Building Maintenance Contingency 1

[KootK]

I've volunteered to provide structural services for an expansion project at a local animal shelter. The role has expanded such that I'm also functioning as the defacto project manager.

The shelter plans to set aside a contingency fund to handle future maintenance. They've asked me to determine what the size of that contingency fund ought to be.

Does anyone know of any resources to determine the typical cost of building maintenance on an annual basis? Are there any rules of thumb out there for such things? Say... __% construciton cost/year/square foot.

For what it's worth, the building is very similar to a light frame wood home.

I'm going to suggest that the client review maintenance records for their existing facilities and extrapolate from there. However, we still need to determine a reasonable estimate to get the ball rolling and have a basis for comparison.

Anybody have any experience with estimating the cost of building maintenance?

 

[Ron]

KK...first of all, your volunteer spirit is commendable. Way to go.

Having said that, I hope you have your liability protected. Many volunteer efforts will give you tremendous liability exposure (and of course, no compensation). Hopefully you have asked them to indemnify you for your actions, in lieu of a fee.

As for maintenance, that's a tough one. About 15 years ago, the Uniform Building Code group in the US had a maintenance program that helped to do just what you are asking. I will look through my files and see if I can find it.

Otherwise, since it is similar to a typical frame home, check with similarly constructed condominiums in your area and ask about their maintenance reserves. A pro-rata share of that might be appropriate. Otherwise, here's the procedure:

1. Inventory everything that is subject to deterioration or replacement (paint, siding, sealants, pavement, roof, appliances, plumbing,etc).
2. Estimate its remaining useful life.
3. Do a straight line estimate of replacement cost in the future.
4. Assume that the useful life of some items will be extended by proper maintenance (for instance, siding and window lives are increased by proper sealing)...my point is that replacement of one item is the maintenance of another item.
5. Compute on a life cycle basis for the structure. Bring it back to a present value then spread that over a reasonable time period, say 10 years.

Good luck...you might be able to guess it as accurately!!

 

[KootK]

Thanks Ron, that's a great help. And yes, if you could find that UBC document that would be great.

The Canadian Home and Mortgage Corporation has some free software that performs the kind of analysis that you outlined in steps one through five.

I'm stuck with a chicken and egg problem here though. I need to know more about the facility in order to estimate the maintenance budget. But then I need to know the maintenance budget so we can figure out how much of the grant money will be left for constructing the facility itself.