The hidden cost of maintenance

On most weekdays I drop my wife off at work in downtown Honolulu. I tell people that I work at home but have a 90-minute commute. Both are true. I pick her up from work, too.

Each afternoon there’s a local woman polishing a brass knob which opens an automatic door for people who need wheel chair access to a building downtown. I vary the time I’m downtown by 20 to 30 minutes, yet, there she is, day after day, polishing that brass knob.

Assume that the woman’s job costs some company about $15 an hour, including hourly salary, insurance, taxes, social security, vacations, and so on. Also assume that she devotes only 30-minutes a day to knob polishing. Keeping that brass knob polished results in some staggering numbers over the years.

Maintenance for the knob polishing is $38 a week. On average, $165 a month, and almost $2,000 a year. If the same knob has been in use in the building for only 10 years, the maintenance cost is now $20,000.

That’s $20,000 to polish a knob on a building door, and doesn’t include the rags or polishing cream costs.

Extend that same kind of math to mowing the lawn and trimming weeds around a state building in Honolulu. Assume the building’s lawn area requires four hours of lawn care– mower, trimming, fertilizer, and whatever else is needed– each week, and the maintenance worker costs the state $25 an hour. That’s $100 a week, $5,200 a year, or $52,000 over a 10 year period, and doesn’t include materials costs, or equipment.

It’s likely that some of our government buildings in downtown Honolulu have lawn care every week and it’s been that way for many decades. Maintenance costs may not be much of a total annual budget, but it never ceases. I’m all in favor of grassy areas and shiny knobs, but I wonder if anyone pays attention to the costs of such glitter.