When something in your rental stops working, starts leaking, loses power, makes an unusual noise, or otherwise changes, start here.
The PMI James River troubleshooting library is designed to help you find the right problem, try reasonable first checks when they are safe, and know when it is time to stop troubleshooting and send us a maintenance request.
Sometimes the answer is a setting, reset, power source, filter, control, or other simple condition. Sometimes the property needs service. The goal is to help separate those situations without asking you to diagnose or repair equipment yourself.
Key Takeaways
- Start with the problem area that best matches what you are seeing.
- Use only the safe checks described in the specific troubleshooting guide.
- Do not disassemble equipment, work on live electrical components, manipulate gas equipment, or investigate areas that are not normally accessible.
- If there is an immediate safety hazard or active property damage, skip ordinary troubleshooting and use the appropriate maintenance or emergency process.
- If the problem continues after reasonable checks, report what happened, what you observed, and what you already tried. You do not need to diagnose the repair.
In This Guide
- Before You Troubleshoot
- Find Your Problem
- What Safe Troubleshooting Means
- What to Send Us if the Problem Continues
- Troubleshooting Is Different From Routine Care
- Use This Library With Resident Maintenance
Before You Troubleshoot: Check for an Emergency
Some conditions should not be worked through as an ordinary troubleshooting problem. If there is immediate danger, continuing property damage, or a condition where another step could make the situation less safe, stop and use the appropriate emergency or maintenance process.
Examples include fire or smoke, a sounding carbon monoxide alarm, a suspected gas leak, serious water intrusion, sparking or burning electrical equipment, or a condition that appears structurally unstable.
Use our Emergency vs. Urgent vs. Routine Maintenance guide when you are unsure how a maintenance problem should be classified. The Resident Maintenance page remains the main source for PMI James River's maintenance-request and emergency procedures.
Find Your Problem
Choose the area that most closely matches what is happening. A symptom can sometimes cross more than one system, so the individual guides will point you to another problem area when that makes more sense.
- Heating & Cooling
- Plumbing & Water
- Electrical & Power
- Appliances
- Smoke, CO & Gas Safety
- Moisture, Mold & Indoor Air
- Pests & Wildlife
- Doors, Windows & Garage
- Exterior & Grounds
- Interior & Structural Problems
Heating & Cooling
Use this area for air conditioning, heat, thermostat, airflow, and HVAC filter-related problems. The individual guides separate simple control or airflow checks from symptoms that need HVAC service.
Plumbing & Water
Use this area for toilets, drains, leaks, water pressure, hot water, water heaters, sewer symptoms, frozen pipes, and other water-related problems.
Electrical & Power
Use this area when part or all of the home loses power, an outlet or GFCI stops working, a breaker trips, or a light, switch, ceiling fan, or exhaust fan develops a problem.
A whole-home power problem can also be outside the property. Checking whether nearby homes are affected can help distinguish a neighborhood or utility outage from a property-specific electrical problem.
Appliances
Use this area for supplied refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers, garbage disposals, washers, dryers, ovens, ranges, cooktops, microwaves, and similar equipment. Start with the guide for the appliance and symptom rather than opening or disassembling the machine.
Smoke, CO & Gas Safety
Use this area for smoke-alarm and carbon-monoxide-alarm problems and for gas-related safety guidance. A chirp or equipment-status issue is different from an active alarm or suspected gas leak. Active life-safety conditions are stop conditions, not DIY troubleshooting projects.
Moisture, Mold & Indoor Air
Use this area for recurring condensation, unusually high indoor humidity, ventilation concerns, visible mildew or mold, and musty odors. The useful first question is usually where the moisture is coming from and whether normal ventilation or drying resolves it.
- Why is my Richmond rental so humid or full of condensation?
- What should I do about mold, mildew or a musty smell in my Richmond rental?
Pests & Wildlife
Use this area for ants, cockroaches, mice or rats, bed bugs, wildlife intrusions, and other pest problems. The appropriate first steps depend heavily on the pest, where it is appearing, and whether there is an immediate safety concern.
Doors, Windows & Garage
Use this area for lock and key problems, doors or windows that will not open, close, latch, or secure properly, and garage doors or openers that are not behaving normally.
Garage-door springs, cables, off-track doors, damaged glass, and openings that cannot be secured have different safety boundaries from ordinary remote, sensor, latch, or alignment checks.
Exterior & Grounds
Use this area for roof or ceiling leaks associated with weather, storm damage, gutters and downspouts, standing water and drainage, irrigation, trees and fallen limbs, decks, fences, gates, and other exterior conditions.
Exterior troubleshooting should be performed only from a safe, normally accessible location. Residents should not climb onto roofs, use ladders to inspect building components, cut trees, change grading, or open buried utility or irrigation equipment.
Interior & Structural Problems
Use this area for walls, ceilings, floors, stairs, handrails, cabinets, counters, interior fixtures, and possible structural or foundation warning signs.
Many interior issues are ordinary repair items. Conditions involving new structural movement, sagging, instability, wet or deteriorating building material, or a risk of falling material require a different response than a cosmetic crack or loose fixture.
What Safe Troubleshooting Means
Our troubleshooting guides focus on reasonable resident checks that can help resolve a simple issue or give us better information before service is scheduled.
Depending on the problem, that may include checking a thermostat setting or battery, confirming that an appliance has power, checking an ordinary breaker or GFCI, looking for an obvious obstruction, reviewing an appliance control, or checking an accessible filter.
It is also useful to know where your home's electrical panel and water shutoff are before you need them. Knowing where equipment is located is different from performing repair work on it.
Stop when the next step would require meaningful disassembly, specialized tools or knowledge, live electrical work, gas-system manipulation, structural access, hazardous-material disturbance, or an action that could materially increase the risk of injury or property damage.
The specific problem guide controls. Do not continue to a more invasive repair simply because you find instructions or a video elsewhere online.
What to Send Us if the Problem Continues
If reasonable troubleshooting does not solve the problem, you do not need to determine what part failed or tell us what repair to make. Give us the facts that help us route the issue correctly.
Useful information can include:
- the room, fixture, appliance, or equipment affected;
- what the problem is doing now;
- when you first noticed it;
- whether it is constant or intermittent;
- what changed immediately before the problem appeared, if anything;
- any visible water, damage, unusual odor, noise, light, display message, or error code;
- clear photos or a short video when they help show the condition;
- which safe troubleshooting steps you already tried and what happened.
Those details can help distinguish a simple control or usage issue from a plumbing, electrical, HVAC, appliance, exterior, environmental, or other maintenance problem.
Troubleshooting Is Different From Routine Care
Troubleshooting begins when something is not working or behaving normally. Routine care is the ordinary cleaning, upkeep, setup, or seasonal attention that helps the home and its equipment function as intended.
Tasks such as ordinary cleaning, lint-screen care, filter care, basic light or battery replacement, and seasonal preparation may belong in resident care resources rather than in a fault-diagnosis guide.
For weather-related preparation and recurring seasonal checks, use our Seasonal Maintenance guide for Richmond renters.
Use This Library With Resident Maintenance
This troubleshooting library does not replace PMI James River's maintenance process. It gives you a faster route to the safe first checks that make sense for a specific symptom.
If the guide resolves the issue, no service call may be necessary. If it does not, or if you encounter a stop condition, use the PMI James River Resident Maintenance page for the appropriate next step.
As this library expands, this page will remain the main troubleshooting directory. You should not need to know which trade or contractor would handle the problem. Start with what you are seeing, follow the appropriate safe checks, and report the unresolved condition clearly when service is needed.
Published: August 31, 2026
