Maintenance issues
Planned maintenance activities
The range of potential maintenance activities is enormous. Defining what constitutes planned maintenance may be important for organisational, administrative and financial reasons.
A useful framework is to view maintenance activities within a continuum that involves increasing time and cost.
| Maintenance activity | Fabric components | Service components | Time and cost |
| Checking |
Visual inspection Testing |
Visual inspection Testing |
|
| Maintenance which does not affect the underlying components or assemblies |
Cleaning Adjustments, lubrication Surface redecoration |
Adjustments, lubrication Periodic overhaul |
|
| Maintenance which alters components or assemblies |
Minor repairs Major repairs Replacement |
Minor repairs Major repairs Replacement |
Planned maintenance activities
What constitutes a planned maintenance activity? There is no simple answer.
The British Standard definition for planned maintenance '... maintenance organised and carried out with forethought, control and the use of records to a predetermined plan ...' does not preclude corrective maintenance. Indeed an organisation may have plans for all types of emergency or responsive maintenance activities and may organise to carry out the maintenance operation with forethought, control and the use of records to the predetermined plan.
Ultimately what is considered planned maintenance needs to be defined individually for each organisation and building.
Planned maintenance may be defined by reference to:
- Time - maintenance activities that are planned a year in advance, for example.
- A life cycle cost plan that indicates replacements and maintenance activities over a long period, say to 100 years.
- Established lists of maintenance activities such as included in Estimation of the need to spend on maintenance and management in the Local Authority housing stock, ODPM, 2003.
Examples from the latter include:
| Maintenance type | Fabric - timber windows | Services - lifts |
| Urgent responsive repair | Replace cracked or damaged glazing | Replace lift controls following failure or vandalism |
| Unplanned failure of 'short life' components | Replace timber windows | Replace lifts |
| Non-urgent programmable minor repairs | Piecemeal repair of rotten timber window sills | Periodic overhaul |
| Planned periodic renewal of subcomponents | Renew sealant around window frame | Replace call panels |
| Planned cyclical works | Repaint or restain timber windows | Inspect and service lifts and controls |
This view of what a maintenance operation is includes most operations - from light bulb changing and window cleaning (which contribute to the building's acceptable condition) to operations such as brickwork repointing and reroofing (which contribute to the building achieving its anticipated life). It is difficult to think of an operation which does not qualify as a maintenance operation!
Operations that extend a building by new building are not maintenance operations but the waters start to get murky when we consider operations which can be considered 'improvements' such as extending a heating system or installing an intruder alarm.
Maintenance or improvement?
The question of whether an operation is maintenance or improvement or 'betterment' may be crucial in some situations, such as in landlord and tenant relationships where the landlord has a responsibility to pay for maintenance but not for improvements. Most operations usually regarded as maintenance operations result in some improvement, if only that which arises from the replacement of a worn out component with an identical new component. But because of continual improvements in technology most new components are improvements on the old components.
It is sometimes impossible to avoid improving things because the original component is simply not available or new legislation has precluded certain component options. For example, replacing single glazed windows with anything but insulated glass units (double or triple glazing) may not be acceptable in most buildings as a result of changes in the Building Regulation Approved Documents, although historic buildings may be exempt from these changes.