DIFFICULTIES SURROUNDING HOUSING MAINTENANCE

ESV Odunaiya, Ibironke Elizabeth

Universally, housing or shelter is acknowledged as the second most essential human need after food, and one of the major economic assets in all countries. Nigeria has witness significant and geometric growth in population in the past decades. This growth has inevitably been accompanied by increased demand for housing services amongst other things. Housing provision involves a commitment of costs which are expected to be realized over the economic life of the building. For this to be accomplished, housing units require maintenance in order to prolong their physical, functional and economic life. The inability or failure of housing developer to adhere or adopt proper maintenance strategy usually results in economic loss. Meanwhile, deterioration of housing began immediately after the completion of housing project. Hence, the impacts of maintenance to stem the rate of deterioration cannot be quantified to prolong the economic useful life of the building.

Housing maintenance is all encompassing and is involve the maintenance of the building infrastructures and other facilities such as road network and associated drainages, pedestrian walkways, security post, police post, shopping facilities, purpose-built playground for children, parking spaces, Medical and Health Care Facilities, Open Spaces and Green Areas, Street light, Perimeter Fencing, Worship Centres, Functional Storm Water, Refuse Collection Bins and Disposal, Public Power Supply, Public Water Supply and among others.

Poor maintenance of the building shell, interior, and its surroundings continue to add to the acute shortage of decent homes in Nigeria.

The cultures of most housing developers both public and private are to build more without adequate maintaining the existing ones.

Maintenance is like the last leg of a relay team and the lubricating oil of an engine which is a component of a conclusive phase of sustainable development.

Good quality Housing is one of the three basic necessities of life. Its supply is in most cases inadequate to meet the desires of many people around the globe generally and, Nigeria in particular. The problem is more pronounced in the urban centres due to rural-urban drift in search of employment in both the formal and informal sectors of the economy. This deficit syndrome of Housing stock underscores the need for the preservation of the existing stock in acceptable standard through adequacy of maintenance while concomitantly budgeting for the production of new facilities to increase the available number for occupation.

Building maintenance

Maintenance has been described as work undertaken in order to keep or restore every facility i.e. every part of the site, building and contents to an acceptable standard. It can further be define as the combination of all technical and associated administrative actions intended to retain an item in, or restore it to a state in which it can perform its required function.
The efficiency, convenience, life span, economic viability and appearance of any building can be affected by decisions taken and actions performed at any time in the history of building. The maintenance of the built environment affects everyone continually, for it is on the state of our homes, offices and factories that we depend not only for our comfort, but for our economic survival. Maintenance starts the day the Builder leaves the site. Design, materials, workmanship, function, use and their interrelationship, will determine the amount of maintenance required during the lifetime of the building. Effective building maintenance requires the correct diagnosis of defects, and implementation of the correct remedial measures, all based on sound technical knowledge. It is highly desirable but hardly feasible to produce buildings that are maintenance free, although much can be done at design stage to reduce the amount of subsequent maintenance work.

Types of building maintenance

Building maintenance can be subdivided into two. These included planned and unplanned maintenance.
A. Planned Maintenance: planned maintenance is the type of building maintenance that is well thought out and executed with required training, control and the use of records to a predetermined plan or schedule. Planned maintenance can be subdivided into the following:
i.) Preventive Maintenance: Here, the maintenance is carried out at predetermined intervals, otherwise, corresponding to prescribed stipulation and intended to lower the probability of failure as well as the performance degradation of an item.
ii.) Corrective Maintenance: This takes place after failure has occupied and makes effort to rectify or restore item to a state in which its required function can again be perform.
‘iii.) Predictable Maintenance: This is regular periodic work that may be necessary to retain the performance characteristics of a product as well as that required to replace or repair the product after it has achieved a useful life span.
iv.) Schedule Maintenance: This is also a type of preventive maintenance that takes place at predetermined interval of time, number of operation, mileage etc.
B. Unplanned Maintenance: This is the maintenance that takes place at no predetermined plan. It is referred to as semi-emergency maintenance. This unplanned maintenance can be subdivided into the following:
i.) Unpredictable Maintenance: This is the work resulting from unforeseen breakdowns or damage due to external causes.
ii.) Avoidable Maintenance: This is the work required to rectify failures caused by incorrect design, incorrect installation or the use of faulty materials.
iii.) Emergency Maintenance: This is the work that is carried out in order to avoid serious problems. It is otherwise referred to as day-to-day maintenance.

