EFFECT OF FAULTY DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION ON BUILDING MAINTENANCE

The study examined the effects of faulty design and construction on the maintenance of building. A survey of randomly selected samples of 20 builders and 15 architects were conducted. Questionnaires were used to collect data from Architects and Builders. The survey included 11 groups of defects and sub defects in each groups. The predominant severity effects of each defects was assessed and ranked based on the severity index as ranked by both the Builders and the Architects. The results shows that 7 defects were rated as most severe, 54 as moderately severe and 6 defects as slightly severe defects. The results also show that increase in maintenance work is the most predominant effects on building maintenance among other factors of defect with an index value of 100.00 as perceived by both the rank of the Architects and that of the builders. The research however includes a hypothesis that Architects and Builders generally agree on the ranking of the severity defects which was tested and proven to be true. The study concluded that there should be a design review before finally approving the design for construction; maintenance expert should not be overlooked in the planning stage of the project and most importantly the employment of professionals for any building projects.

‘To fail to plan is to plan to fail.’— (Wood, 2003)

The essence of all result-oriented work may be identified in this quotation. In the context of design one can adapt this phrase to, ‘if a designer fails to plan well the plan will turn out badly’. In understanding this phrase one can use a law of physics as a metaphor. Newton’s third law of force is ‘For every action there is a reaction’. For designers this law could be interpreted as ‘for every design decision/consideration (action) there is a consequence (reaction)’. As such this research tries to explore the actions of design and the consequence of their actions.