Technical operation of buildings and constructions

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MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND HIGHER EDUCATION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

SOUTH URAL STATE UNIVERSITY

S.N. Pogorelov, G.S. Semenyak, D.V. Ulrikh

TECHNICAL OPERATION OF BUILDINGS AND STRUCTURES Study Guide

Chelyabinsk 2019

Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation South Ural State University Institute of Architecture and Construction

S.N. Pogorelov, G.S. Semenyak, D.V. Ulrikh

TECHNICAL OPERATION OF BUILDINGS AND STRUCTURES Study Guide

Chelyabinsk Publishing center SUSU 2019

Approved by the educational and methodical Commission of the Institute of architecture and construction

Reviewers: PhD Gorbunov S.P., PhD Alabugin A.N.

Pogorelov, S.N. Technical operation of buildings and constructions: Study Guide / S.N. Pogorelov, G.S. Semenyak, D.V. Ulrikh. – Chelyabinsk: Publishing center SUSU, 2019. – 61 p. The Study Guide contains the basic provisions, concepts and terms studied by students of construction specialties of universities in accordance with the state educational standard on the subject «Technical operation of buildings and structures» and often found in the literature on construction. Some of these narrowly professional construction terms were borrowed from the tasks that were given to students during the Internet testing to check residual knowledge. The Study Guide does not pretend to replace textbooks and other teaching AIDS in this discipline and is an addition to them. A distinctive feature of this textbook is the presence of a dictionary of terms used in the operation of buildings and structures, compiled in alphabetical order and the principle of «Russian-English» and «EnglishRussian language». This makes it possible to significantly improve the study of the special terminology of the subject to foreign students who speak English. It is recommended for the training of students enrolled in educational programs of bachelor direction 08.03.01 «Construction» and specialty 08.05.01 «Construction of unique buildings and structures» and can be useful for employees of design and construction organizations.

© Publishing center SUSU, 2019

CONTENTS Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. Fundamental principles of technical operation of buildings . . . . . . . 1.1. Organization of Works on Technical Operation of Buildings . . . . . . . . 1.2. Characteristics of Technical Condition of a Building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3. Service Life of Building. Operational Requirements to Buildings . . . . 1.4. Overhaul of Buildings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5. System of Scheduled Preventive Repair. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5.1. Assessment of Technical Condition of Structural Elements of a Building and a Building as a Whole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5.2. Routine Maintenance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5.3. Overhaul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5.4. Rearrangement of Old Buildings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. A complex 0f activities for maintenance of buildings and facilities . . 2.1. Methodology for Assessing Operational Characteristics of Elements of Buildings 2.1.1. Determining Parameters of Reliability of Engineering Structures . . . 2.1.2. Determining Microclimate Parameters of Buildings and Facilities . . 2.1.3. Determining Parameters of Natural Illumination of Buildings . . . . . 2.1.4. Determining Parameters of the Necessary Thermal Insulation of Enclosing Structures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2. Assessment of Technical Condition and Operational Characteristics of Bases, Foundations, and Basements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3. Operation and Maintenance of Walls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4. Operation and Maintenance of Floorings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5. Operation and Maintenance of Floors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6. Operation and Maintenance of Partitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.7. Operation and Maintenance of Roofs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.8. Operation and Maintenance of Stairways. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.9. Operation and Maintenance of Windows, Doors and Roof Lanterns. . . 2.10. Operation and Maintenance of a Building’s Facade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Protection of objects against flame impingement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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PREFACE The main task of the Study Guide is to give definitions of terms and concepts often found in the technical literature on the technical operation of buildings and structures, as well as the necessary builders in reading, drafting and competent use of design materials and other construction documentation. The basis of this Study Guide are the terms and concepts contained in the curriculum of the General course «Technical operation of buildings and structures» for students enrolled in the direction 08.03.01 – Construction. The content and direction of the manual should provide in-depth knowledge of the discipline. Concepts and terms are arranged in alphabetical order and, as a rule, in the singular, with the exception of some terms that are often used in the plural, such as buildings, structures, antiseptics, binders. INTRODUCTION Operating infrastructure is an organizational set of buildings, territories of households, engineering communications and utilities as well as repair and maintenance services and facilities providing appropriate functioning of buildings. The first peculiarity of operational processes consists in the fact that their influence on a building takes place during an extended period. Many factors such as displacement conditions, an organization of operational procedures, functioning of many systems and elements of a building, comfortable conditions provision and so forth determine the quality of residential and public buildings. Considering that, residential and public buildings are the places of population long-term occupancy, the level of operational processes organization has a great impact on people’s mood what makes up the second peculiarity of an operational process. The third peculiarity of operational processes organization consists in the necessity to know the laws of aging, wearing and decay of civil engineering constructions as well as the reasons, which cause them in order to determine the reasonable terms and methods of work. Erection of new sites and their implementation instead of deteriorated ones determine the entirety of residential and public buildings annual construction. The level of buildings technical operation directly affects buildings wearing and consequently the annual volume of new construction. The lower the level of technical operation is the more numerous will be the buildings, which will deteriorate ahead of time, so additional costs for new construction will be required what makes up the first condition of interconnection of the building design, construction and operation stages. Quality of the construction also affects the cost of repair works and total subsequent costs for the building operation. Therefore, when designing and accept4

ing a building for operation, it is necessary to analyze the efficiency of design decisions taking into account the unit costs related to the standard service life of buildings what makes up the second condition of interconnection of the building design, construction and operation stages. The third condition of interconnection of the building design, construction and operation stages consists in the fact that the space-planning and structural design should be appropriate and reliable in operation. Under the influence of technological factors and the environment, structural elements and engineering systems of buildings generally lose their initial operational properties, that is to say, a building wears out. Such wear is called physical wear. In the course of physical wear, the material wearing of building elements occurs, which causes a loss of the initial physical characteristics that meet operational requirements. In the process of operating a building, repair and adjustment works take place, which reduce the intensity of physical wear. Standard physical wear implies a deterioration of a building with an account of repair, adjustment, and maintenance of engineering systems and structures and, accordingly, makes up the standard building service life. 1. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF TECHNICAL OPERATION OF BUILDINGS A degree of improving a building is the availability of the house utility systems and equipment used to provide the consumers with municipal services, in particular, water supply line, wastewater disposal, gas, central or individual heat supply and other technologies of operational processes. There are distinguished the following degrees of improving: I – advanced improving; II – average improving; III – low improving; IV – minimum building equipping. 1.1. Organization of Works on Technical Operation of Buildings Technical operation of buildings is a combination of measures ensuring trouble-free operation of all elements and systems of a building during the standard service life, functioning of a building for its intended purpose. Functioning of a building is the direct performance of its specified functions. The use of a building not for its intended purpose or partial adjustment for the other purposes decrease building functioning effectiveness. The functioning of a building includes the period from the end of construction to the start of operation, including the period of repair of the building. Functioning of a building 5

includes the period from the end of construction to the start of operation, including the period of repair of a building. A set of measures for the maintenance of buildings comprises two independent groups: technical operation of a building, including maintenance of its elements and public services. Technical operation of buildings consists of the maintenance system, repair works system, and sanitary maintenance. – a system of maintenance is ensuring of the standard modes and parameters, adjustment of engineering equipment, technical inspections of buildings and structures. Maintenance of building elements are works on the control and accounting of the technical condition of structures, engineering systems, and equipment of buildings, the creation of normal conditions for their functioning; – repair works system consists of routine maintenance (scheduled and offschedule) and overhaul (scheduled and selected); – sanitary maintenance is cleaning of public spaces, adjacent territory, and garbage collection. The aim of technical operation measures consists in ensuring appropriate functioning of building elements. Public service is fulfilling the conditions of employment, and doing community public work. Tasks of buildings operation: – ensuring trouble-free operation of building structures; – compliance with proper sanitary and hygienic conditions and proper use of engineering equipment; – maintenance of temperature and humidity conditions; – timely repair works; – increasing a degree of building improvements. The duration of trouble-free operation of building structures and its systems varies. While determining the standard building service life, trouble-free service life of the main bearing elements, foundations, and walls is taken into consideration. The service life of individual elements of a building can be twice or a third as less than the standard service life of a building. During the entire service life, elements and engineering systems require repeated works on the adjustment, prevention, and restoration of worn-out elements. Parts of a building cannot be used until the full wear. During this period, the works compensating standard wear take place. Failure to perform insignificant scheduled works can lead to premature failure of a structure. During operation, a building should pass constant maintenance and repair works. Dates for the repair of buildings are determined on the basis of an assessment of their technical condition. Maintenance of buildings includes works on monitoring the technical condition, maintaining good condition, setting up engineering equipment, total preparation for seasonal operation of a building, as well as its elements and systems. 6

Control of technical condition of a building takes place by means conducting systematic scheduled and off-schedule inspections using modern diagnostic tools. Other measures for the organization of technical operation include dispatcher service, active maintenance, and maintenance, as well as operational documentation management. Dispatcher service is around-the-clock work of a dispatcher at a building's control board, controlling the functioning of the engineering infrastructure, maintaining the set parameters of microclimate in the building rooms, switching the equipment into the required operation mode, etc. Active maintenance is control over the technical condition of engineering equipment of a building, implementation of measures for the operational management and repair of engineering equipment performed by the on-duty (operational) personnel. Maintenance is a combination of preventive works on cleaning, setting up, adjusting or replacing the worn-out elements, aimed at maintaining the efficiency of systems and equipment during their operation. Operational documentation management (blank forms, certificate forms) and documentation stipulated by the requirements of regulatory documents on the operation of a building and its engineering systems. 1.2. Characteristics of Technical Condition of a Building Total technical condition of a building is the performance of certain structural elements and the connections between them. Factors causing changes of building performance as a whole and of its separate elements are internal and external. Internal factors include physical and chemical processes occurring in the materials of structures; loads and processes arising during operation; constructive factors; process quality. External factors include climatic (temperature, humidity, solar radiation); nature of the environment (wind, dust, biological factors); quality of operation. During the operation of buildings, their technical condition changes. It reveals in the deterioration of the quantitative characteristics of performance, in particular, reliability. The deterioration of the technical condition of buildings occurs because of changes in the physical properties of the materials, the nature of the interferences between them, as well as sizes and shapes. Destruction and other types of structural materials performance losses also cause changes in the technical condition of buildings. The total operating time of a building divides into three periods: running-in, normal operation, intensive deterioration. During the initial period of building operation, the elements run-in. A decrease in mechanical and strength characteristics, as well as the deterioration of 7

the performance characteristics of building structures, takes place. All these changes can be general and local, they occur both discretely and collectively. The largest number of defects, failures, and accidents occur during the construction process and in the first period of operation of buildings and structures. The main reasons are the insufficient quality of products, installation, foundation subsidence, temperature and humidity changes and so on. At the end of the running-in of structures, building elements and facilities during the period of normal operation, the number of failures decreases and stabilizes. Unexpected deformations associated with the conditions of work and operation of elements prevail in this period. Unexpected deformations can appear as a result of the unexpected concentration of loads, materials creep, unsatisfactory operation, temperature and humidity effects, and improper repair work. The third period is a period of intensive deterioration, which is associated with the aging of the structure's material and decrease of its elastic properties. Even under normal conditions of operation, structures and equipment have different service lives and worn out unevenly. The length of service of some structures depends on the materials and operating conditions. Constructive solution and the sustainability of a building as a whole influence the durability of the structural elements. In buildings made of durable materials and reliable structures, any element serves longer than in buildings of non-durable materials. During the operation, structural elements and engineering equipment of buildings gradually lose their performance under the influence of natural conditions and human activity. Over time, a decrease in strength and stability, deterioration of heat and sound insulation, water and airtight properties take place. This phenomenon is called physical (material, technical) wear and is defined in relative terms and in monetary terms. Physical wear characterizes the degree of deterioration in engineering and other associated operational parameters of a building in a certain moment of time, what results in the decrease of the building’s structure value. A building loses its bearing capacity, heat and sound insulation properties, water and air tightness. The main causes of physical wear are the effects of natural factors and technological processes associated with the operation of a building. Physical wear is proved true: – on the basis of a visual inspection of structural elements and determination of the percentage of loss or performance properties due to physical wear using tables; – by experts with an assessment of remaining service life; – by calculation; – by means of engineering survey of buildings with the determination of the cost of work necessary to restore its operational properties.

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Physical wear is defined as the arithmetic average of physical wear of certain elements of a building: walls, ceilings, roofs, floors, window and door openings, finishing works, internal sanitary and electrical facilities and other elements. If to replace the structural element during the overhaul, the service life is taken from the moment of replacement. As the formula shows the assessment of physical wear by the comparison of the actual and standard service lives assumes a linear dependence of wear on the service life, what does not correspond to the actual regularity of physical processes accompanying physical wear of buildings, therefore engineering surveys take place for an objective assessment of physical wear of buildings elements. Method of determining physical wear on the basis of engineering surveys stipulates instrumental monitoring of the condition of building elements and determining the degree of loss of their operational properties. Performing an overhaul partially eliminates physical wear and increases the cost of a building. Overhauling buildings eliminates physical wear in the replaced structures, while in those structures, which are not replaced, the physical wear just decreases since the repair works carried out in them have just a recovery nature. The ratios of physical wear and the cost of the necessary repair works for recovery form the basis of the standard documents on the definition of physical wear. As a result of overhaul and routine maintenance, the rate of growth of physical wear declines. The wear of buildings is most intensive in the period of 20…30 years and after 90…100 years. Such factors as volume and nature of overhaul, building layout, population density, overhaul quality, sanitary and hygienic factors (insolation, aeration), periods of operation, level of maintenance and routine maintenance influence the behavior of physical wear. In the course of operation, buildings are subject to obsolescence, for which technical progress is the main cause. Physical wear of old buildings can be insignificant, but they are morally obsolete. To bring them in accordance with modern requirements, they should be reconstructed, modernized and reorganized. Obsolescence characterizes the degree of incompliance of the main parameters, determining the conditions of accommodation, scope, and quality of the provided services, with modern requirements. Over time, under the influence of technical progress, inconsistencies arise between newly constructed and old buildings, and the inconsistency of a building with its functional purposes due to changing social needs appear. Reduce of the cost of a building over time in comparison with the initial cost makes up the first form of obsolescence. The change in this value is associated with a decrease in the socially necessary labor, which requires the construction of such buildings at the time of their assessment. 9