Reason maintenance is difficult in Nigeria
In Nigeria many challenges are the contributing factors to lack of maintenance of building or make the maintenance of buildings more difficult.

1. Cultural value is major factor which make housing more difficult to maintaining. Nigeria is amalgamation of various cultures and norms. These cultural values vary from one society to another and these values have both direct and indirect influences on human habitation. The relevance of this ethics and belief in the determination of housing form and design cannot be over emphasized as this has caused man to reshape his immediate environment so as to meet desires, satisfy certain standards of construction, space arrangement, hygiene and comfort, by so doing becomes a physical expression of man’s cultural and social system.
   In Nigeria, the predominant traditional house form is the compound house form, which differs in organization and form with the different ethnic settings that made up the country. These variations are the products of the socio-cultural factors and values peculiar to the different ethnic groups.
2. Lackadaisical attitude: lackadaisical attitude of most housing developers in Nigeria contributed to lack of building maintenance. This attitude has had a detrimental impact on the development of the nation’s infrastructure, which is vital and indispensable. One of the measures that might save housing investment from the whole chaos of deterioration is maintenance, which is one of the strides that poor maintenance culture has sent a thousand steps backward.
3. Lack of creation of maintenance plan or schedule: housing developers in Nigeria failed to create maintenance schedule or plan which will help to have long life and economy plan of the investment. The development of comprehensive maintenance schedule that includes routine tasks, such as cleaning common areas, checking HVAC systems, servicing fire extinguishers, and testing smoke detectors have will add value to the property. A well-structured maintenance schedule helps ensure that essential tasks are not overlooked.
4. Lack of employment of capable and reliable maintenance team: Build a network of reliable and skilled management for various maintenance and repair tasks. These management teams should be thoroughly vet contractors to ensure they have the necessary licenses, experience, and insurance. Engaging qualified professionals ensures that repairs are done correctly and to the required standards.
5. Attitude and behaviour of occupants: This is another challenge that really makes maintenance of housing very difficult. The attitude and behaviour of most occupants of the housing sometimes discourage regular maintenance of housing. Without changing the attitude and behaviour of occupants, the efforts may be meaningless or waste of resources.
6. Lack of fund to plan for capital improvements: Maintenance of housing requires adequate funding. Without adequate fund, regular or routine maintenance cannot take place. In null shell, fund is the bedrock of housing maintenance.
7. Building characteristics or complexity of the building: The building characteristics contributed to the factor that make housing difficult to maintain. These characteristics includes: the design, site and materials quality, as well the workmanship. Some housing is designed to the extent that it will be too difficult for the developer to maintain its standard after completion. Such building gets deteriorated on daily bases and the owner has no resource to maintain the standard again.
8. Environmental factors: The environmental factor such as climate and atmospheric or microenvironment conditions as well as natural disasters, generally affect maintenance or make maintenance of building difficult. Climatic conditions such as sunlight, rainfall, wind and humidity have profound effects on housing deterioration. Some materials which have high durability in warm, dry conditions could have a reduced lifespan in very humid conditions.
9. Social factors: The social factor such as changes in the use of the building, intensity of use and third-party vandalism may make the maintenance of buildings difficult to achieve. Provisions could be made at design stage for space layout, floor loading requirement, thermal transmission and types of finishes, fittings and facilities relative to the occupancy rate. A subsequent change in any of these may necessitate new adaptation and accompanying maintenance implications. Vandalism, whether man-committed by the tenant or a third party is a major social factor that affects maintenance.
10. General increase in prices of materials: The increase in building materials can affect regular maintenance of building. This will definitely affects the budgetary allocation to maintaining the property.
11. Number of accommodation units: The numbers of the apartment in the building can affect its maintenance. Building with one to four apartments can easy be maintaining compare to building with five apartments and above.

Conclusion
Regular housing maintenance is a major step towards achieving economic goal and durability of housing investment. In Nigeria many developers are just building housing without considering or have a meaningful maintenance culture. This has make housing maintenance more difficult and the level of building deterioration keeps increasing on daily basis. Lackadaisical attitude, lack of creation of maintenance plan or schedule, lack of employment of capable and reliable management, general increase in prices of materials and number of accommodation units are some of the challenges that confronted housing maintenance in Nigeria. This paper concluded that to have better housing maintenance in Nigeria, all the challenges mentioned earlier need to be adequately addressed.