A METODOLOGY FOR EVALUATING MAINTAINABILITY AS A TOOL FOR DURABLE AND SUSTAINABLE BUILDINGS

Maintainability is a very important requirement in construction projects for making maintenance and management phases easier and less expensive and achieving durable and sustainable buildings. It can be defined as the capacity of a component to be subjected to maintenance interventions. Nevertheless, maintainability is currently an abstract – although recognizable – concept, that could be very useful for evaluations that could allow, for example, a designer to evaluate the best technological solution or a Public Administration to choose the less expensive among different projects in terms of maintenance. A method for estimating the “Maintainability degree” of a building was implemented and tested in a range of research programs on planned maintenance that have been carried out since 1988. The method is based on an index which considers, through evaluation, several factors regarding the components in which a building can be broken down. This Maintainability Index is able to measure the capacity of a building to be subjected to maintenance interventions