What is building maintenance?
Building maintenance is generally understood to mean maintaining the original structural condition and functionality of a building. Accordingly, building maintenance includes the following four individual measures: maintenance, inspection, repair and improvement. All buildings go through a final inspection to ensure compliance with building codes but these required measures are intended to keep the building in good operating condition for the occupants. In addition, continuous building maintenance maintains the value of a property in the long term.
Building maintenance and repair must take into account internal and external demands as well as established maintenance goals and strategies. If problems with the building go undetected, it can lead to additional operating costs, preventable health and safety damage, and reputational damage due to a bad reputation.
A building maintenance checklist helps facility managers and maintenance teams monitor inspections and actions to ensure they are performed safely and reliably. Maintenance costs are defined in the II BV (Second Calculation Ordinance). This also includes the measures necessary for the elimination of structural and other defects during the useful life to maintain the intended use.
This article covers the following:
1.The four individual measures of building maintenance
2. Cost-effective solution for better maintenance planning
The 4 individual measures of building maintenance
Each of the following individual building maintenance measures contributes to maintaining the value of a property. In all four areas, building maintenance checklists can be used to support the work processes and planning of measures. They support a structured way of working and efficient processes.
1. Maintenance
Regular maintenance inspection measures can prevent sudden failures of components, equipment and technical facilities. Devices and technical facilities include electricity meters, elevators and heating systems. Building components are, for example, the roof and the facade.
A regular and smooth implementation can be ensured by developing a maintenance plan. This contains information on the location, date and the respective measure. In addition, it ideally addresses the specific concerns of the property, the device or the component. Maintenance work should always be performed by qualified professionals.
2. Inspection
Inspection measures are used to record the current actual condition of the building. This involves determining the causes of wear and tear, damage and alterations. If possible, inspections should be carried out by a technician or building specialist. This records its observations and findings in writing and photographically, so that ultimately appropriate countermeasures are identified and taken.
3. Repair
Repair includes all actions previously identified to maintain or restore either the original condition or general functionality of a property, equipment or component. If regular inspection takes place, the decay of an object, expensive repairs or complete new acquisitions can be counteracted.
In addition, the individual measures include the preparation of the implementation, the agreement with the commissioned craftsmen and ultimately the actual implementation of the repair with final acceptance and functional testing.
4. Modernization
Some modernization measures result from legal requirements that must be implemented. These include the acts, which require modernization for greater energy efficiency. Additional requirements can always be added. Other measures outside of those required by law, can be an increase in living space, barrier-free use options, change to alternative energies to high-quality technical equipment.
Cost-effective solution to maintenance and repair problems
Planning and monitoring building maintenance and repair involve a lot of work. Building managers often struggle with controlling the total cost of ownership, incurred costs, recording, and subsequent data analysis. A mobile inspection app can serve as a cost-effective maintenance management system that can easily identify maintenance and servicing issues, extend the life of components, equipment, and technical facilities, and prevent critical system failures.
With Lumiform’s digital app and desktop software, maintenance teams and facility managers can:
- Add photos and notes to the report while the inspection is still in progress
- Increase efficiency of internal processes: With more efficient communication within the team, with third-party vendors and with management, and faster reporting of repairs, they are resolved up to 4x faster than before.
- Bundle all inspection results automatically into one report and send immediately to all involved persons.
- Conduct comprehensive analysis, uncovering causes of wear, damage, and change faster.
- All data is stored centrally and is always accessible.
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