BUILDING MAINTENANCE

INTRODUCTION

Definitions
Maintenance refers to work undertaken in order to keep, or restore a facility/property to
an acceptable standard

 To keep means to maintain to the same or nearly the same physical and functioning
level as original.
 To restore means to put back to the same or nearly the same original physical and
functioning level.
 Acceptable standard means that physical and functioning level which sustains the
utility/property. This is because there is no absolute standard which is satisfactory in
all cases the time.

Maintenance is also defined by BS 3811:1993 as ‘The combination of all technical and

associated administrative actions intended to retain an asset in or bring it to a state in which
it can perform its required function’.
Maintenance management: refers to activities undertaken to make sure that capital
investments are protected as well as ensuring acceptable working environment to users,
depending on the quality of investments and costs in use.

Conservation: refers to the preservation of facilities including their maintenance so that

they continue serving their useful purpose as well as retaining their historical and cultural
features for posterity.

Building Maintenance
Building Maintenance is work undertaken in order to keep or restore every part of the
building and associated infrastructure to a currently acceptable standard and to sustain its
value. Maintenance works include inspection, testing, planning, organising, servicing
classification to servicesbility, repair, refurbishment, re-building, rehabilitation,
reclamation, renewal adoptation and setting standards

Purpose of Building Maintenance

Maintenance is a fundamental and necessary part of strategic asset management. Buildings
must be well maintained in order to support service delivery.

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The primary purpose of maintenance is to preserve, keep or restore a facility/property to
its initial state to the extent practicable or to an acceptable standard so that:
a) It remains in a state that is neither dangerous or injurious to the health of the
occupants i.e. it must maintain health and safety standards for public heath
b) It continues to provide functional utility for which it was intended: as a factory,
mosque, hospital etc.)
c) It retains the value of investments as a capital asset thus continuing to provide
adequate return on investment
d) It presents good appearance: preserving the character of the neighborhood and
enhancing the self-esteem of both owner and occupants.

There are substantial long-term benefits of good maintenance including:

a. assets will perform better
b. their life will be extended
c. operating costs will be reduced
d. users and community members will have a more favorable perception of the
building and its owner

Building maintenance activities

The following activities constitute maintenance works:

i) Servicing: this is the day to day routine chores that maintain cleanliness and
order
ii) Rectification: this is making good faults arising from design, unsuitable materials
or poor construction
iii) Replacement: this involves restoring some worn out materials or components
due to wear and tear or incorrect use

The activities therefore includes all work on existing building assets, including utility
services and external infrastructure within the curtilage of the site that is undertaken to
achieve the following objectives:

 To retain the asset in a condition in which it can perform its intended function.
 To prevent deterioration and failure or extend the life of the asset.
 To restore to correct operation within agreed specification

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  To restore physical condition to an agreed specification
 To recover from structural and service failure
 To obtain accurate and objective knowledge of physical and operating condition
including risk and financial impact for the purpose of maintenance and;
 Partial equivalent replacement of components of the asset

Work excluded from ‘building maintenance’

Work excluded from maintenance includes:

 Improvements and upgrading to meet new service capacity or function
 Refurbishment to new condition to extend the capacity of the asset;
 Capital replacement of major components to extend the capacity or useful life of
the asset
 Upgrading to meet new statutory requirements;
 Operational tasks to enable occupancy and use (e.g. cleaning, security, waste
removal);
 Supply of utilities (energy, water and telecommunications);
 Construction of new assets; and
 Major restoration as a result of natural and other disasters

The key outcomes to be achieved from undertaking maintenance are:

 Functional and operational requirements of the working environment;

 The physical condition and efficient operation of assets is kept to a standard
appropriate to their service function and value to the community;
 All statutory and technical requirements e.g. health, safety, security and reliability.

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TYPES/CATEGORIES OF MAINTENANCE
a) Preventive maintenance
Preventive maintenance is carried out to avoid breakdown of machinery and occurrence
of maintenance problems in buildings and services. Works of preventive maintenance are
carried out on the basis of regular inspection survey.

