-
National Maintenance Week – November 23rd to 30th 2012
Between the 23rd November and the 30th November it is SPAB’s 11th National Maintenance Week. This event is focused at demonstrating the importance of regular maintenance to a building regardless of age, scale or purpose. With the message of this years campaign being; A badly maintained building cannot be an energy efficient building. This message ties in and precedes the launch of the Governments Green Deal and the drive to make the countries existing housing stock more energy efficient. The launch of the Green Deal is proposed for Spring 2012.
The importance of maintenance is one of the founding principles of SPAB, with William Morris saying “Put protection in place of restoration. Stave off decay by daily care”.
Protecting and preventing long term damage could save money in the long term protection of our heritage.
In conjunction with National Maintenance Week and SPAB’s research into the energy performance SPAB have issued their 10 top tips to Easy Energy to help save energy;
- Maintain your building – catch problems before they catch you.
- Repair your building – fix a leaky roof or blocked gutter and find the source of that damp problem – a dry house is a warmer house!
- Understand your building – allow surfaces to breathe and work with the original building construction and plan form.
- Understand how much your building costs to run – do you know how much gas, electricity and water you use?
- Understand your behaviour in the building – do you have to heat the whole house and for what periods?
- Install efficient heating systems and controls – design your heating system around how you use the building and make the controls as user-friendly as possible.
- Control heat loss through air leakage – carpet suspended timber floors, hang thick curtains, install draught-proofing measures around windows or consider adding secondary glazing or wooden shutters.
- Get your insulation right – by all means insulate lofts and underfloor voids, but remember not to block or impede ventilation in those areas as this can lead to problems.
- Remove moisture at source through effective ventilation – remove moisture from bathrooms and kitchens before it circulates and condenses.
- Pull on a woolly jumper and thicker socks! It might sound simple, but this common sense solution can really make a difference.
The message for November is to get out there and before the worst of the weather check over your building and undertake those simple maintenance tasks.
For advise on how to maintain your building or any Building Surveying needs please get in touch.
