Every property management team has one.
The building that generates more calls than the others. The heating complaints that return every winter. The ventilation issue that gets fixed, only to show up again a few weeks later.
These concerns are usually handled as individual maintenance requests. They may also be telling you something about the building itself.
At the 2026 Canadian Housing and Renewal Association Congress, Enbridge shared an observation that reframes how those calls look: buildings generating higher volumes of maintenance calls are often the same buildings with weaker energy performance.
That connection also surfaced during Maximizing Energy Incentives for Multi-Residential Buildings, a recent webinar hosted by the Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario and presented by Enbridge Gas energy advisors.
The webinar focused on incentives available within Enbridge Gas's Ontario service area. But it also raised a much broader operational question: are recurring resident concerns being treated only as workload, when they could also be early signals of a building-performance problem?
Below, we look at what those signals look like in your own call data, what funding may be available once you spot them, and why investigating your options early can put you in a better position when equipment needs to be replaced.
Recurring calls are more than workload
Handled individually, each issue looks like another service request. Viewed together, recurring complaints can point to a larger pattern.
Aging heating systems and inefficient ventilation equipment do not operate quietly in the background. Residents feel the effects, staff receive the calls, and maintenance teams return to issues that were temporarily resolved without addressing the underlying condition.
The repair works for a while, but the call comes back. When each request is handled separately, the larger pattern can be missed.
That does not mean every comfort-related call indicates an energy-efficiency problem. It does mean that when similar concerns keep surfacing in one building, they deserve more than another isolated service visit.
Your maintenance records already contain building data
Housing providers collect a significant amount of information through resident calls, work orders, and maintenance requests. The opportunity is to look beyond individual tickets and consider what the combined record reveals.
Which buildings generate the most heating, cooling, and ventilation concerns? Are the same issues returning? Are complaints concentrated in particular units, floors, or sections of a building?
Reviewing calls as a rate per unit also gives you a more useful comparison than raw numbers alone. A 200-unit property will naturally produce more maintenance requests than a 40-unit building, but that does not necessarily mean it is performing worse.
Maintenance records cannot diagnose energy performance on their own. They can, however, show property teams where an energy assessment or more detailed equipment review may be worthwhile.
An assessment can then help determine where a building is losing efficiency, which equipment is underperforming, and what improvements should be prioritized. It can also bring information that usually sits in separate places, including utility consumption, equipment age, maintenance history, resident complaints, and planned capital work, into one conversation.
Some planned upgrades may already qualify for support
Energy improvements are often deferred because the upfront cost is difficult to justify alongside competing maintenance priorities. That calculation changes when equipment is already approaching replacement and financial support is available.
During the webinar, Enbridge described two broad categories of incentives: prescriptive and custom.
Prescriptive incentives apply to specific qualifying equipment, including technologies such as condensing makeup air units and hybrid rooftop units. Custom incentives are designed for projects requiring an individualized assessment based on the building, proposed improvements, and expected natural gas savings.
For property teams, this creates an opportunity to look at planned replacements differently. Instead of comparing another standard replacement with the full cost of a more efficient option, it may be possible to access support for part of the upgrade.
For eligible affordable housing projects, Enbridge indicated that qualifying custom projects may receive up to $200,000, covering up to 85% of energy efficiency upgrade costs.
Upgrade costs refer to the difference between the energy-efficient option and the alternative being considered, not the full cost of a capital project. Enbridge publishes the current rates and conditions, and an Energy Solutions Advisor can confirm what a specific project would qualify for.
Even with that distinction, the available support can be significant for housing providers managing older buildings, limited capital budgets, and rising operating expenses.
The impact also reaches beyond the building budget. At the CHRA Congress, presenters noted that roughly 37% of non-market households spend more than 6% of their after-tax income on energy, placing them within the measure of energy poverty discussed during the session.
For these residents, energy performance is closely connected to affordability and living conditions. For housing providers, it reinforces why energy efficiency is becoming an operational and financial consideration, not only an environmental one.
The payoff is not only on the utility bill
The Enbridge webinar included a case study featuring City Housing Hamilton. The project involved installing new makeup air units with heat recovery and variable frequency drives.
Heat recovery captures warmth from outgoing air and transfers it to incoming air, while variable frequency drives allow equipment to adjust its output based on demand.
According to the presentation, the project reduced operating costs and supported resident satisfaction.
That second outcome matters. Residents may never know which technology is operating behind the walls, but they notice whether their homes feel comfortable, whether building conditions stay consistent, and whether the same problem keeps returning.
Energy efficiency projects should therefore be considered through more than projected utility savings. Resident comfort, equipment performance, maintenance demands, staff capacity, and long-term building resilience also belong in the business case.
Investigate funding before you urgently need it
Enbridge emphasized the importance of making contact early in the planning process. An Energy Solutions Advisor can help assess a proposed project, estimate potential natural gas savings, provide an incentive quote, and determine which program applies.
This matters because equipment decisions in property management do not always happen under ideal conditions. A heating system fails during winter, residents start calling, and the immediate priority is restoring service. There is little time to investigate funding requirements or compare alternative equipment.
Planning ahead gives property teams more room to identify aging systems, explore available support, and make a considered decision before an urgent problem limits their options.
While Enbridge’s incentives are specific to its Ontario service area, housing providers elsewhere may find similar retrofit and energy-efficiency funding through governments, utilities, and housing organizations.
Better decisions start with better information
Recognizing a pattern depends on the quality and consistency of the information being collected.
If resident calls are handled differently each time or important details are missed, recurring issues become harder to identify. The information exists across dozens of individual conversations, but the broader pattern stays invisible.
Useful maintenance intake should give property teams clear information about the building and unit involved, what the resident is experiencing, how urgent the concern appears to be, and where the request needs to go next.
This is one of the ways Telelink supports property management and affordable housing teams. Through our specialized property management division, we help housing providers manage resident calls, capture the information required by their processes, distinguish urgent concerns from non-urgent requests, and route calls to the appropriate team.
The immediate benefit is a more consistent experience for residents and less pressure on property staff. Over time, consistently documented concerns also help teams recognize which problems keep returning and which buildings need closer attention.
Better building decisions begin with knowing where the problems are. In many cases, the first signal arrives through a resident call.
Want to see what your maintenance calls could reveal? Reach out to our team to view a sample Property Maintenance Insights Report and see how call data can help uncover recurring issues and support better building decisions.
Please note: Telelink is not a property management company, energy advisor, or incentive program administrator. Telelink is a 24/7 call centre that specializes in servicing the property management industry. The perspectives shared here reflect information presented during industry events, our interpretation of their operational implications, and our experience working with hundreds of property management and affordable housing organizations across Canada. The Enbridge Gas incentive programs described apply to eligible properties within its Ontario service area. Incentive amounts, eligibility requirements, application periods, and program conditions may change and should be confirmed directly with Enbridge Gas.