Preventive maintenance encompasses activities, including adjustments, replacement, and

basic cleanliness, that forestall machine breakdowns. Preventive activities are primarily
condition based. The condition of a component, measured when the equipment is
operating, governs planned/scheduled maintenance. Typical preventive maintenance
activities include periodic inspections, condition monitoring, critical item replacements,
and calibrations. In order to accomplish this, blocks of time are incorporated into the
operations schedule. One can easily see that this is the beginning of a proactive mode
rather than a reactive one. The purpose of preventive maintenance is to ensure that
production quality is maintained and that delivery schedules are met. In addition, a
machine that is well cared for will last longer and cause fewer problems.

b) Corrective maintenance/ Reactive maintenance

This can be defined as maintenance that is required to bring an item back to working order
when it has failed or worn out. It involves all unscheduled actions performed as a result of
system or product failure. Basically, it is an attempt to restore a system or product failure
to a specified condition. Sometimes this type of maintenance can also fall under emergency
maintenance, but not always. There is some equipment in your building that can still
perform without all its parts functioning perfectly, and others you can just do without for
a while.

c) Emergency Maintenance /Breakdown maintenance

Emergency / breakdown maintenance is when something is broken and needs to be fixed

right away. In some way, this aspect of your building is posing an immediate problem. We
like to help complete as much preventative maintenance as possible, to reduce the amount
of possible emergency situations. We have staff on call 24/7 to help, in the event of an
emergency. It means that people waits until equipment fails and repair it. Such a thing
could be used when the equipment failure does not significantly affect the operation or
production or generate any significant loss other than repair cost.

d) Scheduled maintenance

Scheduled maintenance utilizes a previously developed maintenance schedule for each

machine tool. This is much like an oil change on an automobile that takes place every

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three months or 3,000 miles, whichever comes first. Scheduled maintenance can be
considered a part of preventive maintenance known as fixed-time maintenance (FTM).

e) Predictive maintenance

This is a method in which the service life of important part is predicted based on
inspection or diagnosis, in order to use the parts to the limit of their service life.
Compared to periodic maintenance, predictive maintenance is condition based
maintenance. It manages trend values, by measuring and analyzing data about
deterioration and employs a surveillance system, designed to monitor conditions through
an on-line system.

f) Statutory maintenance

I carried when plant such as lifts, boilers, fire systems, fume hoods and air conditioning
systems are serviced, tested and maintained in accordance with legislative or
manufacturers requirements.

g) Periodic maintenance ( Time based maintenance - TBM)

Time based maintenance consists of periodically inspecting, servicing and cleaning

equipment and replacing parts to prevent sudden failure and process problems.

h) Backlog maintenance

This is maintenance that is necessary to prevent the deterioration of an asset or its

function but which has not been carried out.

MAINTENANCE PLANNING AND SCHEDULING

A short definition of maintenance planning and scheduling:

Planning decides what, how and time estimate for a job.

Scheduling decides when and who will do the job. Planning of a job should be done
before Scheduling a job.

Why have a maintenance plan?

The main reason for a maintenance plan is that it is the most cost-effective way to
maintain the value of an asset.

The advantages of a plan are:

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 I. The property is organised and maintained in a systematic rather than ad-hoc way;
II. Building services can be monitored to assist their efficient use;
III. The standard and presentation of the property can be maintained;
IV. Subjective decision making and emergency corrective maintenance are minimized.

When buildings are neglected, defects can occur which may result in extensive and
avoidable damage to the building fabric or equipment. Neglect of maintenance can also
give rise to fire and safety hazards, which could result in building owners being found
legally liable for any injuries

Identifying the maintenance tasks

Your maintenance plan, should contain the following information:

Building element: You should identify each element of the building, including:

 roofs;

 rainwater disposal system, both above and below ground;

 external walls, including doors and

 windows;

 internal structure;

 Building services.

Frequency

Decide how frequently each maintenance task should be carried out. Frequency may
depend on the condition of each building element, and could be:

 Occasional, such as inspecting roof areas and rainwater goods during or after
stormy weather;

 Regular, for tasks carried out at least once a year, such as clearing rainwater goods
every six months;

 Cyclical, for tasks carried out less than once a year, such as testing the electrical
installation every five years.

(Sample Maintenance plan & schedule)

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MAINTENANCE CYCLE

BUILDING CYCLE

Sample Building Maintenance Cycle

The following maintenance cycles are suggested for reference. They are dependent on the
particular circumstances of the building, and the cycles can be adjusted to suit a
circumstances and level of maintenance expected. However, for essential items which
affects safety of the occupiers and the public such as external wall finishes, fire services and

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lift installations, the following suggestions should be regarded as the reasonable cycle and
should not be lengthened.