Aging due to non-compliance with the regulatory, space-planning, structural, sanitary and other requirements that exist at the time of the assessment make up the second form of obsolescence. The obsolescence of the second form is determined as a percentage of the cost of these works to the reinstatement cost. The obsolescence of a building changes in leaps and as far as social demands change. A building is rather subject to obsolescence than physical wear. The characteristics of change in factors causing physical wear and obsolescence are different. Obsolescence cannot be prevented in the course of operation. Structures and engineering systems of a building with slight physical wear sometimes require replacement due to obsolescence. 1.3. Service Life of Building. Operational Requirements to Buildings Building service life means the duration of building trouble-free functioning in the conditions of its maintenance and repair measures. The duration of the trouble-free operation of the building elements, its systems and equipment differs. While determining the standard service life of a building, the average trouble-free service life of the main bearing elements – foundations and walls– is taken into consideration. The service life of other elements can be shorter than the standard service life of a building. Therefore, during the operation of a building, these elements have to be replaced several times. Wear of buildings and facilities consists in the fact that certain facilities and buildings as a whole gradually lose their original qualities and strength. Determining the service life of structural elements is a difficult task since the result depends on a large number of factors affecting wear. During the entire service life of a building, elements and engineering systems are subject to maintenance and repair. The frequency of repair works depends on the durability of the materials from which the structures and engineering systems of the loads are made, the effects of the environment and other factors. Elimination of physical wear and obsolescence of facilities as well as provision of their performance are the tasks of technical maintenance of buildings. Performing a set of measures for the maintenance and repair of buildings ensure the reliability of elements. Reliability is the property of an element to fulfill the functions preserving its operational parameters within the specified values over time (specified operating time). Reliability of all the elements of a building determines the reliability of a building itself. Reliability is a combination of maintainability, preservation capacity, durability, and failure-free operation. Maintainability is the fitness of a building’s elements for preventing, detecting of failures, troubleshooting and damage removal by means of performing technical maintenance and scheduled and unscheduled repairs. 10

Storage ability is a property of individual elements to resist a negative effect of unsatisfactory storage, transportation, and aging before the installation as well as of a building as a whole before putting it into operation and during the repair works. Durability is the preservation of operational performance before achieving the limit state with interruptions for corrective maintenance and elimination of sudden defects. The failure-free operation is the preservation of operational performance without forced interruptions for a specified time until the first or next failure. A failure is an event when a structure loses its operational performance. When replacing individual elements, their reliability increases, but it does not reach the initial, as in structures, there always exists residual wear of elements, which are not changed over the entire operating time. This characteristic is the cause of normal building wear. Optimal durability of buildings is determined taking into account the upcoming cost of its operation for the entire service life. The less often the structural elements are repaired and the cost of these repairs is minimal, the greater the optimum service life of the elements and a building as a whole. While designing buildings and facilities, it is necessary to provide a number of requirements: – structural elements and engineering systems should have sufficient reliability, be available to perform repair work, eliminate defects, be available for setting-up and adjustment during operation; – structural elements and engineering systems should have the same or similar service lives within the between repair intervals; – measures for the control of a building technical condition, maintenance of its operational performance or operable condition; – preparation for seasonal operation should be carried out by the most affordable and cost-effective methods; – a building should have arrangements and the necessary premises for the operational personnel that meet the requirements of regulatory documents; – compliance with sanitary and hygienic requirements for the premises and the adjacent areas. The main structural elements, which determine the life of the entire building, are the external walls and a foundation. The other structures are subject to replacement. 1.4. Overhaul of Buildings Residential buildings can be classified into six groups as per overhaul depending on the wall and flooring materials. The first group of capital residential buildings includes especially durable stone buildings, the standard service life of which makes up 150 years. Introducing in to a building the elements from materials with a shorter service life leads to a decrease in the standard service life of a building as a whole. For example, 11

the sixth overhaul group includes light-weight buildings with a service life of 15 years. Public buildings can be classified into nine groups as per overhaul depending on the wall and flooring materials. Industrial buildings can be classified into four groups. Life of structures is the time of their service without loss of the required qualities under the given operational and environmental conditions. There exist four degrees of the enclosing structures durability: first degree stands for the service life not less than a hundred of years; second degree stands for fifty years; third degree stands for not less than 50…20 years; fourth degree stands for the period under twenty years. Fire-fighting requirements for buildings establish the necessary degree of fire resistance of a building, which is determined by the degree of inflammability and fire resistance of its main structures and materials, depending on the functional purpose. 1.5. System of Scheduled Preventive Repair A system of scheduled preventive repair is a combination of organizational and technical measures on maintenance and repairs of structures, sanitary engineering systems, and engineering arrangements of buildings according to a prescheduled plan for the purpose of preventing early wear and for ensuring failurefree operation of equipment. Timely inspection of building elements and its equipment with simultaneous setting-up and adjustment of sanitary engineering systems and technical equipment is the main condition for reducing the amount of work on maintenance and bringing its cost to the approved standards. Studies show that the cost of an overhaul in the absence of a clear system of scheduled maintenance increases three- or fourfold against the approved standards. Moreover, maintenance without a system of scheduled overhauls does not allow achieving trouble-free operation of building elements for at least the standard service life. Scheduled maintenance, carried out periodically through the established overhaul periods, satisfies the main need of equipment in repair. Every scheduled repair fully restores the operational properties of equipment and ensures equipment failure-free operation until the next scheduled repair. The scope of work depends on the maintainability of equipment and duration of its operation until scheduled repair. The system of scheduled preventive repair of equipment in the field of the industry allows: – eliminating destructive wear of equipment and improving the operational properties; – minimizing the cost of repairs; – clear planning of work. 12

A system of scheduled preventive repairs includes scheduled preventive (complex) overhaul, selected overhaul, inspection of building structures, inspection and setting-up of sanitary engineering systems and engineering equipment, inspections and emergency maintenance. Scheduled preventive overhaul presupposes the restoration of wear of all structures and engineering equipment if the service life or their technical condition requires the repair. The service life of the elements not the presence of faults is the condition for the appointment of a building for a scheduled overhaul. Otherwise, there may occur a mass failure of structures and engineering equipment. Every regular scheduled repair leads to the change of the composition of structures and engineering equipment, as they have different between repair intervals. A system of scheduled preventive repairs includes the following technical measures: – determination of structures and engineering equipment to be repaired; – determination of type and nature of repair works; – determination of the between repair cycles duration and their structure, planning the repair works; – organization of repair works; – provision of design and estimate documentation; –provision of repair and maintenance works with necessary materials and spare parts; – organization of the production base for repair works; – organization of scheduled preventive repair service; –use of the newest methods of repair and restoring the worn-out elements of a building; –introduction of operation and safety rules; – organization of quality control of repair. 1.5.1. Assessment of Technical Condition of Structural Elements of a Building and a Building as a Whole Technical investigation of buildings consists in the determination of the current technical condition of a building and its elements, getting the quantitative evaluation of the actual quality of structures with regard to the changes occurring over time to determine a set of measures and the scope of an overhaul or refurbishment at the facility. A system of technical investigation of the residential buildings includes the following types of control: – instrumental acceptance inspection of the technical condition of residential buildings after their overhaul (refurbishment);

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– instrumental inspection of the technical condition of residential buildings in the course of their scheduled and unscheduled inspections (preventive inspection) as well as during the total technical inspection of the housing facilities; – technical investigation of residential buildings to plan an overhaul and refurbishment; – technical investigation (review) of residential buildings in case of structures’ damages and accidents in the course of operation. Instrumental acceptance inspection presupposes a selective check of the completed construction works compliance with the project, SNiP (construction rules and regulation), standards and other applicable regulatory documents. It establishes the compliance of the characteristics of the temperature and humidity mode of the premises with the sanitary and hygienic requirements to residential buildings to determine if a residential building is ready for occupancy and to provide a customer with a technical statement on the results of instrumental acceptance inspection. A preventive inspection takes place in the course of scheduled and unscheduled inspections and while preparing an act of the technical condition of residential building for the transfer of housing facilities. Specialists of the housing maintenance company carry out the total technical inspection of the housing facilities under the technical and organizational guidance of specialists of the design organization of housing and utility system. Specializedsurveycompaniesanddesignandsurveyorganizationscarryoutthetec hnicalinvestigationof residential buildings to plan an overhaul (refurbishment) what usually requires one day. Technical investigation (review) of residential buildings in case of structures’ damages and accidents in the course of operation takes place according to the procedures established by «The Regulation of Investigation of Accidents (Failures) of Buildings, Structures, Their Parts, and Structural Elements». All types of technical investigations should be carried out with the use of modern devices and tools. According to The Regulations and a system of scheduled preventive repair, all the buildings and facilities are subjects to periodic technical inspections which are carried out by heads of the organizations appointed by the commissions. There exist three types of inspections: – general (seasonal) inspection, is when the whole building is inspected, including its structures, engineering equipment, and public amenities; – partial inspection, is when separate parts of buildings are inspected (roof, basement, elevator, heat supply system, etc.); – unscheduled inspection is performed after natural calamities (extensive rains, heavy snowfalls, etc.). Some inspections associate with the seasonal operation preparatory measures. 14

The preparation for seasonal operation includes setting-up, adjustment and repair works connected with the peculiar functioning of some elements and engineering systems in this period. Preparation of buildings and engineering systems for the autumn and winter period begins at the end of the heating period. The quality and completeness of the pre-winter repairs should be checked in the course of the autumn inspection of buildings. The readiness of buildings for operation in the spring and summer period is determined in the course of the general spring inspection. The calendar period for conducting the preparation for seasonal operation and general spring and autumn inspections are appointed on the basis of local climatic conditions by order of a head of the district or city housing authority. Based on the results of the inspections, the acts are made up. On the basis of acts, the condition of buildings in use is analyzed and the measures to further improvement of the operating organization are prescribed. Responsibilities of engineering and technical specialists and the workers of operational, maintenance, and specialized services are defined by the employment position instruction developed and approved by heads of these organizations. Instructions indicate time and order of works performance in accordance with the requirements of regulatory documents. A certificate of building includes the information on changes in the condition of buildings due to their wear and repairs as well as information about the land plot of a household, content, technical condition, area, volume, and deterioration of a building and the cost of an overhaul, specifying the building elements under repair and so on. In the course of certification as well as during every spring and autumn inspection, all the data is updated on a regular basis. A degree of wear of structural elements and a building as a whole is determined in compliance with «Methods of Defining the Physical Wear of the Civil Buildings». Head of the maintenance service runs the commission for inspection. Commission includes: – a person responsible for the operation of an object; – representativees of services operating engineering equipment. Upon the results of any type of inspection, the acts are drawn up. Act include the information on the results, specify defects and damages, as well as the timeframe for their elimination. General inspection implies the inspection of all building structures, engineering equipment, finishing, and public amenities. An unscheduled inspection takes place in the event of damages or operating irregularity of building structures and engineering equipment. Unscheduled inspection implies an inspection of engineering equipment elements or individual structural elements of a building. The carried out inspections identify the irregularities and reasons for their occurrence, specify the scope of works on routine maintenance and give an overall assessment of the technical condition of a building. 15

General inspections of a building take place twice a year–in spring (after snow melting) and in autumn (in the course of building winter operation acceptance). Spring inspection checks the readiness of a building for operation in the spring and summer periods and establishes the scope of preparatory work for the autumn and winter period operation, as well as specifies the scope of repair works in every building. Those repair works are included in a maintenance plan for the year of inspection. When preparing buildings for operation in the spring and summer periods, there are carried out such types of work as strengthening of waterspouts, elbows, and funnels; watering system reactivation and repair; repair of the equipment of sites, paths, pavements, and walkways; opening of air drains in basements; inspection of roofs, facades and so on. Results of the autumn inspection serve as the basis for planning routine maintenance, which will take place next year. Spring inspection clarifies the forthcoming works, which should be fulfilled by the beginning of winter operation and accepted in the course of the autumn inspection. Autumn inspection checks the readiness of a building for operation in the autumn and winter periods and specifies the scope of repair works in every building. Those repair works are included in a maintenance plan for the next year. The preparation of buildings for operation in the autumn and winter periods should include insulation of window and balcony openings, replacement of broken windows and balcony doors, repair and insulation of the attic floors, reinforcement and repair of parapets, glazing and closing attic dormer windows, repair, warming and cleaning of the ventilation ducts, closing the air drains in basements, conservation of watering systems, repair and strengthening of entrance doors and so on. Off-scheduled inspections take place after storm winds, heavy rains, heavy snowfalls, water floods, and other natural phenomena, after the accidents. Repair of a building is a set of activities and organizational and technical measures to eliminate physical deterioration and obsolescence not connected with the changes in the main technical and economic indicators of a building. A system of scheduled preventive repair includes routine maintenance and an overhaul. Routine maintenance of a building consists in restoring the integrity of its structures, systems of engineering equipment and maintenance of operational performance. Routine maintenance takes place at intervals that ensure the effective operation of a building from the moment of its construction completion until the next overhaul. Overhaul of a building is repairs aimed at extending a building's operational life with the replacement of structural elements and systems of engineering equipment if necessary, as well as improving its operational characteristics. An overhaul includes the elimination of faults of all worn-out elements, their recov16

ery or replacement by more long-lived and cost-efficient ones, which improve the operational performance of a building under repair. Theoretically, there are two possible repair options: according to a technical condition, when the repair takes place after the appearance of failures, and preventive repair when the repair takes place before a failure occurs, that is to warn it. The second option is economically feasible as based on a study of service life and the probability of failure occurrences it is possible to create a preventive system that would provide trouble-free maintenance of premises. In the practice of technical operation of buildings, a combination of both options is used. In practice, there is no clear differentiation of works performed during routine maintenance or an overhaul, but their fundamental difference consists in the aim pursued by this or that repair. If a facility is completely worn out and out of order, then this repair is called repair as required. Preventive repairs can ensure the reliability of buildings in the course of their operation as the state of its individual elements and nodes, or a building as a whole deteriorates. The main objective of such prevention is to prevent failures. 1.5.2. Routine Maintenance Routine maintenance of a building is a set of repair and construction works on maintaining operational indicators of a building. It should take place with a frequency that ensures the effective operation of a building from the moment of its construction completion (an overhaul) until the next overhaul. This should take into account natural and climatic conditions, design solutions, technical condition and a mode of building operation. In the course of routine maintenance, the pricing principles adopted for an overhaul should take place. Routine maintenance consists in systematic and timely works on protection of building parts and equipment from premature wear and elimination of any minor damages and failures. An operating organization or a special organization on a contractual basis carries out routine maintenance. Routine maintenance includes: – maintenance of building elements (setting up and adjustment of equipment, performed in accordance with a schedule of individual apartments, parts of a building and equipment permanent maintenance as fixed, as well as instructing residents and staff on the maintenance of house equipment); – performance of unforeseen repair, which consists in the elimination of sudden failures found during inspections or at the request of residents, in the time stipulated by the rules and norms of technical maintenance of buildings; – performance of scheduled repair, which is detected and planned in advance in terms of scopes and time of execution, on the basis of the «Regulations on Execution of Scheduled Preventive Repair of Buildings» and taking into account the technical condition of building elements. 17

