Maintainability and Green Buildings
March 4, 2008
I'm Dan Hounsell, editor of Maintenance Solutions magazine. Today's topic is, maintainability and green buildings:
Managers increasingly are involved in conversations that involve the topic of sustainability. Among their challenges in these conversations is ensuring that building designs with features promoting sustainability also are maintainable.
Tim Pennigar, project manager for structural systems with engineering and operations group at Duke University Health Systems, offers some lessons learned in recent years overseeing his organization's expansion with sustainability in mind.
Pennigar says some lessons have been hard won at the cost of significant labor and financial resources diverted to chronically leaking buildings. All of these lessons reflect a belief that high-performance, durable buildings are the product of thoughtful and deliberate intent.
On the subject of building exteriors, he says, "Duke Medicine began taking greater interest in exterior-wall design upon realizing many chronic roof leaks actually resulted from wall defects. A manager can have a bad roof removed and replaced by a more durable roof, but a poorly designed or poorly constructed building facade cannot simply be replaced. More building owners would take an active role in reviewing exterior designs if they realized how much of their annual maintenance budget and labor are consumed by less-than-exemplary original design and construction."
On the subject of construction drawings, Pennigar says, "In some cases, skin-construction drawings are too generic, incomplete, often unrealistic, and provide little or no help integrating critical elements on the building skin. The final product is seldom as durable as it should be, and the manager receives a new building that is prone to a lifetime of chronic moisture and leak problems."
The goal here, Pennigar says, "is not to attempt to dissuade green cynicism or champion the views of green proponents. Instead, the goal is to convince managers the green, sustainability movement is creating a rare opportunity to enhance the performance and maintainability of facilities."
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