Design phase maintenance checklist for structural durability

Previous studies have established that early attention to maintainability during the early design stages of building projects provides for delivering high levels of comfort to building occupants and reducing maintenance budgets. This paper identifies and assesses the set of structural durability design defects that are attributed to lack of maintenance manager's feedback to the design team. The research confirmed the importance of all the identified design defects based on the assessment of the maintenance experts in the 13 public Saudi Arabian universities that operate and maintain significant building stock in their campuses. The paper presents a set of validated maintainability design review checklist for consideration by design professionals, in order to reduce the likelihood of occurrence of the identified defects. This paper serves to promote awareness among the various stakeholders in the construction industry about the earned benefits of knowledge transfer from the operation and maintenance field to the design team. It is of significant value to design professionals endeavoring on designing maintainable, cost-effective building projects; and maintenance professionals aiming to provide effective services to occupants and property owners.