The building exterior represent a significant portion of overall facility investment. While the overall facility appreciates in value, the roof and building exterior assets depreciate over their designed service life.
Roof and envelope systems can deteriorate from normal wear, severe weather conditions, building movement, improper design, construction and others. Properties should not deteriorate through neglected maintenance. Roof repairs not dealt with after the first signs of failure can result in increased damage to the building and interior finishes potentially generating a loss of occupancy or use. This was becoming an all to familiar case with one of our clients.
After a busy winter period of reactive maintenance, it was proposed by TSL that a full review of the conditions of the roofs, on all building assets was completed. Their portfolio consists of over 60 buildings nationwide, ranging from single story buildings right up 15 story high rise buildings.
The start was to understand exactly what the client wanted to achieve from the surveys and how they wanted the information communicated. Bespoke made survey forms were designed to accommodate the information that was required. This could in turn feed into a bespoke report, which would be uploaded to a cloud portal to hold all of the raw data and finalised reports, accessible by other TSL and the client at any time.
A fundamental part of undertaking this large scale survey, was planning. The sequence of how the buildings would be surveyed based on availability of the building management teams vs the most efficient economic route was of key importance for programming and efficient use of man days.
Once this had been established with what information was available, provisional powered access was on standby so that we could always access the areas necessary to complete the surveys.
The information collected from undertaking this type of survey was immeasurable for our client. It enabled them to:
- Preparing long term investments
- Set CapEx budgets for the maintenance and refurbishment
- Know the condition of each buildings roof, necessary access and safety systems
- Identify immediate repairs required
- Schedule pro active/planned maintenance
- Review long term savings for refurbishment works against continual reactive maintenance costs that arise on diminishing buildings
- Understand current condition of the roof & it’s performance rating compared to a newly refurbished building
The success of this type of survey has entitled TSL to tender and win many refurbishment projects proposed as part of the comprehensive reports. This type of survey is available for not only the roofs but for the entire building envelope.