In the course of scheduled routine maintenance, 75…80 % of funds are allocated for this type of repair, while the rest is allocated for unforeseen repairs. When an operating organization carries out its works, each worker takes responsibility for a certain section, in accordance with the standards of labor input in maintenance and routine maintenance of the housing facilities. Acceptance of the completed routine maintenance of residential buildings should be carried out by a commission consisting of representatives of the housing maintenance organization, repair, and construction organization, as well as representatives of the housing and utilities service of the company that owns the housing. In buildings scheduled for an overhaul for the next five years or for demolition, routine maintenance is limited by works that provide regulatory conditions for the living (preparation for the spring, summer, and winter operation, setting up of engineering equipment). Routine maintenance works presuppose the repair of enclosing structures, stairs, and balconies, furnaces and hearths, restoration of the interior and exterior decoration, repair of engineering equipment as well as external improvement. Routine maintenance prevents premature wear of structures. It means that it does not change the physical condition of the structure material. Routine maintenance activities aim at preserving the structure material in its design condition. It may seem that these measures are not essential for ensuring the standard life of a structure. However, late routine maintenance can cause significant additional overhaul costs. For example, late painting of a metal roof can lead to the reduction of its service life by 3…4 times. The strength properties and physical condition of a roof before painting and after it do not change, but the painting layer preserves the properties of the metal sheet, that is it extends its service life in comparison to the unpainted roof. Routine maintenance includes measures that prevent premature wear of structures and engineering systems. Often routine maintenance includes such small in scope works as a replacement of structures, for example, some parts of the stone facing of basement and walls. In this case, routine maintenance does not have an aim to restore the deterioration of walls of a building. Exterior walls have large strength reserve, and damage of individual bricks does not affect the bearing capacity of the whole wall within the limits of the existing loads. Routine maintenance does not have a significant influence on the overall strength and physical characteristics of a wall, but if not to replace the individual destroyed bricks, then the brickwork will further deteriorate due to environmental influences, what will result in the loss of strength and physical properties of a wall and basement. That is why individual defects of structures if they do not cause loss of strength or other physical properties of structures or engineering systems under the influence of loads, are eliminated during routine maintenance. 18

Routine maintenance work also includes adjustment of engineering systems and equipment (maintenance). Timely implementation of these works ensures the rational use of energy resources and water, as well as prevents the premature failure of the entire structure (engineering system). For example, poor adjustment of the heating system can lead to irrational costs of thermal energy, freezing of individual pipelines and failure of the entire system. Routine maintenance should take place in accordance with a plan and within the time limits that prevent the failure of the elements of a structure. For example, the next painting of staircases walls should take place not after the paint loses its protective and decorative properties, but in the timeframes preventing it. However, it has been established that performing works in accordance with a plan does not guarantee that the failure of individual structural elements, equipment, engineering systems or minor defects of structures do not occur. The performance of these works also belongs to routine maintenance. According to the current Rules and Regulations for the Technical Operation of the Housing Fund, 75 % of all costs for routine maintenance should be allocated for scheduled repairs, and 25 % for unforeseen works. At the same time, routine maintenance measures cannot ensure the elimination of physical deterioration of building elements caused by the impact of environmental factors, static and dynamic loads on the materials of structures and engineering systems. An overhaul includes works on the recovery of operational properties of parts of buildings, the loss of which occurs in the course of operation. 1.5.3. Overhaul An overhaul is a complex of repair and construction works on restoration with the advisable improvement of operational parameters of a residential building, targeted at ensuring the reliability and comfort of the building's elements. An overhaul is a repair intended to restore the resource of engineering equipment with replacement, if necessary, of separate structural elements and systems of engineering equipment as a whole, as well as to improve operational characteristics. Overhaul must include the elimination of all failures of obsolescent elements as well as their restoration and replacement. At that, economically feasible modernization of buildings or other objects (improvement of design, increasing the number of and quality of services, equipage with lacking types of engineering equipment, improvement of the surrounding territory) might be carried out. In the process of an overhaul, operational characteristics of all structures, sanitary engineering systems and engineering devices in a building under repair are getting recovered.

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The condition for assigning a building for scheduled overhaul is not the existence of failures in the house but the service life of elements that need to be repaired in order to prevent their failure. In the course of each scheduled overhaul, the composition of elements under repair changes because inter-maintenance service life of structures, engineering systems and equipment are different. The periodicity of scheduled overhauls gets determined by the durability of structures that possess the shortest service life. The list of operations to be carried out during an overhaul: – inspection of buildings and execution of design and estimate documentation; – repair and construction works on replacement or restoration of elements of buildings; – modernization of buildings (architectural replanning), taking into account the downscaling of multi-room apartments, increasing the number and quality of services and equipment, improving insolation in habitable rooms, etc. – replacement and installation of supplementary engineering equipment in buildings intended for municipal or social and cultural purposes; – winterization of buildings (operations for enhancement of cold-resisting properties of enclosing structures, installation of windows with triple glazing, etc.); – replacement of internal engineering networks which are on the balance sheet of housing maintenance and utility organizations; – rearrangement of unventilated integrated roofs into the ventilated ones during an overhaul of residential buildings; – design supervision of engineering organizations over repair works and replanning in buildings; – the expertise of design and estimate documentation; – repair and restoration of government-protected monuments; – repair of in-built rooms of the building. As a rule, the entire building or its part (a section or several sections) get assigned for an overhaul. If necessary, overhaul can be carried out for separate elements of the building as well as beautification of the building. In the cities with site development that includes a considerable number of buildings and objects that require an overhaul, it should be planned to be carried out by the group method with simultaneous execution of repair works in a group of buildings of various purposes within the limit of the urban formation. Scheduled date of the beginning and the end of an overhaul should be determined on the basis of regulations regarding the period of repair. Elaboration of design and estimate documentation for overhaul and reconstruction of buildings should cover the following: – carry out technical inspection and determine physical wear and obsolescence of engineering objects; 20

– compilation of design and construction documents for all design solutions regarding replanning, functional reassignment of rooms, replacement of structures and engineering systems, improvement of the territory and other analogous operations; – feasibility study of the overhaul; – development of a project of overhaul management and a work execution plan. Estimation of the cost of overhaul and reconstruction should be carried out on the basis of estimated or contract prices. The contract price of each object should get calculated on the basis of an estimate which has been made considering the prices, regulations, tariffs, and pricing, determined for an overhaul and taking into account efficiency, quality and completion time of the work. Estimates should allow for overhead expenses, planned savings and other works and expenses. Estimate documentation should allow for a reserve of funds for contingency expenses, distributed into two parts: – the first one is intended to cover payment of additional works caused by the specification of design solutions in the course of repair (the customer's reserve); – the second one is intended to reimburse additional expenses occurring in the course of repair when the methods of work execution get changed against the ones admitted in regulations and pricing of works according to the estimate (the contractor’s reserve). Returnable sums should be stated after an estimate’s result; it includes the cost of materials left after disassembling of structures and dismantling of engineering and technical equipment, determined based on regulations regarding the output of materials and products on repair sites which are applicable for repeated use in accordance with the Guidelines on repeated use of products, equipment and materials in the housing maintenance and utilities board. Approval of design and estimate documentation for an overhaul must be carried out: – for buildings which are under the jurisdiction of local administration – by the corresponding control bodies; – for buildings which are under the jurisdiction of organizations or enterprises – by executives of these organizations and enterprises; – for buildings belonging to housing associations – by the board of the association’s members. A time interval between the approval of design and estimate documentation and the beginning of repair and construction works should not exceed 2 years. Administrations which have a housing fund under their jurisdiction should create premises for temporary housing in the amount that ensures execution of the overhaul. 21

Simultaneously with an order for execution of design and estimate documentation, the operating entity should hand over the following source documents: – engineering certificate of the house and the precinct; – floor plans and general layout of the site; – certificate for the color layout of facades, issued by the architectural department; – certificate on the condition of internal gas networks and gas service pipe, issued by a specialized gas service; – certificate on a send-out of gas, water, and heat supply sources, issued by corresponding specialized services. The determined deadline for submitting approved engineering documentation for an overhaul of residential buildings by contractor organizations is September 1 of a year previous to the year of execution of repair and construction works. It is prohibited to use design and engineering documentation which has become obsolescent by the beginning of the overhaul and does not comply with contemporary norms and requirements, or whose period of approval has expired. Eviction of residents out of houses subject to a repair (if it is necessary according to the project of work execution) must be completed no later than 15 days before the beginning of the repair. Expenses for transportation of belongings of people being relocated to the new place of residence are paid from the funds intended for the overhaul of the house. Before the repair works begin, representatives of the operational organization, the department of engineering supervision over the overhaul, as well as repair, repair-and-construction, and design organizations confirm the readiness of the object for work execution. The readiness of the object for the repair gets confirmed with acts signed by representatives of the named organizations; these acts serve as permission for the beginning of work. In the process of an overhaul, the housing maintenance and utilities board supervises repair work and its quality. The volume of completed work gets checked together with representatives of the Engineering Supervision Department. Acceptance of the object of finished repair is carried out in accordance with requirements provided in the «Regulations for acceptance of residential buildings with a completed overhaul for operation». 1.5.4. Rearrangement of Old Buildings There are three types of rearrangements of old buildings: – total replanning with the construction of new apartments and a set of residential rooms possessing the size and improvement level complying with the requirements of scientific and engineering documentation. Total replanning is 22

allowable only in the buildings whose foundations and walls have residual failure-free service life no less than 75 years; – partial replanning is an improvement of the existing layout with the construction of new sanitary facilities, kitchens, etc.; – enhancement of amenities in apartments of buildings which are not subject to demolition for the next 5 years regarding their technical condition. Equipage of buildings with all types of amenities (water, gas, and heat supply systems) are the most frequently used ones. During installation of new engineering systems, it is usually required to partially change the layout of a build in gin order to place elements of the newly installed systems. In the majority of cases, total replanning in old buildings is carried out together with changing of internal structures, floor slabs, roofs, and ladders. All the works intended for rearrangement of rooms as well as changing their designation and provision of new types of amenities are allowable, provided that: – the executed work will not affect the strength of the building or its structures; – the building is not subject to demolition because of its ramshackle state or to reconstruction no matter the lifetime (bearing houses); – the building is not subject to demolition within the following 5 years after installation of the new type of amenities in it. When executing some works in the rooms, it is prohibited to violate the integrity of load-bearing partitions as well as of load-bearing walls and fire division walls without special reinforcement projects. It is prohibited to block flues and ventilation channels. It is not allowable to install partitions bearing against the window apertures. When splitting habitable rooms, it is not allowable to make unheated or unlighted rooms, as well as rooms with the width less than 2 meters. It is not allowable to make entrances to sanitary facilities from kitchens. It is prohibited to rearrange current bathrooms, shower rooms, kitchens, halls, and other nonresidential premises into habitable ones unless this is connected with total replanning of the house. Rooms get rearranged and engineering systems get repaired in accordance with approved projects. Elaboration and approval of engineering documentation for reconstruction of civil and industrial buildings are carried out in the same pattern as for new construction. Total replanning of residential buildings is allowed during an overhaul. A project for total replanning gets approved by the Architectural Planning Department of the city. In order to get permission for rearrangement of rooms from the Interagency Committee, the owner must submit the following documents: – application; – floor plan and a copy of the general layout (for building extensions), executed by the Bureau of Technical Inventory; 23

– a project of the room rearrangement; – a conclusion of the operating organization on the possibility to carry out project operations; – certificate on the agreement of all interested residents for work execution, verified by the operating organization; – other documents upon the Committee’s request. After rearrangement of a room, acceptance of work is carried out by the Committee in the stated order. The Bureau of Technical Inventory executes performance reporting, which is a background for alteration of accounting data on residential or industrial area, caused by the transformation of buildings. 2. A COMPLEX OF ACTIVITIES FOR MAINTENANCE OF BUILDINGS AND FACILITIES Quality of a building gets formed during its design, construction, and operation. An operating period has the most essential influence on the quality of the building as this period is the final and the most long-lasting one. At that, defects committed in the course of designing and constructing the building and negatively affecting its quality might get revealed within the operating period. In this case, the task of maintenance services is to eliminate the named defects with the assistance of the corresponding construction and design organizations. The integrity of buildings and their failure-free operation gets ensured by not only maintenance services. There are many examples when cooperative committees of residents execute considerable amount of work on maintenance and repair of the housing stock as well as on improvement of the premises’ territory. As noted previously, the standard service life of a building gets ensured in the case when all necessary repair and maintenance operations are carried out as scheduled, and all failures occurring in the inter-maintenance period get timely eliminated. The periodicity of repair and maintenance operations depends on the durability of materials used for the production of the structure or the engineering system, as well as on intensity of load and environmental exposure, and on engineering and other factors. Carrying out the named operations within the time limits set is the responsibility within maintenance of buildings. The complex of activities for maintenance of buildings includes scheduled routine repair and equipment checkout; extraordinary routine repair, selective (emergency) overhaul. Overall, the named activities are forming the system of maintenance and repair of buildings. In order to organize, schedule and finance repairs, it is important to know their principal difference which lies not only in the volume and the nature of works but also in their purposes.

