Will institutional and commercial facilities leaders ever learn?
You might think leaking roofs, crumbling facades and inefficient HVAC systems would prompt institutional and commercial organizations to pay more attention to deferred maintenance and properly fund maintenance and engineering departments responsible for repairing, maintaining and renovating facilities.
You’d be wrong. No matter the situation or problem, most organizations continue with business as usual, seemingly oblivious to the deteriorating condition of buildings and the resulting harm to occupants.
Maintenance and engineering managers understand the problem all too well. For decades, it has fallen to them to do more with less, stretch their dollars and generally cover for the mistakes that building owners, facility executives and taxpayers continue to make by not properly funding building repairs, maintenance and upgrades.
The central role of maintenance in facility performance came up again during a recent panel discussion at the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo on the need for a national indoor air quality standard.
“Operations and maintenance are key parts of the effort,” said Brian Gilligan, a session panelist and acting director of the Office of Federal High-Performance Buildings for the U.S. General Services Administration. “You can adopt standards, but if you’re not maintaining them, you’re not going to achieve your goals.”
You might hope the alarming condition of the air in many public buildings — especially school classrooms — prompts states to adopt a model standard and organizations to comply by properly funding facility upgrades.
Those two hopes might turn out to be true, but one thing is definitely true: However the effort to improve indoor air quality in public buildings turns out, maintenance will be critical to its ultimate success.
Dan Hounsell is senior editor for the facilities market. He has more than 30 years of experience writing about facilities maintenance, engineering and management.
