Operationalisation of Building Inspections and Repair: Systematisation-Based Approach.

Featured Application: This article applies to building maintenance and the life-cycle assessment of repair operations. The possibility of diagnosing and repairing specific sets of defects (those with more severe consequences and impact on the degradation of building components) with the same means is considered. It is important to optimise the planning and kick-off of building inspections by using, from the start, a predetermined set of equipment and to optimise the maintenance and rehabilitation of the building envelope in terms of funds invested and resources. An existing methodology is used to create inter-defect correlation matrices, taking into account an expert knowledge-based building inspection system. The main results include a set of essential diagnosis methods—crack measuring and monitoring; temperature and moisture measurement; infrared thermography; and water absorption tests—and the identification of the most transversal repair techniques—cleaning; protection coating; replacement/reapplication of claddings/glazing; re-application of finishing coats or more adequate claddings—which were also analysed in terms of resource consumption, as a preliminary approach to their life-cycle assessment. The main conclusions indicate that there is still a long path to cover in the field of life-cycle assessment of repair techniques, which can be extended to the application of diagnosis methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]