Evaluating building defects and maintainability of tertiary institutions in Owerri Metropolis, Nigeria

Institutional buildings should provide conducive environments that enable staff and students to perform optimally. This functional requirement is sustainable through maintenance. A cognizance survey through tertiary institutions in the Owerri, revealed an alarming rate of building defects. This research is aimed at evaluating these defects and maintainability, with a view to recommending appropriate solutions for overall improvement. The objectives were to determine the: building characteristics; nature and extent of defects; correlation between design characters and defects; maintenance strategies adopted and their consequences; and factors limiting maintenance. A case study of randomly selected buildings from the five tertiary Institutions in Owerri was adopted. Copies of structured questionnaires were administered to a sample of 153 respondents in-charge of maintenance, using a stratified systematic random sampling technique. The analysis of the responses was performed using descriptive and quantitative statistics. The findings revealed wrong design decisions that contributed to the defects and high maintenance frequency, such as climatic noncompliant design concepts, and inaccessibility of building components. The corrective maintenance strategy adopted, had severe consequences which included decrease in capital value, disruption of workflow, increased risk to user health and safety, high cost of repairs, post-occupancy modification and acceleration of building failure. Major obstacles included lack of maintenance culture; and underfunding. The paper recommended that: designers adopt design concept responsive to tropical climates; governments should increase the amount of funds given to institutions; and legislatures enact laws to regulate and create awareness of maintenance culture.