The costs of building maintenance in developing countries

Abstract

Absence of maintenance systems and lack of foresight with regards to costs are characteristic in the building sector in developing countries. The first part of this work analyses the main causes of this situation. To illustrate this, the second part combines the methodological aspects with the results of a research project on evaluating maintenance costs on university building roofs. The conclusion states the need to consider maintenance costs as a basic factor in any large building policy and also of taking the opportunity of supporting all research projects concerning the evaluation of maintenance costs, their origin, and actions which would optimise the relation between initial costs and use, and overall quality obtained.