FACILITY ITEMS OF WORK CYCLE

External Walls Painting  Redecoration 4-5 years

External Walls Finishes  Regular inspection Yearly

 Detail inspection and 5-6 Years
check up
Internal Walls  Redecoration/touching 3 Years
up
 Structural repair When necessary
Fresh Water Supply  Inspect grease, switches Monthly
pumps & check valves
 Cleanse water tanks &
check valves 3 Months
Flushing Water Supply  Inspect, grease, switch Monthly
pumps & check valves
 Cleanse water tanks & 6 Months
check valves
Windows, External  Inspect condition & re- Yearly
Railings & Metalwork fix 2-3 years
 Repainting ( steel &
iron)
Drainage-Roof  Check and cleanse Bi-weekly
drains and surface
channels
Drainage above ground  Check externally for Yearly
defects or vegetation
growth
Drainage -  Check and cleanse 2 Months
Underground manhole 2 Years
 C.C.T.V survey for
underground drains
Lifts  Oiling & servicing Monthly
 Overhaul Yearly
Fire Services  Inspect & re-fix by Weekly
management staff
 Overhaul & report to Yearly
fire services
Department

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  Fire resisting doors 1-2 days
Others  Roofing, floors finishes Yearly

MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT PROCESS

Maintenance management refers to all the plans and activities related to maintenance
work. It outlines the process of directing and leading the tasks of maintenance workers. It
covers multiple expertise areas, including managing inventory, outsourcing maintenance
activities, maintaining vehicles, benchmarking and outlining shop operations. It also
addresses the impact of the maintenance on available resources and the environment.

Maintenance management is crucial to companies because proper maintenance makes

workers aware of the resources with which they have to work. It is interrelated with other
forms of management in a business. For example, it is connected to financial management,
since a maintenance management system determines how maintenance resources, which
have a cost, are allocated and used up.

The process includes:

a) Condition Assessment for Maintenance

Effective building standards requires the following information in order to retain or restore
the same to the desired condition, which in turn primarily determine the cost and timing
of maintenance work
 Applicable condition standards: acceptable standards for each category of building
 The condition of the building
 The frequency of failures
 The type and extent of maintenance work required
 The risks associated with postponement of the required maintained work
 The quality of the building fabric or elements for use

b) Prioritization for Maintenance

 When funds are not enough to carry out all required works some works may be
postponed to the next period that funds are available
 The process of assessing the urgency of the required maintenance and ranking the
work is called prioritizing maintenance work
 The process should be unbiased, objective and take into account as many factors as
possible which affect the importance and urgency of the required maintenance
works
Factors determining in priority rating:
The following factors affect/determine the urgency of required maintenance actions:
 Risk associated with postponement
 The condition of the asset
 The frequency of failure

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  Relative importance of the facility
 Required maintenance action e.g. complexity of the work
 Required quantity of work

c) Resource Requirements for Maintenance

Maintenance works can be undertaken in-house or outsourced or a combination of both.
Whatever the case it’s necessary that the cost items are used to determine the financial
annual estimate for maintenance:
 Material budget:
 Plant and equipment budget
 Manpower budget
 Where work is outsourced, it may be based on term contracts with agreed annual
rates for labour, materials, and equipment particular for routine maintenance. For
major repair works bills of quantities may be prepared as needs arise.

d) Execution of Maintenance Works

 Programming: to obtain best result with cost effectiveness the work should be
programmed according to content, urgency and then translated into weekly and
monthly schedule and upgraded regularly
 Performance improvement: performance monitoring
 Maintenance Management system (MMS): Typical automated tasks handled by
computerized maintenance management system includes the following activities:
 Asset register
 Equipment history
 Resource allocation
 Work order control
 Preventative maintenance
 Corrective maintenance
 Failure reports
 Purchasing and inventory control
 Supplier tracking
 Maintenance cost analysis
 Comprehensive management reporting

e) Development of a Maintenance Policy

BUILDING MAINTENANCE POLICY

Maintenance Policy
Building maintenance policy is a written document, which provides a management
framework to the maintenance personnel to determine appropriate maintenance
strategy and standard.

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