BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON BUILDING SURVEYING

Who is a Building Surveyor?
A Professional Building Surveyor is a qualified person, by examination and experience, and a member of the Institution of Surveyors Malaysia.

What does a Building Surveyor do?
A Building Surveyor offers specialist services on matters relating to building and property development such as project and construction management, maintenance and repair of building, refurbishment and restoration of old properties, building law and regulation, demolition works and property development.

A competent Building Surveyor is expected to manage, organise, supervise, monitor, evaluate, and coordinate every aspect of building and development work and act as a vital link in the project between all affiliated professions such as architects, engineers, planners and builders. Besides that, Building Surveyors also provide liaison and consultation services aith public and local authorities for the client

WHERE DOES A BUILDING SURVEYOR WORK ?
There is a very good demand for qualified Building Surveyor in local authorities, with housing and building developers, colleges, universities, insurance companies, banking and financial institutions, government and semi-government departments, consultancy firms and research organizations

IN WHICH AREA IS A BUILDING SURVEYOR'S SERVICES REQUIRED ?
The services of a Building Surveyor is required in the following :

Building Control Administration

1. Scrutiny of building plans for all types of buildings (new as well as alterations) and issuance of building approval.
   
2. Imposing and enforcing of legislative requirements of building and construction operations, illegal/unauthorised structures, ruinous and dilapidated buildings.
   
3. Inspection of building works during construction and upon completion, issuance of Certificate For Occupation.
   
4. Upgrading of buildings to new requirements.
   
5. Coordinating the restoration, refurbishment and conservation of buildings of historical importance/cultural heritage etc.

Development and Construction Management

1. Analysis and feasibility study of project.
   
2. Appointment and coordination of consultants.
   
3. Negotiations and contract administration.
   
4. Project management including monitoring and coordinating of development.

Building Works

1. Advice on alterations, extensions and refurbishment of buildings including planning and building applications to local authorities.
   
2. Diagnosis of building defects and advice on remedial works including structural survey.

Maintenance of Buildings

1. Planning and implementation of day to day and long term maintenance.
   
2. Repair and dilapidation advice and negotiations.

Insurance

1. Assessment of replacement costs for insurance purposes. Preparation and negotiation of insurance claims - for fire and structural damage and organisation of reinstatement works

THE OBJECTIVE OF MAINTENANCE

For many organizations, building represents an underutilized asset. Building contents clearly impact a company’s ability to produce its service and product, compete with others, attract customers, and attract and retrain employees. Today, facilities are viewed as strategic business resources. Successful building maintenance is not a function of unexplained, unpredictable and random events. Nor is the failure of any parts of building to perform successfully cause by random chaos. According to Sivert RW (1998), successful building maintenance depends on an in-depth understanding of the purpose, function, customer or user of the facility and the life span of the facility.

The objective and needs of maintenance is dependable. Its enable the owner to be more concern with his building because it can indirectly brings the attractiveness. The objective are:-

To maintain and increase the value of property investment.
Building is the expensive property investment valuation. The physical condition of the building influence the rate of dwellings rental proposes. Therefore, building which in good condition and well organized will attract the people to possess the property.

To obtain an interactive appearance.
Maintenance is an operation to improve the condition of the building in order to preserve the building function. The appearance of the buildings shows the reputation of overalls. It can be determined during the design stage where the selection of materials of finishes must be done intelligently. The combination of building materials must suit to the environment and free from complicated maintenance work.

To retain the function
Maintenance is very important to ensure the consistency of building function is according to the task. A continuous maintenance activity will help to generate an efficient and better life in order to retain its required function effectively

DEFINITIONS AND PRINCIPLES OF MAINTENANCE

The words “By the time we see signs of deterioration on a building, it is too late!” is enough to explain how the importance in doing the maintenance works of the buildings. This phrase is absolutely true. The process of the deterioration is slow and often takes place in a chemical way affecting the property structures of the asset components in various ways. It will take a considerable amount of time before the human eyes can pick out signs of material deterioration

Refer to BS 3811:1974 maintenance can be defined as;

‘The combination of all technical and associated actions to retain an item in or restore it to a state in which it can perform its required function’

The definition explains the purpose of maintenance in order to make good any defect and deterioration. Due to that, it must be carried out with an immediate action to ensure the safety to the users is totally guaranteed. It also recognizes that, subject to a minimum set by the statutory authorities, there is no single state, which will be equally applicable to all the different types of building and circumstances likely to be met in practice. This flexibility, which is admirably suited to an industry whose products are so varied and long lived as those of the construction industry.

Maintenance is a provision of keeping in repair which repair is defines as perform in good condition while cleaning means free of dirt. These simple definitions are preferred to the more elaborate terminology found in various maintenance manuals, although there is relative new term ‘terotechnology’ as combination of management, financial, engineering and other practices applied to physical assets in pursuit of economic life cycle cost. Terotechnology approach has highlighted a number of problems within maintenance and design departments. It’s all embracing tries to reconcile the factor of management skill, cost, process of allocating work and the structure of organizations.

The committee of Building Maintenance argued that, given the long life of building, acceptable standards of amenity and performance will rise over their lifetimes. As for that reason, they had overcome for other meaning of maintenance to comprehend the understanding of owner towards the importance of carrying maintenance work in their building with acceptable standards.

The committee of Building Maintenance then therefore defined maintenance as;

‘Building maintenance is work undertaken in order to keep, restore or improve every facility, i.e. Every part of a building, its services and surrounds to a currently acceptable standards, and sustain the utility and value of the facility’

The question of acceptable standards rest, in most cases, within the owner or user of the building. It is possible to maintain some items to a level above that originally achieved. This may be due to present standards and qualities being higher, or different from those at the time of the original construction. So whilst the item may have been maintained it might be also having been improved. The definition indicates two broad strategies for maintenance. In keeping work is carried out in anticipation of failure that is preventive maintenance, whilst in restoring a failed item is replaced called as corrective maintenance.

From all definitions given, shows that the understanding of maintenance is needed to enable the organization who carry out the maintenance work knows what they should do and its limitations.