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The main type of overhaul is the scheduled repair which gets executed within a certain scheduled period which most likely precedes to the beginning of accelerated depreciation of elements of buildings. Failures that reduce operational properties of structures and engineering systems get eliminated within the inter-maintenance periods in the process of selective (emergency) repair, provided their repair can’t be delayed till another scheduled repair. Introduction of a clear system of scheduled preventive maintenance is intended to contribute to the reduction of random unexpected failures of elements of buildings and their engineering systems. Therefore, the purpose of maintenance is to provide failure-free operation of all elements of buildings and engineering systems within their standard service life. In this regard, the following definitions of maintenance objectives that occasionally present in literature are considered to be incorrect: fault clearance and extension of life service of a building. The first definition is incorrect because fault clearance is just one of the activities of the entire complex of works intended for maintenance and repair. This operating method can’t be advisable as an individual one, because a certain amount of time necessary for work management (delivery of materials, transportation of workers to the workplace, etc.) should pass from the moment of failure detection till the moment of its elimination. In this case, the presence of failures in a building within a quite long period of time becomes legitimate. The second definition – an extension of life service of a building – is incorrect as well. The standard service life of elements of a building gets determined taking into account all maintenance procedures conducted. Untimely execution of maintenance or repair operations might lead to a reduction of the determined (standard) service life of elements of a building. Let us review the main activities for the maintenance of buildings. Depending on the type and designation of a building, maintenance objectives are changing and can be divided into two groups: – rendering services to citizens inhabiting a residential house or to employees working in a given company or an enterprise; – maintenance of structures and engineering systems. The first group of maintenance objectives is clear. Let us have a more detailed review of the second group of objectives, the maintenance of structures and engineering systems of a building. Every system and structure, each structural element of a building is designed for certain conditions which get taken into account when calculating the standard life service of elements. Changing of these conditions, as well as their violation, causes a rapid reduction of durability. For example, the durability of the roof and roofing system's elements significantly depends on temperature and humidity conditions of the attic. Failure to comply with allowable temperature drop in the attic leads to abundant condensation and, as a rule, enhanced corrosion of the roof and roofing system's details. 25

The heating system gets planned taking into account standard pressure differential, because otherwise, normal functioning of the system can't be provided, and exceeding the peak pressure in the piping system might lead to an accident. Allowable design loads of bases and foundations are intended for certain soil dampness; therefore, perimeter walks get constructed around a building and measures eliminating excessive moistening of the foundation soil get taken. Neglecting these measures (untimely snow removal around the walls, drainage of melt water, removal of tree sprouts and bushes that destroy the perimeter walk, etc.) might lead to a loss of bearing capability of the basis or the foundation and result in deformation of the buildings. Retention of oil coloring of wall surfaces essentially depends on the composition of air medium. Systematic indoor cleaning – wiping and washing the walls and the floor – creates normal conditions which guarantee the standard service life of paint coating. And vise versa, violation of cleaning schedule of the walls and the floor for a long period of time favors for accelerated destruction of paint layer under the exposure to acidic and alkaline oxides. Therefore, in order to provide failure-free operation of elements of buildings, the activities ensuring design operating conditions should be carried out aside from routine repair and overhaul. Although the named activities do not directly affect engineering state of structures, their violation might lead to alternation of structural properties and create conditions for accelerated corrosion of material, and lead to miscalibration or failure of engineering systems. A complex of activities for ensuring design operating conditions for elements of buildings should be considered as maintenance activities. Thus, maintenance of structures and engineering systems stipulates necessary activities for ensuring design conditions for building elements’ operating. In engineering-related literature, there are such expressions as «maintenance of buildings», «maintenance of a building’s parts» instead of the term «maintenance and repair of a building», the one that provides a more full and correct definition of the meaning of objects’ operation. The term «maintenance» is only defined as the activities which have an effect on elements of a building, but they are not related to the methods of using these elements for certain purposes. It is clear that using improper methods of conducting the activities might create conditions for untimely failure of elements, devices or the entire system, even provided technically accurate maintenance of, for example, engineering systems. If elements of a building are operating in accordance with the Regulations on the execution of scheduled preventive repair of residential and public buildings, the volume of operations on maintenance and repair mainly depends on two factors: its maintainability and the period of an element’s operating without any repairs. This means that if a repair is being done within the scheduled period which corresponds with the beginning increase in frequency of failures, the progressing wear-off of structures gets eliminated and the volume of repair works is practically constant for the given element, although the number of elements un26

der repair at every scheduled repair changes and the overall volume of expenses for the repair increases. At that, if periods between scheduled repairs are not randomly selected but determined as optimal ones, the cost of repair is minimal. 2.1. Methodology for Assessing Operational Characteristics of Elements of Buildings 2.1.1. Determining Parameters of Reliability of Engineering Structures Under conditions of acceleration of scientific research and technological advancement, an intensive improvement of various technology processes takes place. The issue regarding their possible further exploitation, reconstruction or structural reinforcement is the key question connected with inspection and preparation of corresponding recommendations. Inspection of engineering structures consists of 3 stages: – initial review of project documentation, design drawings, and as-built drawings, and concealed work inspection certificates; – visual inspection of the object, determining its compliance with the project, identification of visible defects (the presence of cracks, leakages, corrosion of metal, defects of butt-welded joint and bolt joints, etc.), compilation of a plan for inspection of a building or a structure, completion a complex of surveys using non-destructive methods; – analysis of a building's or a facility's condition and elaboration of recommendation on the elimination of the identified defects. Reviewing the design and as-built documentation allows providing an assessment to structural decisions made, as well as identify elements of a building or a structure which are operating in the most severe conditions and determine the values of acting loads. Visual assessment of a building or a facility provides initial information regarding the condition of the structure under inspection and allows assessing the wear-off value of structural elements and solving the issue of whether to conduct static or dynamic tests. First of all, this is connected with the use of nondestructive testing methods, i.e. the methods which do not result in the destruction of individual elements and the structure as a whole. The methods of engineering surveying are frequently used during inspection; these methods allow measuring the settlement of buildings and facilities, shear deformations of the soil, parameters of cracks and dilatation joints, deflections, etc. The methods of laser interference have been efficiently developing recently. Analogous methods are applied for controlling the production quality of elements of engineering structures and their installation at construction sites. Inspection of engineering structures, buildings and facilities contains the methods for controlling the quality of production and installation of elements of 27

engineering structures, which ensure compliance of the object to design values and reflection of the actual operation of the systems. Materials applied for concrete mixing must satisfy the requirements of GOST for these materials and provide obtainment of concretes of required grades of strength and types of frost resistance and water resistance. Inspecting the condition of a structure under installation or operation when working in real-life conditions gets ensured by the same methods as the ones used for controlling the quality of their production. If there is no design or working documentation for the operating object, its restoration is connected with studying real conditions of a system's operation. Such situation is related to the cases when it is necessary to determine the workability of a system taking into account deviation of its parameters from the designed ones. Strict requirements are placed on inspection methods when analyzing the causes of accidents in a result of damages of structures in the process of their installation and operation, as well as disasters, the accidents that led to human losses. The conducted inspection allows revealing the most distinctive defects and elaborate recommendations for specification the methods of calculation of structures, improvement of structural layouts, and technology of production and installation of engineering structures. Reinforced concrete, metallic and wooden structures are frequently used in contemporary construction. Each year, there are more and more improved reinforced concrete structures, including the pre-stressed reinforced concrete and metallic structures and large-size reinforced concrete structures (trusses with the span up to 50 meters, columns up to 25 meters high, floor beams with the bay up to 24 meters, gantry girders with the bay up to 12 meters, etc.), which are being developed and mastered. Extensive use of such structures has mainly become possible and economically viable due to an enhancement of strength characteristics of concretes and steels, as well as due to the existence of new structural solutions. Laboratory testing and experience of applying such structures demonstrated their reliability and simplicity of production. However, bearing capability of large-size structures must be thoroughly checked, as the possibility of separate violations of technical conditions and design specifications are not excluded under manufacturing conditions. Therefore, together with testing of the majority of introduced large-size structures under laboratory conditions, using mockups or test sites, it is almost in all cases that one or several samples of such structures should be tested in the conditions, in which their mass production is planned to be carried out. It is only after testing a structure with a static load that one can assess its actual strength, deformability, and crack-resistance. Reliability of anchor devices in pre-stressed structures, the strength of compressed and tensile joints under block segmenting of structures, and strength of units under the concentration of local stresses can only get determined under testing of full-scale fragments. 28

General checking of work quality (for example, correctness and accuracy of reinforcement assembling, the density of concrete placing in the structure, the strength of materials included in the building's element) can only be conducted on the basis of testing as well. It is necessary to note that other methods of work quality control, for example, testing of test cubes, prisms, reinforcement samples and compilation of concealed work inspection certificates are not being replaced when testing buildings and structures. All these control methods maintain their individual importance and must be carried out thoroughly, despite the further testing of the structure as a whole. It is possible to formulate 3 primary objectives that are being solved using the methods and means for testing of engineering structures of buildings: – the first one, determining thermal-and-physical, structural, strength and stress-strain properties of structural materials as well as identifying the nature of external impacts imposed on the structures; – the second one, comparing design diagrams of the engineering structures, applied loads and displacements with analogous parameters which occur in a real structure; – the third one, identifying the design models, which has become developed over the last years. This objective is connected with a synthesis of design diagrams concluded from the analysis of research results. Theoretically, this problem can’t be solved without cybernetics. 2.1.2. Determining Microclimate Parameters of Buildings and Facilities Moisture conditions of enclosing structures. The main sources of moisture existence in structures are hygroscopic moisture and moisture of condensation. The absence of water vapor condensation on the inner surface does not guarantee protection from moisture because condensation might get formed in its strata. If materials of the enclosing structure are homogenous and the temperature and air humidity of a room are normal, condensation inside the enclosing structure does not form. Relative humidity of the outdoor air during winter, as a rule, is significantly lower than in rooms. Condensation might as well appear at high temperature and humidity of rooms; in this case, it is necessary to provide a vapor-sealing layer from the outer side of the enclosure. In multi-layer enclosing structures, it is advisable to place denser vapor-sealing layers from the inner side, and more porous ones – from the outer side. Acoustic insulation of enclosing structures. Reduction of noise, in particular, the acoustic insulation issues, are considered to be very important. Acoustic insulation of rooms can be obtained by various methods: – the corresponding arrangement, at which the rooms with the source of the noise are remote from the rooms where silence is required; 29

– properly arranged engineering equipment and sanitary appliances (elevators, ventilators, pumps, sanitary devices, etc.) and activities for the reduction of noise caused by this equipment; – sufficient acoustic insulation characteristics of the room enclosing structures. When the sound gets propagated in the elastic medium, sound pressure (2 dB = 20 μPa) occurs as a result of particles’ oscillations. The sound pressure level is a value of sound pressure measured by a relative scale and related to the bearing pressure which corresponds with the threshold of hearing of a sinusoidal sound wave with a frequency equal 1 kHz. The methods of airborne sound reduction: – thorough sealing of openings; – elimination of membrane oscillations, which is obtained by an increase of massiveness, i.e. the enclosure structure’s mass, which is wasteful; – alternation of layers with contrasting acoustic permeability. 2.1.3. Determining Parameters of Natural Illumination of Buildings Proper illumination of workplaces reduces eyesight tiredness, enhances productivity, reduces injury rate and favors for cleanliness of the room. Illumination quality is characterized by the intensity, which should be no lower than the statutory one, and by uniformity, that is the absence of bright flares or shadows. Lux (lx) is the unit of illuminance, i.e. illumination of the surface of 1 m 2 by the evenly distributed luminous flux of 1 lumen (lm). Due to the constant power of light sources, artificial illumination is measured and normalized in luxes. The source of the daylight is the sky, the brightness of which changes constantly as it depends on the position of the Sun, the amount of clouds and air purity. Therefore, daylight illumination can’t be normalized or designed in luxes, so it gets expressed using the daylight factor (DF). DF of some point inside a room is the ratio of this point’s illumination to simultaneous illumination of the external horizontal plane, lightened by diffused light of the entire sky at uneven brightness of the sky (%). 2.1.4. Determining Parameters of the Necessary Thermal Insulation of Enclosing Structures There are the following requirements specified for enclosing elements of a building regarding its thermal engineering: – resist penetration of heat through them; – not to have the temperature that significantly differs from the air temperature in the room on the inner surface, so that one would not feel cold near the enclosure, and condensation wouldn’t form on the surface; 30

– possess sufficient thermal inertia (heat resistance), so that variations of outdoor and indoor temperatures would get reflected on temperature variations of the internal surface as little as possible; – maintain the normal humidity conditions, as moistening of the enclosing structure reduces its thermal insulation properties. 2.2. Assessment of Technical Condition and Operational Characteristics of Bases, Foundations, and Basements Assessment of technical condition of engineering structures of buildings and facilities consists in determining the extent of damage, the category of technical condition and the possibility for further operation according to their direct or modified (at reconstruction) functional designation. Assessment of technical condition of buildings and facilities is carried out by comparing their permissible limit values (calculated and normative) and actual values, which characterize strength, sustainability, deformability (based on groups I and II of limit states) and operational characteristics of engineering structures. Criteria of technical condition assessment depend on functional designation and structural diagram of a building, the type of engineering structure or material, etc. Technical condition of structures gets stated based on an assessment of cumulative impacts of damages and defects revealed in the process of preliminary inspection, as well as on check calculations of their bearing capability, sustainability, and operational validity. If one of the criteria of technical condition of building’s structures does not comply with the requirements of regulatory documents, the structures need to be reinforced or replaced. Assessment of technical condition of a building’s structures includes: – determining the category of engineering state of the structures taking into account the extent of damage and the value of bearing capability decrease; – determining operational applicability of the structures based on the primary criteria (temperature and humidity conditions, gas contamination, illumination, imperviousness, acoustic insulation); – developing propositions for further operation of the buildings and structures. Assessment of technical condition of buildings and facilities is carried out based on the analysis of the results of a detailed inspection of engineering structures as well as on check calculation of their bearing capability and operational applicability. When assessing the technical condition of buildings, bearing capability of all load-bearing elements of the building get determined, and structures that have the major damage rate get identified. 31

