How long should buildings last

The New Zealand Building Code requires structural elements of a building, with only normal maintenance, to satisfy the performance requirement of the Code for the lesser of the specified intended life of the building or the life of the building be not less than 50 years.

Given that most buildings do not have a specified life, it always appears to me to a somewhat curious and undefined statement. However, we can take some solace in that most buildings are required to last at least 50 years with normal maintenance.

Mild steel is a major structural element in many buildings and to be durable must resist corrosion, which depends very much on environmental factors and protective systems used. In a dry internal environment very little, if any protection is required to steel structures for them to last at least 50 years. However, in New Zealand external environments the adequacy of the protective coatings is paramount. Protective coatings are not going to last 50 years and therefore the steel structure elements must be maintainable and for that maintenance to be carried out access to the structures is required.

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Most buildings will continue to operate for many decades beyond Life Stage The necessary and sufficient maintenance during each life stage, coupled with timely renewal of assets, will ensure that the owners receive many decades of good value from their real estate investment.

There are two tools that are most valuable to help the owners manage the asset during each of the five life cycle stages. These are:. Question: In an upcoming post we will try to tackle the question of how long should buildings last? Please feel free to add your comments below. There is so much that we still need to understand about the life cycles of buildings.

David is a certified professional reserve analyst, and a specialist in building maintenance and planning. Keep up to date with company news, industry related discussions, best practices and much more with our blog. Oakland, CA. How Long do Buildings Last? During this stage, the building is in the process of being handed over from the developer to the first owners.

The assets are new and are covered under a variety of warranties. During this period, the owners have assumed full responsibility for all the maintenance, repairs and long-range renewal planning for the building. With two years of expenditure experience, the owners have established a preventive maintenance program and are allocating monies to the long-range reserve fund. The owners are starting to address some relatively small renewal projects, which are addressed in more detail in the next section.

It is during this 3rd stage that the owners may find that the maintenance budgets established during the 2nd life stage are no longer adequate to address the impending replacement of building assets that have deteriorated and reached the end of their useful service lives. This phase is represented by a noticeable increase in the number of capital renewal projects. This life stage often compels owners to seriously reconsider their historical budgeting practices and to make more reasonable funding allocations for asset renewals as the building moves through life Stage-3 and into Stage Adulthood 30 to 49 years.

The largest and most expensive of all asset renewal projects tend to occur during the 4th life stage. As a result, significant funds will need to be reinvested in the building and the standard operating and maintenance budgets will need to be revisited.

Some of the assets have been replaced over the preceding years and the owners and manager are now operating a building with assets at a variety of different ages. There is no longer a single baseline and the facility managers are tasked with tracking the different assets. Old Age 50 plus years. At this juncture, all the major assets have been through one renewal cycle.

Therefore life Stage-5 is essentially a return to life Stage The owners must now prepare for the next cycle of asset renewals as the building moves beyond its 50th anniversary and embarks upon the next 50 years of operations. The primary focus at this stage is to conduct the prescribed maintenance to preserve the warranties on the new assets, which also includes inspections to identify any warranty defects.

During this stage, some young strata corporations struggle to establish appropriate maintenance procedures, including a full slate of maintenance service contracts and maintenance log-books to demonstrate that the necessary due diligence is being done. When repairs are necessitated, they can be controversial and may result in disputes with the developer and other parties over whether or not these are covered by the warranties.

It is important that the owners receive advice from their consultants on how to differentiate between legitimate warranty defects, normal wear and tear and other such matters. Barring any unusual circumstances, there should not be any asset replacement projects during this early stage in the life of the building.