After all, our cities are filled with buildings that are hundreds of years old. And in some cases, much older. But the reality is that buildings, just like everything else, depreciate over time. They have life cycles and they need to be regularly maintained and periodically renovated in order for them to survive. This morning I was reading the blog of Witold Rybczynski, who is an author and architecture professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
A few months ago he wrote a post talking about the short life cycle of modernist buildings. According to a recent colloquium at the Getty Center, the average life span of a conventionally built building masonry and wood is about years. And if you are to consider the typical big box retail store, the life expectancy is probably a third of that — if even that.
Usually it is cheaper to just tear down the old box and build a new one when needs change. So we are literally not building them like we used to. It is clear that Witold is unhappy about this shift. Fungi and mold will actually eat away at the surface of wooden materials and many other things. Algae, moss, and other such things will hold water, and lead to a greater amount of wear and tear on the exterior of the home.
A clean home will also be less likely to attract bugs and other pests. In terms of damage to your home, rats and termites are probably the two worst problems. There is a different kind of water damage that can destroy your home and its contents. In a humid environment, metal will tend to rust more quickly, and wood will be more prone to rotting. Pressed wood, especially, is prone to a phenomenon known as hygroscopicity.
A hygroscopic substance will absorb moisture from the surrounding air and hold it in place. Silica gel is probably the best-known example of a hygroscopic substance. Pressed wood and plywood are composed of wood scraps held together with glue. Over time, moisture can and will break down that glue and make the whole thing fall apart. A hygrometer measures humidity, and that will let you know if you have a problem.
We would recommend that you put one in every room of your house. There are two main ways to reduce the humidity in your home. If the wet air is not allowed to settle in one place, its water vapor is not released. One way to do this is by putting a fan in two different windows.
These windows should be located on opposite ends of the house. One fan should be pulling fresh air in from the outside, and the other should be pushing stale air out the window. Another thing you can do is to make use of desiccants. Some have reported success with hanging bags of silica gel, but these will have to be heated outdoors from time to time. We thought that this would be a simple question, and you probably thought the same.
Alas, few things in this world are simple or easy. As it turns out, the lifespan of your home cannot be accurately estimated, because each case is unique. The best thing we can tell you is this: The better you take care of it, the longer it will last.
If you have found our advice to be helpful, you can get even more of it by filling out the contact form below. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Probably the best example of this are the bearings that we are using for the clock. All the rotating parts in the clock require some sort of bearing surface in order to smoothly roll with minimal friction.
However, there are several problems with traditional bearings, which are usually made of a row of hard steel balls between specially-ground tracks called races. Steel or even stainless steel bearings will simply weld together if left for long periods of time, and they also undergo another process called galvanic corrosion if they are separating two metals with different electrical potential.
If you have ever seen the way a penny corrodes when left on another metal surface, this is galvanic corrosion. In addition to these issues, normal bearings require lubrication — but that means regular maintenance — and can attract dirt and grit.
Over 20 years ago when I started this project in researching bearings, we found the perfect solution: an all ceramic bearing created for use in satellites and spacecraft. Made of near-diamond hard industrial ceramics, these bearings were designed to operate without lubrication in the vacuum of space indefinitely. There was only one problem: when I first heard of these bearings, they cost tens of thousands of dollars and were only used in aerospace.
One of the more surprising strategies for longevity is actually to sacrifice some part of the object itself. Some sites have this same quality, like the tombs in the Egyptian Valley of Kings, where the best preserved examples of carvings and colour look like they could have been finished just yesterday. When the grave robbers spent all their time stealing the gold objects out of the tombs, they thought they had extracted all the value, but they left the wall art untouched, which was rare when compared to other sites.
The easily-removed riches in the walls of the Taj Mahal could help preserve the structure itself from looters Credit: Getty Images. The jewel-encrusted walls of the Taj Mahal may also have helped preserve the structure by assuming all the value had been taken out with the gems.
