The article "The High Cost of Neglecting Maintenance and Cleaning Ease in Building Construction"

The article "The High Cost of Neglecting Maintenance and Cleaning Ease in Building Construction: Why Prioritizing Aesthetics and Construction Budget Could Be a Costly Mistake,"

EASE OF MAINTENANCE & EASE OF CLEANING are two fundamental aspects Construction Companies and owners should consider when choosing the type of material, equipment, design, and assets for building construction in order to unbridle the true value of systems & assets over the course of their life cycles in context to facilities & asset management that usually comes in the picture post construction.

However, it has been noticed in the industry that aesthetics and cost considerations take precedence in the materials selection, equipment, design, and assets, with no consideration and complete disregard for the challenges that the maintenance teams and the housekeeping teams would later face over the assets life cycles, simply because during construction time clients wanted to maintain the expenses within budget or even if budget is available just because some designs look a certain way and would be more appealing to the occupants or potential visitors.

Since the operational costs make up between 80% and 70% of the total cost of ownership and are ultimately managed by FM companies, they must be given proportional weightage in the initial decision-making process. Additionally, no material selection or design changes should be approved without the prior consent of knowledgeable FM professionals.

A unique type of flooring was recently selected by one of the clients for a flagship project solely on the basis of aesthetics, with little thought given to maintenance and cleaning over the course of its lifespan, the challenges and cost associated are far outreaching the initial budget estimates now and technical challenges associated with cleaning & maintenance are now also affecting area aesthetics as well.

In another case, the client installed ceiling-mounted HVAC units, with no proper maintenance access from under the ceiling, and no maintenance catwalk was installed because of budget constraints, which led to water leaks because of an improper design of the drain that could not be fixed because of the absence of safe maintenance access and damaged the very costly pieces of equipment in the electronic lab. It happened because the client could not add some budget for the maintenance catwalk, which led to collateral damages that were far over the initial budget requirements of the construction of the maintenance catwalk.

Hence, whether it is about safe maintenance access or where clients want to explore intricate architectural or civil designs, it is advisable to start with a pilot project. Then involve other stakeholders so they can study and observe if there are any maintenance challenges, safety concerns, cleaning issues, long-term environmental impacts, challenges with future expansion, scalability, etc., and they can provide their official report with all findings before issuing final approvals to full fledge installations, these suggestions must be considered; otherwise, changes to the initial concept design or material choice must be made to fulfill the minimum FM or Maintenance standards requirements over initial cost & aesthetics.

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