Based on these parameters, buildings and facilities get related to a certain damage rate and technical condition category. Bearing capability of a building depends on the strength and sustainability of bases and foundations. The main causes for deformation of foundation soil: exceeded design loads on the base; external dynamic loads (seismic, blast, traffic, etc.); shallow depth of foundation laying; errors when carrying out site investigation; errors during design, etc. Minor and homogenous deformations (settlement) are not hazardous for buildings; major and inhomogeneous deformations (sagging) might lead to the formation of cracks, destruction of the structure, and accidents of buildings and facilities. Major settlements, homogeneous throughout the entire perimeter of a building, do not cause serious deformations and do not impede the normal operation of the building. It is inhomogeneous settlements that are hazardous. By their sensitivity, buildings are divided into under sensitive and sensitive ones. Under sensitive buildings are buildings which are setting as a single spatial whole, homogeneously or with a tilt, and buildings, elements of which are connected together by hinges. Buildings sensitive to the in homogeneous settlement are buildings with rigidly connected elements, displacement of which might lead to major deformations. A terminal difference in settlement of separate parts of foundations’ bases of columns or walls of buildings should not exceed 0,002 of the distance between these parts. Terminal values of the average settlement of buildings' bases: – 8 cm for large-panel and large-block buildings; – 10 cm for buildings with brick walls; – 10 cm for frame buildings; – 30 cm for buildings with raft foundation made of reinforced concrete. Depending on the nature of the development of inhomogeneous settlement of foundation and stiffness of a building, there are the following deformation types: tilts, deflections, cambers, drifts, torsion, cracks, fractures, etc. Exposure to various factors might lead to the development of settlements caused by changing the structure of the ground, which can be disrupted because of exposure to underground water, meteorological effects, frost penetration, thawing or drying. When the structure gets disrupted and the foundation’s bearing capability is lost, there are various methods of ground stabilization used in the process of operation: compaction, grouting, backfill. Operation of foundations takes place under difficult conditions. There are force impacts: loads imposed by superjacent structures, ground pressure, heaving forces, seismic impacts, oscillation, etc.; secondary impacts: temperature, humidity, exposure to chemical substances, etc. All these impacts might lead to 32

the existence of stresses and destruction in foundations, as well as to disturbance of operational regime of a building. When accepting a building for operation, it is necessary to check the quality of waterproofing of foundations and basement storeys thoroughly. Additional waterproofing layers in foundation placing at the floor level and on the surface of the basement walls get provided in buildings with basements depending on the underground water pressure. The main cause of physical deterioration and decrease of bearing capability of foundations is the destructive effect of underground and surface water; therefore, it is necessary to conduct some activities aimed at drainage of surface water and reduction of the underground water level. In order to prevent moistening of the ground in a foundation of the building and basement walls with surface water, engineers construct perimeter walk with the width no less than 0,8 m with a slope from the building amounted 0,02…0,01 for asphalt perimeter walks and 0,15…0,10 for cobbled perimeter walks. Sidewalks should be constructed with a waterproof covering (asphalt, concrete) with a slope from the building’s walls amounted 0,01…0,03; if the ground is waterproof, sidewalk bedding is placed upon a layer of fat clay. Engineering operation of foundations and bases provides for activities aimed at maintenance of the adjacent territory. In order to prevent moistening of the foundation, the territory of the yard must have a slope off the building not less than 001 in the direction towards drainage gutters or suction wells of storm sewage system; conduits must be constantly maintained in good order. Foundations and walls of basements, which are located near defective conduitsofwaterandheatsupplysystemsorsewageaswellasinplacesoftheirintersecti onwith engineering structures, must be protected against moistening. Earthworks near the building are only allowed provided the existence of projects providing for the protection of bases and foundation against moistening and deformations caused by a change or reallocation of loads. If there are cracks appearing in the walls because of the ground’s settlement, it is necessary to place a tell-tale and observe them within 15 to 20 days. If there are no new cracks within the period of observations using the tell-tale, this means that their formation and uneven settlement have stopped. Destruction of tell-tales means further settlement of the ground, therefore it is necessary to carry out a more thorough inspection of the deformation and plaster up the crack only after having eliminated the causes of its occurrence. The source of the basement's moistening might be the moisture incoming through pits. Walls of the pits must rise above the pavement by 10 to 15 cm; surfaces of the walls and the floor in the pits must not have cracks; the pits’ floor should have a slope off the building as well as a construction for water drainage out of the pit. Cracks and slits in places where elements of the pits are adjacent to the walls get poured with bitumen or sealed with asphalt. 33

If there is an uncontrolled water discharge outlet, pits should be protected against penetration of atmospheric precipitation. Basements and crawl space should have temperature and humidity conditions according to specified requirements. According to the temperature and humidity conditions that should be ensured in unheated basements and crawl spaces, the maintained air temperature should be no lower than 5 °С, and relative humidity should be no higher than 60 %. In heated basements, the temperature and humidity conditions that impede condensate dropout on the surface of enclosing structures get determined depending on the pattern of the room utilization. Basements and under floor spaces should be regularly aerated with the use of exhaust ducts in ventilation apertures of the windows, plinths or other devices, providing no less than single-round air change. If the reoccurred either condensate dropout on the surface of the structure or formation of mold, it is necessary to eliminate the sources of air humidification and provide intensive ventilation of the basement of the crawl space through doors and windows by installing door panels and window casements with bars or louvers. In basements and crawl spaces with blank walls, it is advisable, if necessary, to pierce no less than two ventilation apertures in the plinth of each section of the building, having positioned them in opposing walls and having equipped them with louvered grills and exhaust fans. In buildings with under floor heating, air drains in the plinth on the first floor are kept open. In buildings with unheated floors, air drains get closed when it becomes cold outside. Area of the air drains should amount approximately 1/400 of the basement area or the crawl space area. In order to protect structures against condensate or mold formation, it is necessary to carry out regular flow-through ventilation by opening all air drains, hatches, and doors. Ventilation of a crawl space should be carried out on dry and warm days. It is prohibited to store flammable and explosive materials in basements or equip other supply rooms if the entrance to these rooms leads to common stairwells. All openings, channels, and holes of the crawl space should be equipped with rodent screens. When the weather gets warmer, is necessary to regular lytake the sno wa way from the building’s wall sacross the entire width of the perimeter walk or the pavement, take measures to speed up melting of snow by loosening, throwing or splitting the ice. Drainage gutters and suction wells should be regularly cleaned. Plants are hazardous for foundations, therefore they get planted no closer than 5 meters away from the building's walls. Foundations and walls of basements get moisturized because of failures in pipeline systems; incase of discovering leaks or flooding of basements, it is necessary to determine causes and take corresponding measures: identify and switch 34

off the damaged section of the pipeline, eliminate defects of the pipeline, perimeter walk, or drainage system; fix the damaged waterproofing layer. In order to prevent untimely wear-off of individual parts of the building or engineering equipment and el imina tem in or defects and failures, maintenance gets provisioned. The period of efficient operation of a building till conducting scheduled maintenance of foundations amounts 15 to 60 years, depending on the structures. Maintenance of foundations and walls of basements require conducting the following primary operations: – sealing and pointing of joints, welds, cracks; selective renovation of foundation walls’ laying from the side of basements and plinths; – eliminating local deformations by relaying and strengthening the walls; – restoring separate water-insulating sections of basement walls; – piercing (sealing) holes, sockets, furrows; – reinforcing (arranging) foundations for equipage (ventilation, pumps); – replacing separate sections of strip and post foundations or chairs under wooden buildings or buildings with the walls made of other materials; – arranging (sealing) ventilation air drains, spigots; repair of pits and entrances to the basement; – replacing separate parts of perimeter walks around the building’s perimeter; – sealing the leads-through to the basement and the crawl space; – installing tell-tales on the walls in order to monitor deformations. Overhaul of foundations and basements provide for execution of the following operations: – strengthening bases intended for foundations of stone buildings, not connected with the building’s overstory; – partly replacing or reinforcing foundations under outer and inner walls, not connected with the building’s overstory; – strengthening of foundations intended for engineering equipment; repairing the brickwork casing of foundation walls from the side of basements in specific places; – re-cladding brick plinths; – partial or total rearrangement of pits near windows of basement and ground floors; – arranging or repairing water insulation of foundations in basement rooms; – restoring or paving a new perimeter walk around the building; – restoring or installing a new drainage system. 2.3. Operation and Maintenance of Walls The goal of engineering maintenance of a building’s walls is maintaining their bearing capability and enclosing properties during the entire service life. 35

Walls must satisfy the requirements by their strength, durability, fireresistance property, as well as provide rooms of a building with the necessary temperature and humidity conditions, protect the building from unfavorable external effects and possess decorative properties. The main factors causing damage to a building's walls in the process of their operation are: – uneven settlement of various parts of a building; – low quality of material used for constructing the walls; – design errors (bad design arrangement of joint units, an incorrect account of acting loads, lost stability caused by insufficient bond number, etc.); – low quality of work execution; – unsatisfactory operating conditions; – absence or failure of the waterproofing layer of walls, etc. Brick walls in the operating process should be systematically inspected in order to detect cracks, stratification of brickwork courses, sagging or fallout of bricks, or destruction of cornices and parapets. If there are cracks appearing in the walls, it is necessary to install tell-tales in order to determine the nature of cracks’ behavior. If the formation of cracks has stopped, they get sealed with solid mortar. If the cracks are widening, it is necessary to carry out their thorough inspection and eliminate the causes which had led to the formation of the cracks. If the walls are aerating through opening fillings, it is necessary to chip off the plaster at jambs and thoroughly caulk the openings between the window and door frames and the brickwork, and then restore the plaster. If bricks fall out of weathered wall parts, the parts should be cleared and then packed with the material used for the construction of the wall. F rooms with enhanced air humidity, It is necessary to apply vapor insulation with further plastering, oil paint covering or tiling on the surface of outer walls from the side of the rooms' location. Wooden walls can be made of logs, panels or blocks, or be frame walls. Wooden walls are exposed to the destructive effect of fungi and wooddestroying insects. In this regard, constant monitoring and thorough inspection are necessary. It is necessary to monitor the possible occurrence of bulges in the walls. The fact that wall structures are out of the vertical plane indicates to insufficient strength of their bonds which should be strengthened. When operating the structures of walls made of wood, it is necessary to pay special at tentiontoplaceswhichare the mosthazardous from the position of decaying, i.e. to enclosing structures facing the North, as well as to walls positioned in rooms adjacent to the sources of moisture (washrooms, kitchens, bathrooms). It is necessary to seal cracks and openings on outer surfaces of the walls in order to prevent penetration of atmospheric moisture. Gutter boards of plinths, 36

windows and belt courses should befit to the walls tightly with a slope no less than 1:3. In case of moistening of frame walls, it is necessary to restore or redo their blanket vapor insulation. Vapor-proofing layer gets positioned directly under the inner casing; the wall should be plastered from the side of a room. In wooden plinths, decayed parts of the sideboard get replaced, and plinth’s filling gets refilled. In order to prevent moistening of the filling, a 30 mm-thick layer of clay gets packed under it around the perimeter. Timber sets of the ledger and the prop, heavily damaged by wood-destroying insects, get replaced through timber treatment of preserved and new details with the placement of waterproofing layer over the foundation or the plinth. If moisture of condensation appears in the form of wet stains on the walls or the ceiling, it is necessary, having eliminated local defects, to increase thermal insulation from the side of cold surface of enclosing structures, enhance thermal output of the heating system, for example, by installing additional heating devices, intensify ventilation of rooms, etc. Structures of wooden walls get protected by being covered with fireproof compositions and soaked with antipyrene solutions. In order to protect wooden wall structures from moistening and pests, they get covered with pentaphthalic, chlorinated polyvinylchloride and other types of enamels as well as with the following transparent lacquers: PF-115, PF-170, KhV-110, KhV-124, KhV-785, UR-293, etc. Among the used fireproof compositions, there are OFP-9 fireproof phosphate coating, VP-9 inflating coating, AK-151KROZ fireproof acrylic paint. Boric acid, phosphate acid salts, etc. are used as antipyrenes. In the course of large-panel walls operating, a special attention should be paid to sealing state and strengthening of temperature seams of horizontal and vertical joints, the presence and the nature of cracks in panel bodies and in texture layer. In order to ensure the sealing of joints, it is necessary to conduct maintenance and preventive activities on sealing of junctions together with repair of wall panels within the periods that prevent them against losing their operating properties. In the course of large-panel buildings operating, it is necessary to thoroughly inspect walls for the presence of cracks in places of junctions between outer and inner walls; floorings and balconies with the walls; stair flights and landings alone and with the stairway walls. It is also necessary to look out for wet stains or frost penetration marks appearing on the walls or in the corners, as well as look out for rust stains on the walls and in places where built-in details are positioned. If moisture on the inner surface of the corners of outer walls is persistent, the inner surface of such corners should be winterized. Frost penetration in multi-layer panels, occurring as a result of low-quality shop fabrication or moistening of the heat-insulating layer, gets eliminated by cutting open the thermal insulation layer till the reinforced concrete plate in 37

places with frost penetration with further patching of the wall panel with dry heat-insulating material and restoration of the protective layer. In case of discovering mechanical defects in the reinforced concrete plate in a multi-layer wall panel featuring damage of the reinforcement grid, it is necessary to weld the ends of the damaged reinforcement together, pour in concrete flush with the outer surface of the plate, and restore the finishing layer. Within the first 2 years of operating, prefabricated buildings which possess enhanced humidity of wall enclosures need to be intensively heated and ventilated. Panel joints should comply with the following requirements: waterproofing with the use of sealing compounds; air shielding with gaskets made of porous elastic insulating material, gernit, backer rod, oakum and other materials with mandatory squeeze reduction not less than 30 to 50 %, as well as heat shielding with the use of heat insulating packages. Regulatory gapping of joints caused by temperature strains: 2 to 3 mm for vertical joints; 0,6 to 0,7 mm for horizontal joints. Water insulation in close-type joints is obtained due to joint sealing compound and air-sealing materials with mandatory squeeze reduction of 30 to 50 %. Thermal insulation is obtained with the use of thermal packages or by the installation of haunches with the width not less than 300 mm. Butt joints that have leaks should be sealed from the outer side with efficient sealing materials (flexible gaskets and mastic compounds). Engineering maintenance of walls must be carried out throughout their entire operating period. Minimal period of efficient wall operating is: – 50 years for large-panel walls with a heat insulating layer made of mineralwool plates; – 50 years for large-panel single-layer walls made of lightweight concrete; – 40 years for bearing, stone (brick walls with the thickness of 2,5 to 3,5 bricks) or large-block walls on the compound or cement grout; – 30 years for ordinary stone walls (brick walls with the thickness of 2,0 to 2,5 bricks); – 15 years for stonewalls of cavity wall masonry with the use of bricks, slag blocks, and shell stone; – 8 years for wood log walls and timber walls. A minimal operating period for hermetically sealed joints (in years): – 80 for panels of outer walls sealed with mastic compounds; – 60 for places of the junction of window and door blocks to borders of the frames. The list of main activities for maintenance of walls: – filling of cracks, pointing of joints, restoration of facing and re-cladding certain sections of brick walls with the area up to 2 m2; – sealing of joints of elements of prefabricated buildings and filling of dents and cracks on the surface of blocks and panels; – piercing of holes, sockets, furrows; 38

– replacement of separate sections of the siding of wooden walls, timbers, and carcass elements, as well as strengthening, winterization, and caulking of grooves; – restoration of partitions, lintels, cornices, as well as grouting of fallout stones; – reinforcement of wall sections with frost penetration in certain rooms; – elimination of moisture and draft; – cleaning and repair of ventilation channels and exhaust devices. 2.4. Operation and Maintenance of Floorings In order to ensure normal operating of a building, deflections of beams should not exceed 1/250 for wooden interflooring, and 1/200 for attic flooring. In case of detecting that the ceiling is sagging or there is a strong floor swelling, it is necessary to cut them open and carry out inspection of flooring structures: the state of subfloor and lubrication; sufficiency of the floor filling layer, especially in basement ceilings and attic floorings; condition of the boarding and reliability of its fastening to beams in the light-weight flooring. Inspection of wooden attic floorings featuring further removal of floor filling and lubrication on sections that are the closest to outer walls and have the width up to 1 m as well as thorough inspection and checking of condition of wooden parts of the flooring should be carried out at least once in 5 years. If deflections of the flooring structure exceed the maximum allowable ones, this structure need to be reinforced or replaced. In case of discovering cracks in floorings with the opening width more than 1mm, it is necessary to cut open the protective layer, determine the state of reinforcement and concrete, and carry out necessary operations based on the obtained results. In case of detecting moistening or oiling of intermediate floorings caused by failures in normal operation of pipelines, it is necessary to identify and eliminate the causes, remove the destructed layer of concrete or plaster, and put on a new layer. If a wall section gets overcooled in places of bearing the reinforced concrete floors of intermediate floorings, substantiated by the presence of wet stains or frost, it is advisable to construct a cornice near the ceilings of attic or intermediate floorings, or cut open the floor and carry out winterization of the ends of the flooring plate. In case of detecting sagging of plasterwork or deep cracks in it, the state of plasterwork should be checked by tapping it. If there is bulging and peeling of plaster off the reinforced concrete walls, it should be chipped off and replaced with a new one. This plaster should be produced out of a composite grout, and surfaces of the plates should feature preliminary combing. 39

