BUILDING SERVICES | SFG20
MAINTAINING BUILDINGS TO AN APPROPRIATE STANDARD IS UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED AS ESSENTIAL, BUT WHAT DOES ‘APPROPRIATE’ ACTUALLY MEAN?
With ever-changing regulations, keeping up with the evolving industry requirements can prove onerous, leading to the delivery of maintenance at a variety of standards across the industry.
THE COSTS OF POOR MAINTENANCE Unfortunately there are all too many cases where organisations
have failed to maintain assets to the required standard.
One of the landmark cases relating to poor maintenance resulted in the most severe outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in the UK to date. Caused by a poorly maintained air-conditioning system at a leisure centre in Cumbria, seven people were killed and a further 180 were seriously affected in 2002. The council was fined £125,000 and the individual responsible for health and safety was fined a further £15,000. An inquiry found that the outbreak was a result of poor maintenance, and could have been avoided if proper procedures had been followed.
There are also far too many examples of poor fire-related maintenance causing serious damage to properties and endangerment of lives. In early 2014 the owner of The Abbey College private school in Worcestershire was fined £24,000 for failing to maintain a working fire alarm and detection system (among other shortfalls in fire precautions.)
ACHIEVE INCREASED EFFICIENCY
THROUGH OPTIMUM MAINTENANCE Whilst the avoidance of negative consequences such as fines and prosecution are incentive enough to uphold maintenance standards, so too are there benefits to be realised from maintaining assets to an optimum standard – primarily cost and environmental efficiency.
If you take heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems as an example, typically they represent over 40% of the energy usage of a commercial building. A study in the US found that “best practices in building maintenance and operations (of heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems) can reduce energy use by 10 -20% across all climate zones. In contrast, poor maintenance practices can increase energy usage by 30-60%.” Efficient maintenance not only prolongs the lives of assets, but it also results in energy savings which directly benefits the bottom line of businesses.
SIMPLIFYING THE WORLD OF BUILDING
MAINTENANCE SFG20 is the recognised industry standard maintenance specification for building engineering services. An essential tool for planned maintenance, it is the benchmark for working standards; providing building owners, managers, contractors, consultants and facilities managers with the tools to keep buildings properly maintained and compliant. SFG20 is made available through a dynamic web-based service which is updated in real-time.
The SFG20 maintenance standard is owned and maintained by the Building and Engineering Services Association
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(B&ES). As the UK’s leading professional body for building and engineering services contractors, B&ES ensures the standard reflects latest best practice and legislation.
An essential tool for planned maintenance, tendering, service level re-modelling and auditing, SFG20 is a growing library, providing over 400 industry maintenance task schedules covering all principal types of heating, cooling and ventilation, installation and plant, and electrical services complete with technical updates and legislative references.
Continually reviewed by an
expert technical committee, drawn from across the industry, the standard is kept up-to-date with the latest legal and best practice guidelines ensuring that users are always informed regarding the latest legislative requirements.
Subscribers are able to create and customise schedules to build bespoke service models for the buildings and assets they manage. Each schedule displays the maintenance tasks required, the frequency level tasks should be performed at and the skill standard required to carry out the work. There is also the option to view the tasks by criticality; with easy to follow colour-coding, subscribers can tell at-a-glance which tasks are statutory (red), mandatory (pink), function critical (amber) or discretionary (green). Being able to assess maintenance costs in this way assists industry professionals in setting (and subsequently defending) realistic life cycle maintenance budgets – a ‘cost’ that is all too often seen as fair game when it comes to budget cuts.
A new feature for 2015 is the introduction of benchmark service timings to provide subscribers with guidance on overall service times to complete activities –essential for accurate tendering and assisting with scheduling work. At service model level, service times are customisable giving better control of costs and increased accuracy in tendering.
With legislation continually evolving and failures to uphold maintenance standards being prosecuted, do you have a fail-safe way of ensuring that you, your staff, or your sub-contractors are performing maintenance to the desired standard?
www.sfg20.co.uk BUILDING SERVICES : TOMORROW’S FM YEARBOOK 2015/16
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