Opportunity-Based Maintenance of Buildings’ Envelope

Abstract

More than half of the building’s life-cycle costs correspond to maintenance costs. Nevertheless, maintenance actions are, generally, conditioned by subjective criteria and carried out at inopportune times, which implies that one third of the maintenance costs are improperly incurred. Buildings are multi-component systems and, therefore, the adoption of opportunistic maintenance policies allows reducing the maintenance costs and the number of interventions, while maximizing the service life and the efficiency of the resources available. In this study, an opportunistic maintenance plan is proposed for the buildings’ envelope, combining the maintenance needs of four elements: rendered facades; ceramic claddings; window frames; and pitched roofs ceramic claddings. For this purpose, a condition-based maintenance model is used. The maintenance model is based on stochastic degradation models for the individual components of the system. The optimization of these policies will identify the best maintenance schedule and combination of maintenance activities, finding the optimal trade-off between disruption of the buildings’ use, maintenance costs and their service life. The application of these opportunistic maintenance policies in the building envelope elements allows mitigating the degradation of these elements over the buildings’ life cycle and, consequently, increasing the economy, quality, and aesthetic perception of our cities. This methodology will change the way that maintenance plans are defined, and interventions are prioritized.