Green Maintenance for historic masonry buildings: an emerging concept

Alan Mark Forster, Phillip Frank Gower Banfill, Kate Carter, Brit Kayan

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    43 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Maintenance is essential for long term performance of any building. It enables the simultaneous retention of value in a structure and contributes to a country’s Gross Domestic Product. The efficacy of maintenance interventions for historic buildings can be assessed based on cost, conformity to building conservation philosophy and increasingly, environmental sustainability. Carbon and energy savings in historic buildings are considered as difficult to achieve due to limited retrofitting capability. Maintenance is one possible mechanism by which it may be possible to achieve carbon savings, initiated through necessary proactive and reactive regimes.

    A model for evaluating the efficacy of maintenance interventions is proposed, utilising material life cycle data and cradle to grave techniques for embodied CO2 determination. Additionally, formulaic expressions can be used to calculate the relative merits of any selected maintenance intervention. Internationally, the model represents a framework for selection of maintenance interventions in relation to cost, philosophy and carbon emissions. The strength of this integrated multi-criteria approach to decision making is that it enables carbon emissions to be accounted for in the determination of efficacy.
    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)656-664
    JournalBuilding Research and Information
    Volume39
    Issue number6
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 31 Oct 2011

    Keywords

    • Green Maintenance, Carbon reduction, longevity, life cycle assessment, philosophy

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