This poses an interesting question for the site we are creating for the clock. Should we have a relatively easy-to-plunder valuable layer that will not harm the clock if it were to be stolen? The final and greatest danger to building anything that lasts is human beings themselves.
It is hard to imagine a more innocuous religious symbol than a Buddha, but it was threatening enough to the Taliban to spend weeks blasting these amazing artefacts out of the cliffs.
Ideological political changes in Afghanistan led to the sad destruction at Bamiyan Credit: Getty Images. How do we make something of value and cultural significance that will not at some point be stolen or destroyed? This is the true question when we ask how to build something like the 10, Year Clock. It is not the engineering of the materials and its workings, but the civilisation around it, which we hope to shape as one that cares for both the present and the future. We hope that by building such things, they challenge us not just technically, but ethically as well.
We hope that they challenge us to become better ancestors. He and colleagues are building the 10, Year Clock. Join more than one million Future fans by liking us on Facebook , or follow us on Twitter or Instagram.
If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc. It is during this 3rd stage that the owners may find that the maintenance budgets established during the 2nd life stage are no longer adequate to address the impending replacement of building assets that have deteriorated and reached the end of their useful service lives. This phase is represented by a noticeable increase in the number of capital renewal projects. This life stage often compels owners to seriously reconsider their historical budgeting practices and to make more reasonable funding allocations for asset renewals as the building moves through life Stage-3 and into Stage Adulthood 30 to 49 years.
The largest and most expensive of all asset renewal projects tend to occur during the 4th life stage. As a result, significant funds will need to be reinvested in the building and the standard operating and maintenance budgets will need to be revisited. Some of the assets have been replaced over the preceding years and the owners and manager are now operating a building with assets at a variety of different ages.
There is no longer a single baseline and the facility managers are tasked with tracking the different assets. Old Age 50 plus years. At this juncture, all the major assets have been through one renewal cycle. Therefore life Stage-5 is essentially a return to life Stage The owners must now prepare for the next cycle of asset renewals as the building moves beyond its 50th anniversary and embarks upon the next 50 years of operations.
The primary focus at this stage is to conduct the prescribed maintenance to preserve the warranties on the new assets, which also includes inspections to identify any warranty defects. During this stage, some young strata corporations struggle to establish appropriate maintenance procedures, including a full slate of maintenance service contracts and maintenance log-books to demonstrate that the necessary due diligence is being done.
When repairs are necessitated, they can be controversial and may result in disputes with the developer and other parties over whether or not these are covered by the warranties. It is important that the owners receive advice from their consultants on how to differentiate between legitimate warranty defects, normal wear and tear and other such matters. Barring any unusual circumstances, there should not be any asset replacement projects during this early stage in the life of the building.
If an asset requires replacement then it has likely occurred as a result of premature failure, misuse or abuse by the owners, force majeur or perhaps some insurable loss.
In very general terms, the childhood stage is characterized by the following: Maintenance. Standard operating and maintenance budgets are typically adequate to operate the building. The strata corporation has now been through two years of teething procedures and should have established the necessary and sufficient preventive maintenance program. Maintenance tasks are focused on a combination of cleaning activities, inspection activities and small miscellaneous repairs. The owners must be careful not to become complacent during this life stage of the building — large expenditures are looming on the horizon and preparations made at this early stage will mitigate the impact of these.
During the first five years, the owners should continue to focus its efforts on preserving the remaining warranties on the assets. A number of relatively small repair projects will arise but these should not have any major impact on the operating budget. Even the best-designed buildings, using the best quality materials, contain a few assets that have short lives.
During Stage-2 the owners will be confronted with a few assets that require replacement. These are typically small projects of relatively low capital cost. However, since these are the first renewal projects in the building, the owners may be taken by surprise and may not be able to put the projects into their proper perspective. These renewal projects do not necessarily mean that the building has problems — rather, the owners must understand that some assets have short service lives. Listed below is a summary of some of the renewal projects that may occur during the second stage in the life cycle of a facility: Water Heaters.
Many building owners are familiar with the replacement of gas-fired water heaters. Circulating pumps.
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