A systematic approach to strategic maintenance and renovation planning in multifamily buildings

Doctoral thesis, 2019

The satisfactory lifetime performance of residential buildings is of critical importance to the acceptable energy performance of the real estate sector and the sustained social development of a modern society. Maintenance and renovation planning in multifamily buildings require considered analysis of both the building performance and the total cost accrued over the entire service-life. The lack of a proper long-term plan can lead to financial difficulties specially in older buildings in need of extensive maintenance and renovation measures. These difficulties are more pronounced in less-attractive markets where maintenance and renovation budgets are limited and there are socio-economic problems. Both market and internal deficiencies have made maintenance and renovation planning a complicated task for the housing owners (property managers). These plans should be devised while taking into consideration multiple and often competing criteria in terms of condition, energy demand and service-life cycle costs. Current planning tools/methods are not efficient or capable of addressing the complexity of the problem. This study therefore proposes a systematic approach to strategic maintenance and renovation planning that combines a modified deterioration function with a service-life cycle cost analysis and facilitates planning using a multi-objective optimization process. This multi- objective approach leads to a large pool of alternative maintenance and renovation solutions that helps decision makers in their choice of maintenance and renovation strategies in difficult market situations and/or under budget constraints.