Planned Preventative Maintenance

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What is Planned Preventative Maintenance?

Planned Preventative Maintenance is a type of maintenance that is completed intentionally and at regular intervals. Its purpose is to ensure the structure and fabric of a building, including mechanical and electrical installations, remain in good working order.

What is a Planned Preventative Maintenance survey?

A Planned Preventative Maintenance survey is an inspection of a building to ascertain its present condition and considerations relating to future maintenance liabilities. A survey report is produced, which presents this information in a clear and concise manner, with cost budgeting information provided relating to immediate and future anticipated maintenance repair work.

Should we consider having a Planned Preventative Maintenance survey?

If not already an important consideration, the operation and performance of a building should form an integral part of your business operations.

Our task as building surveyors providing Planned Preventative Maintenance surveys is to assess and inform our clients on the condition of their building, along with any implications to health and safety compliance.

When inspecting the condition of our clients’ buildings, we often find defects are present. It is our intention to highlight the presence of these, their importance and to help correct defects before they deteriorate and become major issues or worse, breakdown occurs, causing costly downtime in business operations.

Our goal is therefore that before this occurs, we can apply our knowledge and experience of how building fabric and installations contained within a building will operate and perform and interact with one another, and in conjunction with this, to anticipate when future repair or replacement will be required.

A well-prepared Planned Preventative Maintenance report will encompass predetermined intervals at which point planned maintenance will occur. Typically, and depending on the use of the building, this can typically range from up to 10 years.

Our intentions are therefore clear, in that when we consider Planned Preventative Maintenance, our aims are to:

• Provide our clients with a thorough understanding of the present condition of their building, with a clear and concise formatted report to demonstrate this information.

• Help our clients understand what allocation of budget is required to maintain their building. 

• Afford better financial planning for those responsible for the operation of a building and preparing planned maintenance expenditure.

• Enable the consideration of planning for capital expenditure works in conjunction with revenue/operational expenditure.

• Plan for events where building fabric and mechanical and electrical installations will require replacement.

• Review statutory compliance and health and safety matters of a building.

• Promote business continuity and eliminate, mitigate or manage the risk of downtime in building operation occurring.

• Minimise disruption to our clients business operations.

• Enhance the lifespan of the asset.

• Ensure the building fabric and building services remain functional and reliable, therefore retaining the value of the property. 

What does Cre8’s Planned Preventative Maintenance service include?

Initially, we complete a desktop study, reviewing all available building and maintenance records. A scoping inspection of the building is completed, which provides an opportunity to review how the property operates and whether any health and safety matters require special consideration.

During this time, we meet with our client to discuss any present concerns they may have with the operation of the building, its fabric, and mechanical and electrical installations. We review a proposed report format and often tailor this to meet the individual needs of our client.

We complete a full condition inspection of the property, covering all internal and external building fabric, and undertake a detailed review of all mechanical and electrical installations. We make good use of our in-house drone technology to inspect high level areas.

Once the inspection has been completed, we prepare a planned preventative maintenance report, providing a detailed analysis of our findings. Any maintenance repair work identified within this report is prioritised over a predetermined time period, and detailed cost estimating is incorporated. 

Once the planned preventative maintenance report is complete and a copy has been provided to our client, a follow up review meeting is arranged. The purpose of this is to review the report in further detail, providing additional context, and to enable a questions and answers session.  

What is included in a Cre8 Planned Preventative Maintenance report?

A typical planned preventative maintenance report prepared by Cre8 provides an introduction into the use of a building along with a summary of budget costing.

A building estates and data report is included, which provides an overview of our findings, along with any significant issues recorded.

A compliance data report is included, recording the building operator/occupier statutory duties, relating to building fabric and mechanical and electrical installations. Commentary is typically provided relating to asbestos management, access provisions, fire risk assessment, energy performance, and fixed electrical and mechanical installations.  

A predetermined condition classification category ranking is confirmed, and maintenance data schedules are prepared separately for both fabric and mechanical and electrical installations. A detailed review of each individual part of the building, referred to as an ‘element’ of a building, is reviewed, and is clearly identified with its location, a description of what it is, its present condition, and whether any immediate maintenance repair work is identified, or whether should be anticipated soon.

Any associated maintenance repair is then prioritised over a predetermined duration of typically over 5 or 10 years. A photographic schedule of each element accompanies the survey report, along with reference plans of the building.

What happens once the Planned Preventative Maintenance service is completed?

Strategic maintenance advice.

As building surveyors, Cre8 provide expert advice in this field.

Once the condition of a building asset is fully established, with planned maintenance work and cost expenditure established over a predetermined time period, a strategy, or often several, are proposed and put into action.

When developing maintenance strategies, unfortunately, there is no one size fits all. There are often many considerations that need to be reviewed, from the operation and use of the building to the result and effect of downtime of operations and peak business activities. It is therefore critical that we establish the priorities, benefits and any shortcomings of each strategy.

The determination of the best planned maintenance strategy will require the input and performance of all those connected within the building and organisation. With the sense of being problem solvers, we always operate a no stone left unturned approach.

Considering such matters and our ability to apply decades of logistical project experience, we are best placed to assist or clients with this.

Would you like to know more about our Planned Preventative Maintenance services?

A little bit about our Planned Preventative Maintenance experience.

Since the beginning of our careers, we have been deeply involved in planned preventative maintenance. Our experience of inspection, reporting and provision of strategic advice on the condition of buildings, and management of programmes of maintenance work have spanned across a wide range of organisations. They include:

• Royal Mail Group Property Ltd.
• Post Office Ltd.
• Parcelforce Worldwide.
• Salvation Army (housing stock and places of worship).
• NSPCC Property.
• Brathay Trust (charity).
• Abbeyfield Care Homes.
• Diocesan Trusts (primary and secondary school education.
• Private Academy Trusts (primary education).
• The Education Funding Agency.
• MAG Property (Manchester, East Midlands, and Stansted Airport Group).
• South Ribble Borough Council (offices).
• Chorley Council (offices, town hall, and leisure centres).
• Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council (offices).
• Greater Manchester Combined Authority (residential).  
• Private investors.
• Asset and Property Managers.

If, like us, you believe that ‘prevention is better than cure’, and you want to keep your building in good order, increase its value, and lower the risk of unfortunate disruption to business activities, Planned Preventative Maintenance should be on your radar. To find out more about how we can help with Planned Preventative Maintenance, contact us here.

We are RICS Chartered Building Surveyors and Project Managers; and registered members of the Association for Project Safety. We provide expert building surveying, project delivery and programme management services to public and private sector clients, both locally in the northwest and across the United Kingdom.

An interesting fact for anyone?

We recently found an article that stated ‘unfortunately, maintenance is not considered a glamorous aspect of construction’. We disagree! A publication by BCIS (the Building Cost Information Service provided by RICS), titled, ‘Economic Significance of Maintenance 2022 Report’, found that maintenance poses a major contributor to the UK economy. Within this publication, it is reported that in 2020 £64bn was spent on maintenance, accounting for just under 3% of the UK Gross Domestic Product. From this expenditure, £35bn related to housing stock and the remaining £29bn, related to non-housing. The output of UK contractors for repair and maintenance provided 34.1% of the total construction output in 2020.

Blimey!