Abstract:
This study assessed the role of maintenance culture of public buildings using selected
institutions within the Sunyani Municipality. Simple random sampling technique was used to
sample 100 staffs of the institutions that were administered with questionnaires and their top
managers also interviewed. Out of the sample size of 100 respondents, 96 of them responded
to the questionnaire constituting a response rate of 96%. On the maintenance culture and state
of respondent’s buildings, it emerged that planned maintenance was based on the life of
the building, the financial implications and age of the building. Again unplanned maintenance
was a common practice but preventive maintenance was not carried out at predetermined
intervals due to lack of funds. As a result, the current state of the occupants building verandas, floor
tiles, septic tanks and staircases were bad and needed urgent maintenance. The second objective
examined whether there were maintenance policies of public buildings and it revealed that most
of the institutions do not have maintenance policies, and do not undertake regular inspection
and maintenance of buildings. The third objective examined the deficiencies associated with
the maintenance of public buildings and shows that lack of concern shown by clients, poor
design habits, insufficient resources and policies for occupants to maintain their buildings were
some of the deficiencies. The forth objective assessed the appropriate maintenance culture or
codes for the maintenance departments of the institutions. The results show that there are no
appropriate maintenance rules or codes. The study recommended that, there should be more
education and enactment and enforcement of policies or laws for occupants of public buildings
to perform certain maintenance works of their buildings, adopt appropriate maintenance culture
and resource the maintenance departments of public institutions to fully discharge their duties.
Description:
A Dissertation in the Department of CONSTRUCTION AND WOOD TECHNOLOGY
EDUCATION, Faculty of TECHNICAL EDUCATION. Submitted to the School of
Graduate Studies, University of Education, Winneba in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the award of Master of requirements for award of Master of
Technology (Construction) degree.
.JANUARY, 2015