Enhanced humidity of plates in rooms over shower rooms might indicate a failure in sealing of the flooring; therefore they need to be cut open and their leak-proof function should be restored. Reinforcement of floorings, elimination of deflections and shearing of bearing structures of the walls or joists in brick vaults, as well as cracks and other deformations that reduce bearing capability of floorings should be carried out in accordance with the project. Overcooled floorings are getting winterized using the following methods: – attic floorings: improve the heat-insulating layer to the designed one; an additional thermal insulation layer or a bevel made of heat-insulating material at the angle of 45 degrees should be placed in the attic along the outer walls on a strip with the width of 0,7 to 1,0 m; – intermediate floorings: improve thermal insulation in places of their junction to outer walls as well as thermal insulation along the abutting ends of panels and joists; cover inner surfaces of brick walls with plaster; compact the butt joints of panel walls and construct 20 to 30 mm-wide bevels made of heatinsulating material; – floorings over passages and basements: provide heat insulation in places where doors to the entrance hallway and ventilation air drains of plinth walls are positioned; reinforce the thickness of thermal insulation layer for 15 to 20 % according to the project. Attic floorings with a filling heat-insulating layer should have wooden navigation bridges and a lime-sand screed along the winterizing layer. Minimal period of efficient operating of a building’s floorings varies from 20 to 30 years. 2.5. Operation and Maintenance of Floors There are the following failures and defects occurring in floors: destruction of paint coating of wooden floors; absence or clogging of ventilation grids or vent slots behind the skirting; defects caused by decaying, abrasion and warping of wood boards and parquet stave blocks, as well as instability and local sagging; mobility and fallout of individual stave blocks; squeaking of parquet floors laid upon a wooden subfloor; cracks and potholes; floor raising from the foundation, uneven surfaces of ceramic and cement floors; shrinkage and fragility of synthetic floors, as well as good heat conductivity («unheated» floors) of some structures of floors laid upon a concrete subfloor. Technical condition of floors should be periodically inspected in residential apartments and common areas by paying attention to their maintenance regime (mopping, polishing, moistening prevention) and timely elimination of detected failures. Floors in buildings are made of materials which are different in their composition and operating characteristics. 40

In order to better protect timber floors against moisture and dirt accumulation, it is recommended to cover it with oil paint or enamel no less than once per 3 years, featuring preliminary spackling. Floors with enhanced instability and deflections should be cut open; the state of wood in bearing structures and the spring gaskets should be inspected; and then the structure should get repaired. At heavy drying shrinkage, timber floors get spliced. Worn-off or damaged boards get replaced with new ones, the woody tissue of which should be air-dry and impregnated with wood preservatives from three sides, excluding the surface of the floor. Upon conclusion of a repair, after preliminary priming and spackling of pared surfaces, the floor 2 times gets covered with paint. Underground space of timber joisted floors on the ground coat with wooden floorings should be ventilated through ventilation holes, constructed on the floor in two opposite corners of a room, or in plinths in the form of openings calculated as 5 sq cm for 1 sqm of the room’s area. Grids over the holes should be placed on backing strips placed 10 mm above the floor surface. Mastic compound should be periodically (no less than once per 2 months) rubbed into parquet floors; every 4 to 5 years, such floors should be covered with wear-resistant lacquer after preliminary sanding of the surface. Before polishing, the floor gets mopped with a wet rag. Washing parquet floors is not allowable. If stave blocks of the parquet are attached to the base with a bitumen mastic compound, it is prohibited to rub turpentine mastic into the floor as it dissolves the bitumen and the floor turns black. Only water-based mastic compounds are applicable for such floors. The presence of a bitumen mastic compound can be identified based on dark color of floor joints. Parquet joisted floors should be properly ventilated. Deflection and in stability of the floor, as well as the presence of damaged stave blocks signifies possible development of fungi. It is necessary to cut the floor open and inspect the state of the wood. In the course of repair, the parquet stave blocks that got peeled off the base get fixed; damaged stave blocks get replaced with the new ones which should be placed so that they were 0,5 to 1,0 mm above the current floor level. After that, it is advisable to carry out planning and sanding. In order to eliminate squeaking, parquet floor gets resurfaced by being laid upon a layer of cardboard or tar paper, with concurrent assembling of missing stave blocks or replacement of the damaged ones. In order to prevent excessive moistening or abrasion of xylolite floors, as well as to reduce their conductivity, they get rubbed with wax or drying oil with parquet mastic compound once a month, and get mopped with soft, slightly wet rags in the course of everyday cleaning. Every 2 or 3 years, xylolite floors are recommended to get treated with heated drying oil. Such floors can be painted with oil paint. It is prohibited to apply lime, compound solutions or gypsum 41

binders for leveling the base, because these materials have a negative impact on magnesia binders, causing destruction of xylolite. Floors made of synthetic materials (linoleum, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) tiles, rubber linoleum) are recommended to get mopped with a wet rag daily; also, such floors should be periodically washed with warm (but not hot) soapy water with further washing-off with clean water. Drying-out of soapy water on linoleum is not allowable. Only neutral synthetic cleansing agents should be used. Sodium and other alkali make linoleum brittle. When washing the floor, it is prohibited to use pumice stone, sand or hot water. Sustainable dirt stains on PVC linoleum and tiles get removed with a rag soaked in turpentine or petrol. At that, one should watch so that the dissolvent wouldn’t be placed on floor joints. Reduction of possible static electrification of floors made of PVC linoleumandtilesisrecommendedtogetobtainedbyenhancementofrelative air humidity in rooms till 50 to 55 %, as well as by polishing the floors with special mastic compounds or wax and treatment with antistatic substances no less than 1-2 times per month. Stiffeners are being put under furniture legs. When repairing a floor made of linoleum, worn-off places get replaced with new ones. Peeled-off synthetic slabs, as well as local bulging of linoleum, get eliminated right after occurrence of the defect by gluing it upon a mastic compound, preceded by cleaning up and leveling of the base. For thin linoleum, the base should be made of semi-rigid solid wood fiber boards, cellular concrete and other materials that possess low coefficient of heat absorption. Places of bulging should be pierced with an awl and release the air, then smooth out and glue the linoleum. If linoleum is bulging at more than 25 % of the floor area, it is necessary to carry out its total resurfacing. Mastic seamless floors are only allowed to be mopped with a wet rag during one month after having been laid; when this period has expired, such floors should be mopped and polished just like linoleum floors. Small dents and cracks in floors get filled up with mastic compound. Floors made of ceramic tiles, as well as mosaic and cement floors which have damaged sections, are subject to accelerated destruction; therefore, destructed places in such floors should be eliminated as soon as possible using layers of the same thickness and made of the same materials as the previously laid floors. Ceramic tiles which got detached from the concrete base should be cleaned off the solution and soaked in water before being used. The surface of the floor base should be durable, scratched, cleaned off of dust, and moistened (when using glue for fastening the tile, the surface does not gets moistened). Floor sections with newly laid tiles should be maintained in a moistened condition within 4 to 7 days. Potholes in concrete and cement floors get eliminated. Repaired floor sections get floated with cement on the second day. Floors made of ceramic tiles, as well as mosaic and cement floors should be mopped with warm water no less than once a week. 42

2.6. Operation and Maintenance of Partitions When inspecting partitions, it is advisable to identify their structure, operating nature, stability, strength, acoustic insulation and causes of deformations. The structure of a partition gets determined by inspecting its exterior and cutting its specific parts open. Detected bulging and buckling should be measured. Stability of partitions gets determined by calculation, taking into account the acting loads, depending on the operating nature and the size. Acoustic insulation of inter-apartment partitions gets regulated according to GOST 27296. If partitions are unstable, it is necessary to restore the weakened fastening parts or install some additional ones. Bulging of wooden partitions might occur because of a buttress of floorings or an unsafe fastening to the flooring or the walls. Cracks in places of conduits’ passage occur because of temperature differences and deformations caused by them. The space between the shell and a central heating pipe gets caulked with an asbestos cord, and the surface gets floated with a cement-lime solution supplemented by 10 to 15 % with asbestos dust. Cracks in plasterwork of wooden partitions occur because of settlement of the walls, shrinkage of wood and vibrations of floorings. Peeled-off plasterwork should get chipped off; the surface should be cleared and plastered with the same solution. Remained facing made of ceramic tiles should be removed and reapplied. Wet stains and damaged facing and plasterwork of timber or frame-fill partitions indicate decaying of the wood. It is recommended to chip off the facing layer, replace decayed elements, dry through and recover the facing cover. Damaged sections of the facing made of dry plaster should be replaced. Small potholes are allowed to be plugged up by gypsum solution. If cracks or cardboard flaking occur in sheet junctions, these places get cleaned, glued over with mesh tape and caulked. Insufficient acoustic insulation takes place as a result of small mass of partitions, occurrence of cracks and slits, compaction and settlement of the filling, failing to provide necessary thickness, and clogging of the air gap. Cavities formed in carcass partitions need to be filled up with mineral wood boards, or the filling should be augmented. If sound conductivity of a partition remain enhanced after patching up cracks, slits and gaps, additional acoustic insulation need to be carried out. Partitions made of wooden elements, gypsum plates or panels require thorough protection against moistening. If such partitions are placed in rooms with high humidity, they should be covered with water-resistant tiles or covered with oil paint. Disassembling, rearranging or installing new partitions in the operating process, as well as making openings, is only allowed upon a special permission. It 43

is prohibited to fix wall-mounted equipment on asbestos-cement partitions of three-dimensional utility blocks without special appliances. 2.7. Operation and Maintenance of Roofs Pitched (garret) roofs should be operating under conditions of failure-free condition of the roofing, bearing structures of the roofs, and normal temperature and humidity conditions in garret rooms. Inspection of roofing is carried out twice a year: in spring and in autumn; inspections of rolled roofing take place no less than once per 2 months. Technical condition of pitched coatings with roofing made of sheet materials and masonry units get inspected both from the outside and from the side of the attic, in order to detect the presence of wet stains on the heat insulation material of the garret flooring. For steel roof coatings, it is necessary to check the state of the paint or protective layer, ridges, seams, eaves and their spiking; the state of wall-mounted chutes, boots and rainwater heads of storm water pipes, the presence of corrosion, potholes, blowholes or dirt, especially near the discharge rebates. Inspection, cleaning and repair should be conducted only if wearing matted shoes or rubber boots. If the roofing is made of steel, it is necessary to compact defective flat seams and standing seams, having preliminarily applied red iron ochre; small potholes and blowholes (up to 5 mm) should be patched with pack cloth or glass fiber cloth on red-lead cement and a sealant; individual heavily damaged roof slabs get replaced with new ones. Metallic roofing gets covered with oil paint (in twice) no less than once in 34 years; roofing made of galvanized iron gets painted when corrosion appears. If in the operating process defects get detected on the roofing before the scheduled overall painting of the coating, the defected places get repaired and painted immediately. When inspecting roof coatings made of roof tile or asbestos-cement sheets, one should check defects and displacements of separate elements, the lap of one course over another, correctness of flooring, especially in ridge courses and edge courses, and loosening of the roofing’s fastening to roof sheathing. Damaged roof tiles or asbestos sheets should be replaced. At that, seams in tile roofs from the side of the attic get treated with a compound solution featuring combings. Ifoverlappingoflowerasbestos-cementsheetswiththeuppercoursesheetsisloose, it is necessary to lay a layer of tar paper or roofing felt between the sheets, which will prevent snow blowing to the attic. Repair of roof coating made of asbestoscement sheets should be carried out with the use of portable stands. Before inspection of rolled roofing, all garbage should be removed. Walking on such roofs is only allowed while wearing soft shoes. During an inspection, it is necessary to check strip joints and their sticking to lower courses or the base; 44

the state of places where the roofing is adjoining the walls and pipes; the presence of local settlements, breaches or punctures, as well as cracking of the covering and protective layers. Maintenance of rolled roofing is in recovery of superficial coating and protective layer, which should get renewed no less than once per every 3 years. Paint coat is applied in twice using bituminous lacquer with adding 15 % (by the mass) of aluminum powder. Before that, the roof surface gets cleaned and preliminarily primed with the same lacquer. Damaged sections of rolled roofing get replaced with corresponding material by gluing it with mastic compound. Inspection of bearing structures of a roof is carried out only after inspection of the roof coating. The following damages and defects occur in wooden structures: defects of joints in conjugations between the roof timbers; poor water insulation between stone and wooden structures; decay and deflection of rafter spars, roof sheathing and other elements. When inspecting wooden elements of roofing structures, the state of the wood is checked thoroughly in order to detect mold, decay or infestation with wood-destroying insects. Roof structures should get especially thorough inspection within the first 3 years of operating. During the first year of a building’s acceptance for operating, tightening of bolts, tar boards and stirrups should be carried out every 3 months in order to eliminate gaps and slits in the nodes. Assessment of wood strength in decaying sections is allowed to be carried out based on the number of annual rings 1 cm thick, the percentage of summerwood, and the absence of fungi or coloring. Wood moisture content gets determined with the use of an electronic moisture meter. Defects of bearing structures of a roof, connected with decaying or insect infestation, get eliminated immediately by carrying out timber preservation. If decaying is not hazardous, only its cause gets eliminated. Collapsed after spars get reinforced, and damaged parts of wall plates and roof sheathings get replaced. If there are significant deflections of rafter spars, additional stands, joists and struts should be installed. At that, stands should bear against bearing walls instead of floorings. Inspection is used to detect the presence of slits in tensile and bending lements of reinforced concrete products or exposed re in for cement; condition of protective coatings of concrete inserts and welded joints get checked. Cracks and deflections detected in bearing structures get measured; monitoring of their dynamics using observation devices gets organized. Deflections of structures and cracks in the mare considered as non-hazardous if they do not increase after the beginning of observation, and their size does not exceed standard values. In this case, potholes and slits get filled up with cement grout. If damages resulted in loosing of bearing capability of a structure, it should be reinforced or replaced. 45

