{"id":2842,"date":"2014-06-12T17:40:02","date_gmt":"2014-06-12T17:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/?p=2842"},"modified":"2014-06-12T17:40:02","modified_gmt":"2014-06-12T17:40:02","slug":"maintenance-the-achilles-heel-of-the-built-environment-and-sometimes-the-cause-of-failures-and-accidents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2014\/06\/12\/maintenance-the-achilles-heel-of-the-built-environment-and-sometimes-the-cause-of-failures-and-accidents\/","title":{"rendered":"“Maintenance”: The Achilles’ heel of the built environment, and sometimes the cause of failures and accidents"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s not very glamourous<\/strong> <\/span>– and it does cost money, but if a structure is not maintained as designed and constructed it won’t perform as intended.\u00a0\u00a0Poor maintenance\u00a0can actually be the cause of a building or civil engineering structure failing, or an accident occurring.<\/p>\n

Examples<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

For example, I investigated a slip and fall accident on a stair landing\u00a0at a retail outlet several years ago.\u00a0 Residual detergent from cleaning the landing was a factor in causing a man to slip and fall and\u00a0injure himself.\u00a0 The detergent reduced the skid resistance of the floor material covering the landing from adequate to inadequate.<\/p>\n

Another example was the classic failure of a soil-steel bridge – a very large, corrugated steel culvert, carrying a road over a stream.\u00a0 My forensic investigation found that the water corroded the hunches of the culvert causing it to collapse injuring a car driver.\u00a0 Corrosion of the hunches – a critical part of a soil-steel bridge, is a classic fact of life for these types of bridges.\u00a0 Better design, and regular inspection and maintenance would have prevented the failure.<\/p>\n

To be fair, I’ve not\u00a0seen reference to the need for proper maintenance on very many design and construction drawings over the years, if any.<\/p>\n

Maintenance part of design and construction<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Yet\u00a0proper\u00a0inspection and maintenance is\u00a0part of the design and construction process.\u00a0 I noted this in a blog a couple of years ago on the failure of the Elliot Lake parking garage (Ref.\u00a01)<\/p>\n

So, how’s an owner to know?\u00a0 It seems, at the very least, that if you observe deterioration in your structure then you know you no longer have what was originally\u00a0designed and built.\u00a0 And no longer what users of the structure understand it to be – as serviceable and safe as originally\u00a0intended.<\/p>\n

Coming along every now and then and ‘restoring’ a structure doesn’t count because what you’re restoring is the effects of poor or no maintenance.\u00a0 Regular maintenance is what counts if a structure is to reach its design life.\u00a0 This is the length of time a structure is\u00a0designed to be serviceable.\u00a0 It is\u00a0quite an important concept in engineering design.<\/p>\n

Mysterious report on parking garage maintenance<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I was reminded of the importance of proper maintenance when I read an item on the enquiry of the Elliot Lake parking garage failure in\u00a0a recent MacLean’s magazine. (Ref. 2)\u00a0 There was frequent reference to maintenance in the two page item.<\/p>\n

I also see\u00a0an item\u00a0in today’s Chronicle Herald, Halifax, about the\u00a0maintenance needs of the 4,300\u00a0bridges in Nova Scotia – and the fact the money may not be there for all the maintenance necessary (Ref. 3).\u00a0 Or\u00a0some of the money that is available might perhaps be\u00a0better spent\u00a0on other projects.\u00a0 The\u00a0item noted that maintenance must be done on some bridges just\u00a0to get them in fair <\/em>or good\u00a0condition.\u00a0 Does that mean some bridges in Nova Scotia are in poor<\/em> condition?<\/p>\n

The MacLean’s article was reporting on the mysterious appearance at the enquiry of a report from the Ontario Ministry of Housing, circa 1988, written by an expert advisory panel on the “Deterioration, repair, and maintenance of parking garages”.<\/p>\n

The new-found report wasn’t the first to sound the alarm about\u00a0“rotting parking garages”.\u00a0 CMHC (the Canada Mortgage and Housing Cooperation) issued three research reports in the 1980s\u00a0about the\u00a0deterioration in parking\u00a0garages.<\/p>\n

The answer<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Regular inspection and repair – maintenance when carried out on a regular basis, was the answer running through the reports.<\/p>\n

This was also the answer to preventing the failure of the soil-steel bridge.\u00a0 Simply walking through the culvert at low water, noting any corrosion, and fixing it.\u00a0 I did this at several\u00a0intact soil-steel bridges in eastern Canada\u00a0– simply walked through them, during my investigation of the failure.<\/p>\n

The need for cleaning a soapy residue from a stair landing at a retail outlet is not very glamourous maintenance work but simple to do.<\/p>\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Cause of the roof collapse at Elliot Lake<\/em>, posted July 10, 2012 http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/10\/cause-of-the-roof-collapse-at-elliot-lake\/<\/a><\/li>\n
  2. Elliot Lake: Warning signs, long forgotten<\/em>, MacLean’s Magazine, June 9, 2014<\/li>\n
  3. Chronicle Herald<\/em>, page A5, June 12, 2014<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    It’s not very glamourous – and it does cost money, but if a structure is not maintained as designed and constructed it won’t perform as intended.\u00a0\u00a0Poor maintenance\u00a0can actually be the cause of a building or civil engineering structure failing, or … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,16,17],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2842"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2842"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2859,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2842\/revisions\/2859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ericjorden.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}