MAINTENANCE AND PRESERVATION OF BUILDINGS

AN OVERVIEW OF MAINTENANCE

1.1 What is Building Maintenance?
Buildings deteriorate over time due to age, environment conditions, usage of the building, method of design, materials used for construction, the method and quality of construction, and the maintenance management of the buildings. Work has to be carried out to ensure that buildings are in a safe, healthy condition in accordance with specified standards.
Building maintenance can be defined as “work undertaken in order to keep, restore or improve every facility, i.e. every part of a building, its services and surrounds, to a currently accepted standard and to sustain the utility and value of the facility”
CONCEPT OF BUILDING MAINTENANCE
BS 3811(1972) categorized maintenance into two parts and some other sub-parts as it was found to be characterized by nature of work done (planned and unplanned maintenance), point of intervention (preventive and corrective maintenance) and time schedule (scheduled and condition-based maintenance),

Types of Maintenance

Maintenance can be categorized into two main types (BS 3811)
(i) Planned maintenance
(ii) Unplanned maintenance.
2.3.1 Planned Maintenance: - Maintenance organized and carried out with forethought, control and the use of records to a predetermined plan. This can further be subdivided into two, namely
(i) Planned preventive maintenance, and
(ii) Corrective maintenance.
(a). Planned Preventive Maintenance- Is the maintenance carried out at predetermined intervals or corresponding to prescribed criteria and intended to reduce the probability of failure or the performance degradation of an item. Preventive maintenance work needs to be carried out at scheduled intervals within the facility’s life time. This is done purposely to ensure continued operation of the facility throughout its life cycle. However, preventive maintenance work can further be subdivided into two namely,
(i) Planned Scheduled Maintenance (PSM)
(ii) Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM)
(i) Planned Scheduled Maintenance (PSM) - Is the preventive maintenance carried out to a predetermined interval of time, number of operations and mileage. This work is carried out within the expected life of the facility and with a specific number of required operations and extent of work.
(ii) Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) - Is the preventive maintenance initiated as a result of knowledge of the condition of an item from routine or continuous monitoring. This work is carried out on the facility based on discovery of its present condition, mostly due to age, through routine or continuous checks.
(b). Corrective Maintenance- Is the maintenance carried out after a failure has occurred and intended to restore an item to a state in which it can perform its required function. This work may be necessitated where for instance defective wall needs to be re-built.

2.3.2 Unplanned Maintenance: - Is the maintenance carried out without predetermined plan. This is work resulting from unexpected break downs or damage due to external forces. For instance a
partly blown-off building roof due to rainstorm will require unplanned maintenance work to make the building continue to perform its function or be habitable to the occupants.