A study and assessment of water penetration and rapid deterioration in existing dwellings-developed as a guide to future building design, production and maintenance management

This research has examined the problem of deterioration of building materials by water in relation to the consequential reduction in the National resources. It has considered the various agencies of decay that are associated with water and shown their effect on some selected building materials. Proper attention paid to design, construction and maintenance will minimize these effects and some salient aspects have been considered. Many faults in original design and construction do not lead to early deterioration, and so it is rarely possible in such cases to look to those responsible to make good their failures. It was necessary to consider how moisture reaches susceptible building materials and it was found that whereas precautions were taken to prevent moisture from entering the structure from outside, much deterioration could have been reduced if sufficient thought had been given to moisture from within. Deterioration of buildings eventually reaches a stage where remedial works become necessary. The first essential is that the cause or causes of the damage should be correctly determined. This mainly presents little difficulty but there are some cases where the apparently obvious cause is not the real one, and these often lead to incorrect and ineffective remedial measures. The importance of the correct diagnosis of damp problems in existing buildings has been greatly emphasized and some of the more significant areas where incorrect diagnosis has been found to be most prevalent in practice have been identified and appropriate measures discussed. However, whether the problem has been correctly diagnosed or not, remedial works inevitably follow. These were often found to have been inadequate as they were confined to repairs to the apparent damage with little attention to its cause. Future maintenance expenditure could be reduced if maintenance were considered at the design stage. Good design would effectively help to reduce the amount of deterioration, with no action by the users. Specific maintenance requirements can be communicated to the subsequent users in the form of maintenance manuals. However, the correct and effective execution of maintenance is mainly under the control of the building owner and a first requirement is to produce a maintenance policy. It was seen to be extremely difficult to describe the required levels to which buildings must be maintained and some ideas for defining standards were described. This study indicated that certain key areas in the organization and management of maintenance had to be identified in order to provide a suitable structure for the efficient execution of maintenance on a large scale. The maintenance objectives were defined, priorities established, and recommendations made that would reduce some of the inefficiencies that were apparent. The ultimate objective was that some of the annual maintenance expenditure which is of the order of £1,550 million should be conserved for beneficial use elsewhere.