2.8. Operation and Maintenance of Stairways Maintenance of stairways lies in periodic checking of strength of their bearing elements, conjunction units of stairways with the walls, and attachment of railings. Technical condition of stairways gets evaluated based on results of scheduled inspections and surveys which are carried out when designing an overhaul and when determining the causes of deformations. It is recommended to start inspection of stairways with the landing platform at a building’s entry. All stair flights and landings are subject to inspection from above and from below. Such an inspection determines the following: the type of stairways by their material and their structural features; the state of elements and their conjunctions, the places of their embedding into the walls, attachments of stair grills; the presence of deformations, cracks and damages. In order to identify causes of deformations and damages of stairs, it is necessary to carry out breaking in places of bearing structures’ embedding into the walls. When inspecting stairs made of precast reinforced concrete components, their exterior appearance is used to determine the following: the state of embedding of staircase landings into the walls; the state of supports of stair flights and metallic details in places of welding; the presence and areas of spreading of cracks and damages at staircase landings. When inspecting stone ladders, the following gets determined: the state and strength of staircase landing beams’ embedment in the wall; corrosion of steel bonds; the state of masonry in places of staircase landing beams’ embedment. Special attention should be paid to stair flights leading to the basement. For hanging stone stairs, the state and strength of embedment of steps in the block work gets inspected. Minimal allowable value of stairway elements’ buttress is 50 mm for concrete and metallic surfaces, and 120 mm for brickwork; inconsistency in levelness should be no more than 10 mm for staircase landings and 4 mm for steps of the stairs; vertical deviation of railings should be no more than 6 mm. For wooden stairways, metallic stringers and wooden bridgeboards get inspected to determine the following: the state and strength of embedment of staircase landings into the beam walls; reliability of their fastening to the beams; the state of timber, steps, beams; the presence of moisture, decay or parasitic attack. Strength characteristics get determined with the use of non-destructive methods. Deflections of bearing elements get determined with the use of deflectometers and leveling instrument. If the value of deflection is higher than the standard one (1/200 to 1/400 of the stair flight value) or deformation keeps increasing, bearing structural elements of stairways should be reinforced after having taken measures intended for safe operating of stairways. When detecting cracks in the nodes of structural conjunctions of stair flights, landings or walls, dynamics of cracks' changing gets monitored, the causes of 46

their formation get identified, and corresponding measures to prevent their development get taken. When inspecting stairwells, special attention is paid to failure-free operation of engineering and technical equipment positioned on the stairwell, draught proofing, serviceability of illumination and glazing, adherence intensity of access opening in refuse chutes, and noise regime that depends on operation of elevators. Electricity measuring devices, switchboard rooms and other switching devices should be constantly locked in boards. The keys should be kept by a dispatcher of the Housing maintenance and utilities board. Entrances leading from stairwells to the attic or the roofing should be locked. Stairwells serve as escape routes. Using stairwells for storage of materials, equipment and appliances, as well as organize storage places and utility spaces under stair flights is prohibited. Passages and emergency exits should be free to access. In the daytime, stairwells should be illuminated through the windows, and in the dark period of a day they should be illuminated with the use of electricity. Proper sanitary state of a stairwell gets ensured by regular clean-ups. Stair flights and staircase landings get washed no less than once in a month. Windows, windowsills and heating devices get swept off no less than once in 5 days, and walls get dusted off no less than twice per month. The space of stairwell gets regularly ventilated. At that, vent windows or window casements get simultaneously opened on the first and the top floors. Air temperature in winter period should be no lower than 16 °С. Temperature control is conducted yearly in the course of spring or autumn inspection within one stairwell on the landings of the first, the medium and the last floors. Springs, compacting gaskets, self-closing devices and door stop spindles get installed in order to provide close ledge of outer entrance doors. Among supplementary measures are: winterization of walls, ceilings and door plates in the wind-porch section; construction of a double wind porch in order to eliminate draughts. 2.9. Operation and Maintenance of Windows, Doors and Roof Lanterns Damaged and tainted parts of window casings, frames and window boards, discovered during an inspection, should be replaced with new ones; wooden parts of window and door assemblies should be primed and painted. Frames that have come unglued in framing corners should be reglued; new dowel pins or metallic angles should be applied. If there are no sills of outer frames, it is necessary to produce new ones and set them into a groove using glue and bolt screws after thorough painting and puttying. Condensed water appearing on windowsills or between the frames should be removed. All details of metallic entrance doors should get cleaned periodically. Damages or peeled off plaster gets reapplied; a door holder with a gap between the wall and the door gets installed. 47

Assemblies of window or door frames exposed to a significant wear-off get replaced with new ones, preliminarily impregnated with antiseptics. All surfaces contacting with stone walls get isolated. Coupled balcony doors with low thermal characteristics should get winterized by laying an efficient heat-insulating material (polyurethane foam, mineral felt, etc.) between the panels. Gaps between the wall and the casing, which favor for high rate of air permeability or penetration of atmospheric moisture, get compacted with special elastic materials; then the gaps get plugged up with cement grout. During an overhaul, windows and balcony doors with double glazing in the regions with designed temperature of outdoor air to be 30 °С below zero and lower should be supplemented with the third frame from the side of a room. Compacting gaskets, which are being placed in ledges of window frames and balcony doors after painting the frames, get replaced every 6 years, as painting of gaskets is not allowable. Painting of window frames and door panels is carried out no less than once in 6 years. Painting of buildings’ lanterns is carried out every 5 years. When operating lanterns, the following should get inspected: – compaction in ledges of frames and finishing of boards with canopies made of roofing steel; – integrity of geometric form of the frames; – the state and failure-free functioning of opening devices; – the state of anti-corrosion coating of steel frames and canopies of boards’ finishing; – the presence of decay in wooden frames; – fastening of glasswork. All detected defects should be eliminated before closing the lanterns for the winter period. Lantern glass should get cleaned of dust, tarry soot and other pollutions no less than twice a year; in winter time, window glass gets cleaned only from the inside. Glass of lantern lights should be cleaned after a heavy snowfall. 2.10. Operation and Maintenance of a Building’s Facade Operation and maintenance of the facade takes into account reliability of fastening of the details that provide resistance to exposure of natural and climate factors. Basement is the part of a building which is the most exposed to moistening because of atmospheric precipitation and the moisture which penetrates through capillaries of the foundation’s material. This part of a building is constantly exposed to unfavorable mechanical impacts, which requires using durable and frost-resistant materials when constructing a basement. Cornices, the crowning part of a building, serve for drainage of storm and meltwaters off the wall and perform architectural and decorative function, just like other architectural structural elements of the building's facade. Facades of a 48

building may also have intermediate cornices, the string courses which perform the functions analogous to functions of the main crowning cornice. Failure-free operation of enclosing structures of a building depend on engineering state of cornices, strip courses, pilasters, and other protruding parts of the facade. In order to avoid destruction caused by atmospheric precipitation, the upper plane of the parapet gets protected with galvanized steel or with concrete plates produced at a factory. In order to ensure safety during repair operations, balustrades in the form of metallic grids and solid brick walls get constructed on the building’s roof. It is necessary to maintain the tightness of conjunctions of roofing coatings to elements of the balustrades. Balconies are operating under conditions of constant exposure to atmospheric phenomena, humidification, alternating frosting and defrosting; therefore, balconies malfunction and get destructed earlier than other parts of a building. The most critical part of balconies is the place where plates or beams are embedded into the building’s wall, because the place of embedment is subject to intensive temperature and humidity exposure in the course of operating. Flooring of loggias should ensure water drainage away from the external walls of a building. For that, the floors of loggias should be constructed with a slope of 2 to 3 % from the plane of the facade, and get positioned 50 to 70 mm lower than the floor of adjacent rooms. The surface of a loggia’s flooring gets covered with waterproofing course. Conjunctions of plates of balconies and loggias with the facade wall get protected against leaking by connecting the end of waterproofing course with the wall, applying two 400 mm-wide additional water insulating layers and covering it with a soaker made of galvanized steel. Enclosures of loggias and balconies should be high enough to ensure compliance with safety requirements (no lower than 1,0…1,2 m) and be constructed as a solid plate with railings and flower boxes. Engineering maintenance of facade elements provides for a thorough inspection of wall sections located near rainwater pipes, chutes and funnels. All damaged sections of the wall cladding get chipped off and then restored, after having identified and eliminated the causes of destruction. Under weathering, crumbling of filling of joints and destruction of edges of panels and blocks, joints should get filled up and damaged paneled es should be restored with the use of corresponding materials; before that, destructed mortar should be removed and joints should get thoroughly caulked with an oil-soaked band after being floated with hard cement mortar; repaired sections should be painted in accordance with the color of the walls’ surface. On facades clad with ceramic tiles, attention should be focused on places where bulging of cladding is observed, individual tiles are protruding from the wall plane, cracks and fractures get formed in corners of a tile; at that, tapping of the surface of the entire facade should be carried out; loosened tiles should be removed and restoration operations should be carried out. 49

Efficient means of cleaning are using sand-blast apparatus, cleaning with wet rags, etc. In order to clean up facades clad with glazed ceramic tiles, special compounds get applied. Facades of buildings should get cleaned and washed within the periods determined depending on material, the state of buildings’ surfaces and operating conditions. Using sand-blast method to clean up architectural details and surfaces of plasterwork made of soft rocks is not allowable. Facades of wooden un plastered buildings should get periodically covered with vapor-permeable paint or compounds, as well as impregnate them with antiseptics and flame retardants. Beautification of a building can be obtained by its qualitative plastering and painting. Painting of facades should be carried out after finishing repair of walls, parapets, protruding details and architectural fretworks, inlet systems, windowsills, etc. Painting of metallic staircases, fastening elements of power network’s carrier cables and roof edge railing should be carried out by applying oil paint every 5-6 years, depending on operating conditions. Water discharge appliances of outer walls should have required slopes off the walls in order to ensure drainage of atmospheric water. Steel fastening parts get positioned with a slope off the walls. Details that are sloping towards a wall should be equipped with closely adjusting sealing rings made of galvanized steel, positioned in a distance of 5 to 10 cm from the wall. All steel elements fastened towards the wall get regularly painted and protected against corrosion. It is necessary to systematically check the correctness of the use of balconies, bay windows and loggias; it is prohibited to use them for placing bulky and heavy objects as well as filling them with rubbish and dirt. In order to prevent destruction of edges in plates of balconies and loggias, as well as prevent formation of cracks between the plate and the walls because of atmospheric precipitation, metallic sink gets installed in a groove of a box whose width composes no less than 1,5 of the plate's thickness. The metallic sink should be set under the waterproofing layer. Slope of the plate of balconies and loggias off the building’s walls should be no less than 3 %; water drainage should be performed by a counter flashing or behind an iron plate with a feint, its sitting amounting 3 to 5 cm; end of the drainage sink gets embedded in the panel body. In case of emergency condition of balconies, loggias or bay windows, their entrances should be locked and repair operations should be carried out according to the project. In the course of inspections, it is necessary to pay attention to the absence or defects in construction of conjunctions of drain sinks and waterproofing layer with the structures, loosening of fastening and damage of enclosures of balconies and loggias. Damages should be eliminated. Destruction of cantilever beams and plates, shear fracture of support platforms under cantilevers, flaking and breakdowns get eliminated during an overhaul. When inspecting encased steel beams, the strength of adhesion between the concrete and the metal gets checked. Flaked concrete gets removed and protec50

tive layer gets restored. Location, forms and fastening of flower boxes should comply with architectural concept of the building. Flower boxes and metallic railings get covered with weather-resisting paint using the color specified in the facade’s color passport. Flower boxes get installed on pallets, with a gap off the wall to be no less than 50 mm. Depending on materials used in main structures of balconies and loggias, the minimum period of their efficient service life is 10 to 40 years. Defects in plasterwork are caused by poor quality of solution, work execution at low temperatures, excessive moistening, etc. Under minor plasterwork repair, cracks get pointed and caulked; under repair of major cracks, plaster gets removed and reapplied; at that, special attention is paid to ensuring the cohesion of plaster layer with bearing elements. General causes of damaging of buildings’ external appearance: – using materials dissimilar in their strength, water absorption, frost resistance and durability (silicate bricks, slag blocks, etc.) in the same masonry; – various deformability of bearing and self-bearing end walls; – using silicate bricks in rooms with enhanced humidity (bath houses, swimming pools, shower rooms, washrooms, etc.); – loosening of bonding; – thickening of seams; – insufficient support of structures; – freezing of grout; – moistening of cornices, parapets, architectural details, balconies, loggias, plaster work of the walls; – failing to comply with process engineering during wintry masonry, etc. 3. PROTECTION OF OBJECTS AGAINST FLAME IMPINGEMENT Protection of objects against flame impingement is carried out by the following: – concreting, plastering, brickwork (constructive method); – facing of a fireproofing object with standard materials or installation of fire barriers in a distance (constructive method); – covering the object’s surface with fireproof coating (painting, coating, spraying, etc.); – soaking of sub-superficial layers of structures with fireproofing composition; – combined (composite) method, which is a rational combination of various methods.

