CAUSES AND REMEDIES OF POOR MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC BUILDING

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

Various attempts have been made to give a comprehensive definition of maintenance and to explain vividly what it entails, BS3811 (1964), defined maintenance as the combination of any action carried out to retain an item in or restore it to an acceptable condition.

The standard and level of maintenance of building in any country like Nigeria is invariably directly related to the strength of its economy. As country becomes more developed, they are disposed to require higher standards for buildings.

One of the basic needs of man in life, is Sheller, which is required for virtually all human activities shelter is provided in form of building which are usually designed and erected for a specific use or purpose, such as residential, educational, hospital, etc in order for building to continue to serve their purposes, they should be made to remain in the state for which they were constructed and this can only be achieved through adequate maintenance which in most cases is not carried out leading to various defects which may ultimately prevent these buildings from continuously serving the purpose for which they were built.

Maintenance is required throughout the life span of the building so that the various elements are kept to standard consistent with the overall policy. Feedback from user to designer is important to indicate success or failure of specified components.

A list of the prevalent maintenance problems in both residential and public buildings in Enugu urban used as a case study for this project includes: leakage roof, rot in roof timber, damages to internal plaster and decoration, possible damage to contents and effect on health of occupants, damages to ceiling board, flaking of wall paints, cracking of walls, broken tiles, wearing – off of floor finishes, broken , broker PVC pipes and damage to soak away pit.

One of the main contributions to the deplorable state of our buildings is the attitude of our building owners. The problem with most Nigeria building owners is that they do not know what they want in their buildings when completed. This therefore compounds problem to designers during briefing and decision making. The owners may need a complex building without considering the convenience of construction. They may not even be ready to involve themselves with high cost buildings which they need.

Question put out to owners of buildings as regards maintenance plans for their buildings could not be answered because there was no maintenance plans in place for their buildings.

The need for maintenance is prevalent in Nigeria because of the complex nature of design of the building which are finally erected without considering the needs of maintenance at the design stage. Owners are usually concerned with the aesthetic nature of the design and the building appearance without considering the needs for maintenance of the ways of going about to effect repairs should defects occur. Some of the main cause of maintenance problems are; new material and construction techniques, poor workmanship, poor placement of materials, poor materials been used poor supervision of construction work, lack of quality control and monitoring.

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1.2 Statement of the Problem

It is often said that building defects start on the drawing board. Design deficiencies could result in a building disaster if adequate attention is not given to the design of the bearings support, calculations, errors, deformation, shrinkage problems, errors in assumed loading (wind force), all these could contribute to building failure and disaster in Nigeria work and also make it easier to perform, since good maintenance begins on the drawing board, therefore some of the problems are as follows:

1. Inadequate architectural design
2. Inadequate structural, electrical and mechanical design
3. New material and construction techniques
4. Lack of quality control and monitoring
5. Poor workmanship, poor placement of materials and poor supervision of construction work.
6. Use of defective materials
7. Lack of routine or preventive maintenance department and lack of maintenance manual.

In Enugu urban used as a case study, the prevalent maintenance problems in both residential and public buildings include leaking roof, rot in roof timber, damages to internal plaster and decoration, possible damage to contains and effect on health of occupants, damages to ceiling board, flaking of wall paints, creaking of walls etc all these are the likely maintenance problems in Nigeria by extension.

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1.3 Aim and Objectives of the Study

The aim of this study is to investigate the common problems of building maintenance in Nigeria so that ways of over coming the problems may be adopted.

Objectives

The main objectives of this study are:

1. To spell out the need for and benefits of maintenance manual to buildings owners and the occupiers in the maintenance processes.
2. For the government to put in place maintenance policy that will require government owned building to be maintained from time in Nigeria.
3. To go for market survey in terms of making choices on the type of materials to be used and go for good quality material e.g. paint, timber, ceiling board tiles, pipes etc.
4. To make provisions for good workmanship, to work according to the specification, to do the job as required in terms of construction techniques and also make sure the job is well supervised at the early stage.
5. To provide a good design plan to avoid effects as time goes on and to make sure the structural, electrical and mechanical engineers carried out their jobs properly.
6. The government should also provide a maintenance department especially for public buildings.

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1.4 Research Questions

The question this research intends to find answers to are:

• Do the owners and occupiers of buildings know the benefit of building maintenance manual?
• Does the government have maintenance policy that will enable them own a building to be maintained in Nigeria?
• Do the owners and occupiers of building go for good quality material?
• Do the owners and occupiers of building make good use of available workmen and artisans, work according to specifications, construction techniques and supervision of the work at the early stages of construction?
• Do the architect; structural, electrical and mechanical engineers carry out their jobs properly at the early stage?
• Are the public building owners and occupiers aware of maintenance department?

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1.5 Scope and (Delimitation) of the Study

This research shall be limited to some selected public buildings in Old G.R.A Enugu State. Most of them are quite easily accessible and in terrible state of disrepair. This study focuses on types of maintenance, maintenance policy formation and methodology, concept of maintenance, maintenance manual maintenance management and execution of maintenance work.

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1.6 Significance of the Study

The significance of this research work is that:

1. It will benefit the researcher on the above topic based on the fact that the topic of discussion is from her discipline, because no knowledge is a waste and it will also be of benefit to the forth coming researcher (student) who may wish to carry out similar or related research work in the above study and as such it can serve as reference material to the researcher. It also be of benefit to government.
2. The study will also benefit the building industry on how to manage and up date their information technology level so as to meet up with customer expectation in their daily transactions.
3. The study will also be of profit to the society at large because maintenance is highly needed in our society especially in building industry.
4. It will be of benefit to the management of building industry in terms of employing capable hands as staff in the organization.
5. The study will be of benefit to the owners of the building even to the occupants as well.

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1.7 Definition of Terms

Maintenance:

This is the combination of any action carried out to retain an item in or restore it to an acceptable condition.

Retaining and Restore:

Retaining process can be interpreted as the work carried out as a preventive nature in anticipation of failure of certain building elements or services. The restoring on the other hand can be related to those work carried out after failure of the elements or a service has occurred like. Paint, work, roof, wall, foundation etc.

Acceptable Condition:

There is no specific standard as the phrase “acceptable condition' it is obvious that what is acceptable to “A” may not be acceptable to “B” in that sense the acceptable condition, varies from person to person, one community to another, nation to nation and so on.

Building Maintenance Manual:

This is comprehensive guide, which will include appropriate from and log books for maintenance of a building prepared by a consortium of registered Architect, registered building and registered engineers.