Overview of Building Maintenance

Maintenance for historic buildings: a current perspective

“…In reality, maintenance is rarely regarded as an important approach to conserving historic buildings, with a considerable number of authors claiming that maintenance receives negatively biased judgements. It is believed (Dann and Cantell, 2007, p. 189) that maintenance of historic buildings is always understated and is considered as a “low‐status professional” operation which “does not gain the attention” that it deserves (Dann and Cantell, 2005, p. 44; Seeley, 1993; Son and Yuen, 1993; Milne, 1985, p. 2; Wood, 2003a, p. 75; Wood, 2003b). In addition, building owners have negative perceptions associated with maintenance as they do not clearly see the benefits of this activity.…”

“…All too often, maintenance has been described as the “Cinderella” sector of the construction industry (Wood, 2005, p. 291) and, as Feilden (2003, p. 238) highlights, has been perceived as a “difficult burden”. Other commentators (Dann and Cantell, 2005; Seeley, 1993; Son and Yuen, 1993; Wood, 2003a, p. 75) believe that maintenance is unpopular due to its unglamorous nature and for that reason is often considered as being a slightly inferior activity. It has been shown that a building's significance and vulnerability is key to underpinning decisions for the prioritising of finance and the development of a maintenance strategy, yet this rarely appears to be a focus of decisions made.…”