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GLOSSARY А Acceptance inspection of a building’s elements is making sure that the building complies with the requirements of the standard and technical documentation. The inspection is performed during commissioning of new builds and during commissioning of overhauled buildings. Aging of material is the change of the physical and mechanical characteristics of the material of the structural element under the influence of mechanical loads and the environment over time. Anti-corrosion protection of structures. Structural: insulation; arranging protective coatings. Physical-and-chemical: changing the characteristics of materials. Treatment with special compositions. Antipyrenes (fire retardants), paint compositions protecting against fires. Asbestos felt is waterproofing rolled uncovered material, which is produced by soaking asbestos cardboard with oil bitumen. B Buildings are above-ground structures with rooms. Buildings(classification as per overhaul): especially durable stone buildings; stone buildings; light-weight stone buildings; timber log and block buildings, mixed-type buildings, raw housing buildings (with timber flooring); prefab, frame, mud, adobe buildings; frame-and-reed fiber buildings, and other lightweight buildings. Classification as per structure: wall buildings, frame buildings, massing Classification as per humidity conditions: dry, with moisture content of < 50 %; standard, with moisture content of 50…70 %; and wet, with moisture content of > 70 %. Classification as per number of storeys: one-decker and low-rise buildings (≤ 3 storeys); multi-storeybuildings (4…8 storeys); high-risebuildings (9…25 storeys); andtall-structurebuildings (> 25 storeys). Classification as per materials: stone buildings; concrete buildings; reinforced-concrete buildings; timber buildings, and other buildings. C General (seasonal) inspection is when the whole building is inspected, including its structures, engineering equipment and public amenities. Certificate of a building is the description of the main structural elements of the building and of certain most complicated types of engineering equipment. Compaction of soil (methods) includes sand piles, water depression (drainage), heat treatment, and silicatization. Corrosion is unprompted destruction of construction materials resulting from contact with the surrounding environment. Corrosion resistance are the measures on improving the resistance of materials to corrosion processes. 52

Corrosive medium, medium causing corrosion and destruction of material. Gaseous media are characterized with relative air humidity of 60…100 % and content of gases in the air as per concentration. Liquid media are ground water; mineral water with certain concentration of salts; sea water; technogenic water. Solid media are dry mineral soils containing ions of chlorine, sulfates, magnesium, sodium, potassium, as well as fertilizers and process dust. Corrosivity of aqueous solutions. Corrosivity as per concentration of bicarbonates; as per hydrogen index; as per concentration of free carbon dioxide; as per concentration of magnesium salts; as per concentration of caustic alkali; sulfate attack; as per concentration of chlorides, nitrates and other salts of caustic alkali. D Damage is an event of disturbance in the good working condition of a facility. Meanwhile the operable condition is preserved. Demolition of a building (disassembly) is a controlled liquidation of a building (facility) by means disassembly or breaking-down. Defect is the non-compliance with the requirements related to planned or specified use of a facility. Dispatcher service is a round-the-clock work of a dispatcher at a building’s control board, controlling the functioning of the engineering infrastructure, maintaining the set parameters of microclimate in the building rooms, switching the equipment into the required operation mode, etc. Drainage (in construction) is the method of collecting and diverting of ground water from the site and facilities by using a system of drain pipes, wells, canals, underground galleries, and other arrangements. Durability is the state of a facility, during which its parameters remain within the specified tolerance. E Economic wear is the decrease in a building’s and facility’s value External wear is the impact of the external economic factors. F Facility are structures of technical designation (bridges, dams, chimneys, passageways and others). Failure is performance disturbance. Failure is an event when a structure looses its operable condition. Failure-free operation, capability of a facility to remain in an operable condition during a certain period of time (for materials and goods) or over certain hours in service (for equipment): – time to failure, is the time span between the start of operation and the first failure; – mean time to failure is the mathematical expectation of hours in service before the first failure; 53

– probability of failure-free operation is when a facility failure does not occur within the set hours in service; – failure rate is the probability of failure-free operation for a certain moment of time; – Failure is an event when the operable condition is disturbed. Sudden failure is a failure as a result of an abrupt change in the parameters (breakage). Gradual failure is a failure as a result of slow changes in the parameters (wear, deformation of materials). Fire resistance. It is the capability of structures to localize fire and preserve operational qualities at high temperatures in case of fire (hours). Category I – 3; category II– 2.5; category III– 2; category IV– 0.5; category V– combustible buildings. Fireproofness is the property of materials not to undergo deformation in case of durable impact by high temperatures. Fluosilicate treatmentis the process of chemical influence of soluble fluosilicates (silicofluoride) on lime, which is released during cement hardening. Under the influence of silicofluoride (fluosilicates), active lime converts into mechanically strong and chemically active calcium fluoride, as well as silicates of solid properties form. Freeze-thaw resistance is the capability of materials not to loose in strength in case of multiple freezing and thawing Functional wear is when a building stops complying with the requirements stipulated for facilities and activities of this type. Functioning of a building is the use of building for its intended purpose, performance of its specified functions. H Hydrogen-ion activity. The higher the activity of hydrogen ions, the lower the hydrogen index of the solution and the increase in the corrosion rate. Hydrogen index (рН) is a non-dimensional value equal to negative common logarithm of the hydrogen-ion concentration in a solution. Neutral medium is characterized with рН = 6…8, acidic medium with рН< 6, and alkaline medium with рН> 8. Hydrolysis are exchange reactions of interaction between water and dissolved substances, as a result of which poorly dissociating or hardly soluble substances are generated. Hygroscopy (water absorbing property) is a property of a material to absorb water vapors from the surrounding environment. I Improvements (degree of improving a residential and/or public building), availability of the house utility systems and equipment used to provide the consumers with municipal services. 54

Interrelation of the phases of designing, construction and operation of buildings. Inspections of buildings: scheduled inspections; off-schedule inspections; general (seasonal) inspection, is when the whole building is inspected, including its structures, engineering equipment and public amenities; partial inspection, is when separate parts of buildings are inspected (roof, basement, elevator, heat supply system, etc.); unscheduled inspection, is the inspection performed after natural calamities (extensive rains, heavy snowfalls, etc.). L Limit state is when further operation of a facility is unacceptable due to physical wear, or is unfeasible due to obsolescence. This is when goods become unserviceable due to defects. The defects may be as follows: – visible defects (cracks, chip-offs, irregularities, lack of parallelism), to reveal which, relevant rules, methods and means of detection and control are stipulated by the standard documentation; – hidden defects (foreign inclusions, cavities, fusion breaks) are often revealed once a product is delivered to a consumer; – critical defect is when it is not possible or unacceptable to use a product; ъ – major defect is the one that can significantly influence the reliability and durability of a product, but is not a critical one; – minor defect is wen deviation of a characteristic or a parameter does not significantly influence the use of a product as intended and its durability; – Unrepairable defect is the one that is technically impossible or economically unfeasible to remove. As the technology of removing faults improves and the expenses on it are reduced, the unrepairable defects may become repairable defects. Life of buildings and facilities is the time limit when the required operational qualities of buildings and facilities are preserved within the specified period of time. Class I – service life of more than 100 years; class II – service life of more than 50 years; and class III service life of more than 20 years. Lifetime is the period specified by the approved standards and technical documentation, during which a building or a facility (its element) preserves its functional capability. Light flux is a value, which characterizes the luminous efficiency in a relevant radiation flux. Lux (lx) is surface illumination of 1 m2 with uniformly distributed light flux of 1 lumen (lm). M Maintenance is a combination of preventive works on cleaning, setting up, adjusting or replacing the worn-out elements, aimed at maintaining the efficiency of systems and equipment during their operation. 55

Maintenance of building’s elements are works on the control and accounting of the technical condition of structures, engineering systems and equipment of buildings, the creation of normal conditions for their functioning. Maintenance of buildings is a control of technical condition, maintenance of good condition, adjustment of engineering equipment, total preparation for seasonal operation of a building, as well as its elements and systems. Maintainability is the fitness of a building’s elements for preventing, detecting of failures, troubleshooting and damage removal by means of performing technical maintenance and scheduled and unscheduled repairs. Maintenance system is ensuring of the standard modes and parameters, adjustment of engineering equipment, technical inspections of buildings and structures. Moisture retention capacity is a property, which characterizes the capability of a material to hold certain amount of water. Moisture-yielding capacity is a property, which characterizes the capability of a material to release moisture into the environment. Moisture is a property, which characterizes the content of free water in a material. N Non-destructive testing is a general name for a number of methods used to reveal the invisible to the naked eye defects in materials and goods. O Obsolescence is the degree of incompliance of the main parameters, determining the conditions of accommodation, scope and quality of the provided Obsolescence is the value, which characterizes the degree of incompliance of the main parameters, determining the conditions of accommodation, scope and quality of the provided services, with modern requirements. Operating infrastructure is an organizational set of buildings, territories of households, engineering communications and utilities, repair and maintenance services and facilities providing appropriate functioning of buildings. Operation is ensuring the normal functioning of a building in accordance with its functional purpose. Operational activities. 1. Sanitary maintenance of a building. 2. Maintenance of a building. 3.Repair works Operational requirements to a building ensuring the normal functioning of an object. These requirements are determined by the space-planning design of a building (structure), its functional purpose, operating conditions and are contained in the building design documentation (certificate of building): failure-free bearing structures, structural elements, engineering systems; protecting them from overloads, maintainability, the possibility of setting up and adjusting systems, eliminating detected defects, the ability to ensure proper sanitary and hygienic condition of an object and the local area, the comparability of service life of different elements and systems of a building (structure), the availability of 56

necessary technical equipment, rooms for personnel involved in the operation of an object, ensuring the ability to carry out operational activities using available methods and means and with minimum costs. Off-schedule repairs are the repairs performed once a failure is detected, when organizational delays are not taken into account. Operational performance is a condition of a product when it is capable of performing the set function with the parameters specified in the requirements of the technical documentation. Performance disturbance means – failure. Overhaul is repairs of a building aimed at extending its operational life (with replacement of structural elements and systems of engineering equipment if necessary), and also at improving its operational characteristics. Overhaul of a building is the extending its operational life with replacement of structural elements and systems of engineering equipment. P Periodicity of overhaul and maintenance of residential buildings (depending on the overhaul and physical wear group). Table 1. Table 1 Overhaul Group of Residential Buildings

1 2-3 4-5 6-7 8

Periodicity, years of Maintenance, in Case of General Wear Scope, % Less than 60 More than 60 3-5 2-4 3-5 2-4 3-5 2-4 3-4 2 3-4 2

of overhaul

18-25 15-20 12-15 12-15 Unfeasible

Premises dryness (categories). Table 2. The vapor permeability of the enclosing structures significantly affects the dryness of the premises. Preservatives, compositions used to protect wood from rotting. Physical wear of buildings occurs when structural elements and engineering equipment of buildings gradually loose their operational properties under natural impacts and human activity. Physical wear is the degree of deterioration in engineering and operational parameters of a building in a certain moment of time, what results in the decrease in the building’s structure value. Physical deterioration is a value that characterizes the degree of deterioration of technical and other related performance indicators of a building at a certain point of time, as a result of which the cost of a building structure reduces.

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Table 2 Category of dryness I

II

III

Description

Permissible degree of dampness of enclosing structures Dry surface Separate wet spots with a total area not exceeding 1 % of the surface Dry surface with separate wet The total area of wet areas not areas (without exudation of exceeding 20 % of the surface condensed moisture) Exudation of condensed mois- The total area of wet areas not ture on the walls and floor but exceeding 20 % of the surface not on the ceiling

Preventive inspection is the revealing of failures and their causes, specifying the scope of maintenance, and obtaining the results of the general structural assessment of buildings. Public service is fulfilling the conditions of employment, and doing community public work. R Redundancy is a way of improving the reliability of systems by switching to a backup element in case the main one fails. Redundancy schemes: substitution, when a backup element is activated only if the main one fails; and parallel redundancy, when a backup element is constantly activated and is in equal conditions with the main element. Refurbishment of buildings and facilities is a rearrangement aiming at partial or complete change in their functional designation, installation of new efficient equipment, improvement to the site development, and bringing into compliance with modern increased standard requirements. Reliability is the property of a facility to preserve its parameters within the specified values over time. Reliability is a combination of failure-free operation, durability, maintainability, and preservation capacity. Repair of buildings is a complex of organizational and technical measures and construction works on removal of physical wear and obsolescence, not related to changes in the main technical and economical indices of a building. Repair as required is performed in cases when a structure is completely worn and unserviceable. Routine maintenance is the maintenance of the building to restore the integrity of its structures, systems, engineering equipment and maintain operational performance. Repairability is the capability of a material to repair a fault detected as a result of failure. Applicable only for repairable goods: 58

– average time of repairability to restore operational performance; – probability of repairability, i.e. the probability that the time required for restoring operational performance does not exceed the specified one. S Sanitary maintenance of buildings is cleaning of public spaces, adjacent territory, and garbage collection. Scheduled repair is the repair in compliance with the requirements of the standard and technical documentation. Servicelife is the period of time from the starting point of the building operation until it reaches its ultimate limit state. Shotcreting is surfacinga dustless and clean structure with a protective layer. Silicatization is a chemical method of soil stabilization. Soil heaving is the change in the volume of soil occurring as a result of freezing of ground water that it is saturated with. Sound pressure is propagation of sound in elastic medium as a result of oscillatory motion of particles. Soundproofing materials are acoustic materials, which are used for ensuring acoustic insulation of enclosing structures, and for preventing sounds from propagation. Stages of a building life (cost and time). 1. Period of design works during which a building acquires its use value S1. 2. Period of construction works during whicha building acquires its use value S2. 3. Period of operation during which the use value (S1+S2) is transferred to a consumer in portions. Storage ability is an object property to maintain performance during storage, transportation or in the intervals between its uses for the intended purpose. Structural assessment of buildings is the determining the degree of damage, condition of structures, and the possibility of their further operation according to the intended or changed (if reconstructed) functional purpose. Superstructure is increasing the number of storeys of a building or of its parts. Swelling is the change in linear and voluminal dimensions of a material when saturated with water. System of scheduled preventive repair is a combination of organizational and technical measures on maintenance and repairs of structures, sanitary engineering systems, and engineering arrangements of buildings according to a prescheduled plan for the purpose of preventing early wear and for ensuring failurefree operation of equipment. T Tarring is the stabilizing of soil by using solutions of polymer resins and hardening compounds. Tar is thick viscous liquid, which is generated as a result of heating organic materials (hard coal, peat, wood) at high temperatures and in an anaerobic environment. 59

Tar-concrete is artificial construction conglomerate, similar to asphalt concrete, in which coal tar is used as organic binding substance. Tar-bitumen materials are cardboards soaked with tar and coated with bitumen and dressing on two sides. Tar emulsions are dispersion systems (water + tar). Technical condition of a building is the performance of certain structural elements and the connections between them. Technical operation of buildings is a combination of measures ensuring trouble-free operation of all elements and systems of a building during the standard service life, functioning of a building for its intended purpose. Technical condition of a building as a whole is the performance of certain structural elements and the connections between them. Thermal method is soil reinforcement at high temperatures. Thermal stabilization of soils is performed by the following ways: electrofusion; injection of the air heated up to 600...900 оС into the ground through the wells; burning fuel directly in the reinforced soil or in wells. U Unscheduled building inspection is the inspection performed after natural calamities (extensive rains, heavy snowfalls, etc.). W Water absorption is a property, which characterizes the capability of a material to soak up and hold in its pores liquids when being plunged into them. Water permeability is a property, which characterizes the capability of a material to let water leak through its mass under pressure. Water resistance is a property of materials to not loose their strength when being plunged into water. Water tightness is a property, which characterizes the capability of a material to not let water leak through its mass under pressure. Wear of a building is the process of a building’s loss in value occurring along with the loss in its economic and engineering quality. Wearability is the capability of a material to resist loads acting at a tangent to the surface and causing gradual decrease in mass due to small particles coming off the surface. Weathering is a combination of the processes of chemical and physical changes in a material, which cause its destruction.

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CONCLUSION The study guideline «Technical Maintenance of Buildings and Facilities» considers the issues of operation, repair and maintenance of buildings and facilities, methods of repair and strengthening of structures of buildings and facilities. The main provisions on technical operation allow students to get acquainted in detail with the method of determining the service life of buildings, their sustainability, the dependence of wear on the operation of buildings. The ability to properly assess the technical condition of a building and the operational characteristics of foundations, walls, ceilings and other structural elements allows future specialists to pay more attention to protection of stone, concrete and metal structures from premature wear, comply with the basic requirements for acceptance into service of new buildings and facilities.

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