Paul Franklin, who heads up the Technical team at Bedford-based specialist testing and defect analysis company, RAM Consultancy, explains how healthcare building owners and occupiers such as NHS Trusts, and their estates and facilities teams, can best manage, maintain, and, when necessary, refurbish, their building envelope and roofs, in the process gaining some perhaps unexpected benefits.
One of my main aims in this article is to achieve a shift in the viewpoint of healthcare estates professionals of the building envelope, and particularly its roof, from ‘those parts of the building that keep the rain, wind, and snow out’, to ‘that section of the building that we can manage and use to maximise benefits, usability and value, and to minimise disruption and costs’. Firstly, let us look at some definitions of words and teems particularly pertinent to this topic, and the article:
The ‘building envelope’
• This is defined as: ‘The outer shell or covering of a building, which separates the external environment from the interior, and maintains and protects the indoor environment’.
• The ‘five elevations’ of a building.
The roof
• The structure(s) forming the upper covering of a building.
• The ‘fifth elevation’ of a building.
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