Maintenance Priority Setting for Private Residential Buildings in Hong Kong
Publication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 31, Issue 3
Abstract
Buildings are being constructed at an alarming speed as a result of unlimited demands around the world. However, lack of initiatives from building owners in undertaking systematic and planned preventive maintenance for privately owned residential buildings has become a contributing factor to premature aging and dilapidation. Most building owners rely on building professionals to take up the responsibilities of maintenance works. Building maintenance becomes a major concern of most building professionals in Hong Kong. However, maintenance budgets do not always meet the ever-increasing needs. Priorities must be set for different aspects of maintenance works. Priority setting is normally based on the professional knowledge and experience of building professions such as property managers or building surveyors, whose attitude may affect the priority setting and the decision making. Maintenance priority setting refers to establishing priority for different maintenance aspects. This paper investigates the attitude toward maintenance priority setting from building owners and building professionals by examining (1) the opinions on professional knowledge and experience that affect maintenance decision making; (2) the overall standards of private residential buildings; (3) the responsibilities for proper upkeep of the buildings; and (4) reasons for building deteriorations. A questionnaire survey among building owners and building professionals was conducted. The building owners and building professionals generally agreed that buildings are of poor quality, although the building owners do not believe that the proper upkeep of the buildings is their responsibility. The owners’ lack of awareness, lack of voluntary initiatives, and unwillingness to bear the maintenance cost are the three most common reasons for building deteriorations found from the survey results. The paper suggests improving awareness of building maintenance by providing seminars to owners and the public, and increasing the maintenance budget for residential buildings.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
References
Audit Commission. (2015). “Maintenance work.” ⟨http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/⟩ (May 4, 2015).
Buildings Department. (2015). “Maintenance work.” Legislative Council, Hong Kong Government, Hong Kong, China ⟨http://www.bd.gov.hk/⟩ (May 3, 2015).
Costa, C. A. B., and Oliveira, R. C. (2002). “Assigning priorities for maintenance, repair and refurbishment in managing a municipal housing stock.” Eur. J. Oper. Res., 138(2), 380–391.
Home Affairs Bureau. (2015). “Maintenance work needed in Hong Kong.” ⟨http://www.hab.gov.hk/en/home/index.htm.⟩ (May 2, 2015).
Keijzer, E. E., Leegwater, G. A., de Vos-Effting, S. E., and de Wit, M. S. (2015). “Carbon footprint comparison of innovative techniques in the construction and maintenance of road infrastructure in the Netherlands.” Environ. Sci. Policy, 54(12), 218–225.
Legislative Council. (2008). “A comprehensive strategy for building safety and timely maintenanceImplementation plan.” Task force on building safety and preventive maintenance, Kowloon, City Univ. of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Leung, A. Y. T., and Yiu, C. Y. (2004). Building dilapidation and rejuvenation in Hong Kong, Hong Kong Institute of Surveyors, Hong Kong.
Lo, S. M., Lam, K. C., and Yuen, R. K. K. (2000). “Views of building surveyors and building services engineers on priority setting of fire safety attributes for building maintenance.” Facilities, 18(13–14), 513–523.
Ng, S. H., Pong, R. W., Kam, P. K., and Ho, C. (2004). The quality of life of residents in five urban renewal districts, Kowloon, City Univ. of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Pantha, B. R., Yatabe, R., and Bhandary, N. P. (2010). “GIS-based highway maintenance prioritization model: An integrated approach for highway maintenance in Nepal mountains.” J. Transp. Geogr., 18(3), 426–433.
Pitt, T. J. (1997). “Data requirements for the prioritization of predictive building maintenance.” Facilities, 15(3–4), 97–104.
Seeley, I. H. (1987). Building maintenance, Palgrave, New York.
Shen, Q. P. (1997). “A comparative study of priority setting methods for planned maintenance of public buildings.” Facilities, 15(12–13), 331–339.
Shen, Q. P., Lo, K. K., and Wang, Q. (1998). “Priority setting in maintenance management: A modified multi-attribute approach using analytic hierarchy process.” Constr. Manage. Econ., 16(6), 693–702.
Shen, Q. P., and Spedding, A. (1998). “Priority setting in planned maintenance—Practical issues in using the multi-attribute approach.” Build. Res. Inf., 26(3), 169–180.
Shen, Q. P., and Spedding, A. (1998). “Priority setting in planned maintenance—Practical issues in using the multi-attribute approach.” Build. Res. Inf., 26(3), 169–180.
Transport and Housing Bureau. (2015). “Building management and maintenance consultation.” ⟨http://www.thb.gov.hk/eng/index.htm.⟩ (May 3, 2015).
Wang, B., and Xia, X. (2015). “Optimal maintenance planning for building energy efficiency retrofitting from optimization.” Energy Build., 96(6), 299–308.
Yip, H. I., Fan, H. Q., and Chiang, Y. H. (2014). “Predicting the maintenance cost of construction equipment: Comparison between general regression neural network and Box-Jenkins time series models.” Autom. Constr., 38(3), 30–38.
Yusof, N. A., Abdullah, S., Zubedy, S., and Najib, N. U. M. (2012). “Residents’ maintenance priorities preference: The case of public housing in Malaysia.” Procedia Social Behav. Sci., 62(10), 508–513.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
©2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jul 16, 2015
Accepted: Sep 23, 2016
Published online: Nov 29, 2016
Discussion open until: Apr 29, 2017
Published in print: Jun 1, 2017
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.