing things more often than they need) is real money wasted.

Compliance: not optional

A chunk of PPM isn't really optional. It's compliance-driven:

  • Gas Safe checks (CP12, CP42): annual minimum, legal requirement for commercial gas
  • Fire alarm tests (BS 5839): six-monthly servicing, monthly user tests
  • Emergency lighting (BS 5266): monthly function test, annual 3-hour test
  • EICR (BS 7671): every 5 years for commercial premises
  • F-Gas leak checks: frequency depends on system size
  • Legionella controls (L8 ACoP): frequency depends on water systems
  • Lift LOLER: six-monthly thorough examination

This baseline of compliance PPM is non-negotiable. Whether you call it PPM or "compliance" or "statutory inspections", it happens on a schedule.

What gets PPM-ed vs left reactive?

Two factors decide:

1. Asset criticality

If failure stops operations, costs serious money or has safety implications: PPM it.

  • Boilers in a hotel: PPM
  • Fire alarms anywhere: PPM
  • Refrigeration in a food retail unit: PPM
  • Lifts in a multi-storey: PPM (and LOLER inspections)

2. Predictable wear vs random failure

If something wears predictably with use (filters, belts, batteries), PPM works. If something fails randomly (a tap washer, a single light bulb), reactive is fine.

What does the right balance look like?

Rule of thumb: in a well-run commercial property, PPM should cover roughly 60-70% of annual FM spend, reactive should be 30-40%. Higher reactive ratios usually mean PPM is being underdone.

This varies by property type:

  • Office building: more PPM-heavy (predictable systems, planned maintenance pays back)
  • Retail unit: balanced (compliance-heavy, but high-traffic causes reactive demand)
  • Hotel: PPM-heavy (operational criticality, guest experience, plenty of plant)
  • Build-to-Rent block: reactive-heavy by job count (resident demands), but cost is balanced
  • Warehouse: PPM-heavy if there's significant plant, light otherwise

How an asset register transforms this

The starting point for a sensible PPM regime is a complete asset register. Without it, you don't know what needs servicing, when, by whom, against what compliance schedule.

A modern FM platform builds the asset register as you go: every engineer attendance updates it. Service intervals are tied to asset types. PPM jobs auto-generate. Compliance certificates lodge against the asset that generated them.

How Avero handles both

Avero FM Works runs reactive and PPM on the same platform:

  • Reactive: log a job from any device, dispatched live to an Avero FM Approved contractor, status visible to everyone.
  • PPM: schedules built from the asset register, jobs auto-created at the right cadence, dispatched, certified, evidence stored against the asset.
  • Both: same engineers, same platform, same accountable team. No re-keying between systems.

If you want help getting the balance right on your property, get in touch for a walkthrough.