Maintenance contract that includes repair and spare parts in addition to servicing, usually with exclusions. More expensive, but easier to plan than basic servicing.
Full-service maintenance (Vollwartung) is a maintenance contract that, besides servicing, also includes repair and spare parts, usually with exclusions. The operator pays a fixed flat fee and gets what the contract says, even if something fails. The counterpart is basic servicing, where only planned servicing is covered by the flat fee and repairs are billed extra. Full-service maintenance costs more but is easier to plan, because the risk of an expensive failure rests with the contractor.
What matters is what is not in it. Frequently excluded are damage from operating errors, vandalism or force majeure, retrofits required by new rules, modernizations, inspection fees and major components. Which parts count as major components is a matter for the contract and has to be listed. Some contracts include only wear parts or only certain assemblies. Only the parts list in the contract tells you. Do not wait until the damage has happened to clarify whether a repair falls under the flat fee.
For landlords, full-service maintenance has a catch. For elevators, the German Operating Costs Ordinance allows the costs of supervising and caring for the installation and of regular checks of operational readiness and safety (§ 2 no. 7). The costs of repair, on the other hand, are not operating costs (§ 1(2) no. 2). Because the flat fee contains both, the repair portion has to be taken out before the costs go into the billing. The contract should therefore show how the flat fee is split between servicing and repair. For commercial space, what the parties have agreed applies.
What matters
- Ask for a list of the parts that are included and those that are excluded.
- Have the share of servicing and repair in the flat fee stated, if you pass costs on.
- Check the price adjustment and the term, because miscalculations add up over the years.
- After a few years, run the numbers on whether full service was actually cheaper than basic servicing plus individual repairs.
Suppose an owner compares basic servicing and full-service maintenance for two elevators. He sets the repair invoices of recent years next to the difference between the flat fees and asks the service company which of the listed parts a full-service contract would have covered. That makes the price difference traceable, and he decides on figures rather than on a hunch.
In the original wording
“the costs of operating the passenger or freight elevator, these include the costs of operating power, the costs of supervision, operation, monitoring and care of the installation, of regular checks of its operational readiness and operational safety including adjustment by a skilled person, as well as the costs of cleaning the installation”
Unofficial translation
“Operating costs do not include: […] the costs that must be incurred during the period of use to preserve the intended use, in order to properly remedy structural or other defects arising from wear, aging and weathering (maintenance and repair costs).”
Unofficial translation