Impact of Maintenance, Rehabilitation, and Other Interventions on Functionality of Heritage Buildings A. J. Prieto, Ph.D. 1 ; J. M. Macías-Bernal 2 ; María-José Chávez 3 ; F. J. Alejandre 4 ; and A. Silva 5 Abstract: The maintenance of heritage buildings can be extremely complex; usually, practitioners face many difficult decisions regarding when and how to intervene. The data recovered over time of the conservation and rehabilitation of heritage buildings could represent a new input to aid stakeholders’ decision-making concerning an efficient planning of the maintenance activities to carried out during the buildings’ service life. This study evaluated the impact of maintenance activities in the functionality of heritage buildings through the analysis of historical records concerning the maintenance activities performed on a set of heritage buildings from the 13th and 14th centuries through the 21st century. A sample of 390 historical records were analyzed, recovered from a set of 20 parish churches in the province of Seville in southern Spain. This study assessed the variations observed in the functional service life (buildings’ performance) of the heritage buildings under analysis according to the different interventions and maintenance actions performed over time. The knowledge of the past behavior of the constructions over time and the impact of the different maintenance activities performed allowed finding some patterns in the data. The results obtained in this study, and the lessons learned from past actions, allow promoting the increase of the stakeholders’ knowledge concerning the impact of maintenance activities in heritage buildings, thus aiding the adoption of more technically informed and sustainable maintenance actions in the future. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CF.1943-5509.0001271. © 2019 American Society of Civil Engineers. Author keywords: Functional service life; Heritage buildings; Fuzzy logic; Preventive maintenance; Historical records. Introduction The inadequate performance of constructions during their service life usually entails an extremely high economic and social burden. Wekesa et al. (2010) noted that the performance of heritage con- structions is a critical component of the social-economic strength of current societies in Europe and in Spain. In European countries, around 50% of all buildings’ refurbishments in cities and towns are linked, in some way, with the conservation of the built heritage (Balaras et al. 2005). Currently, on a worldwide scale, the built heritage is aged and with clear signs of degradation. The current situation is due to the lack of codes for the continued management of buildings during their service life, the lack of investment in the rehabilitation of the built heritage, and the lack of knowledge and tools to aid the decisions to intervene. Therefore, it is essential to develop innova- tive tools and methods to evaluate the buildings’ serviceability and maintainability (Torres and Ruiz 2007) in order to promote the adoption of effective and sustainable maintenance planning and strategies for the preservation of heritage buildings. Naturally, all buildings and components will deteriorate over time, with a progressive degradation of their performance condition until the instant at which they are no longer capable of fulfilling the users’ needs and requirements (Gaspar and Brito 2005). The pres- ervation of the buildings’ performance condition for a longer period through the prevention or mitigation of the degradation of their con- structive elements depends on decisions involving preventive main- tenance tasks (Chen et al. 2013). The lack of decision-making tools for the optimization of preventive maintenance activities in heritage buildings lead to excessive and even unnecessary costs due to the performance of inefficient and inadequate maintenance operations (Silva et al. 2016). In order to minimize the excessive costs associated with reactive maintenance activities, stakeholders are currently adopting predictive or condition-based maintenance plans. The primary objective of maintenance activities in buildings is to ensure that their systems and components always function adequately, with the intention of achieve optimum performance during their life cycle (Reffat et al. 2004). Predictive maintenance is based on the assessment of the as- sets’ condition, intending to minimize unexpected failures and con- sequently reduce maintenance costs (Wu et al. 2007). In this sense, maintenance activities must be seen as an investment opportunity that needs to be optimized and not as a cost that must be minimized. In terms of heritage building maintenance, there are currently numerous constructions that remain particularly expensive to pre- serve, both environmentally and economically (Martínez-Rocamora et al. 2016). The optimization of maintenance strategies is a com- plex subject that depends on an accurate evaluation of the buildings’ performance and a reliable prediction of their service life (Morgado et al. 2017). Moreover, subjective aspects that are crucial for the decision-making process, such as the users’ perception, needs, and 1 Instituto de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, Facultad de Arquitectura y Artes, Universidad Austral de Chile, Edificio Ernst Kasper (Campus Isla Teja), Valdivia 5090000, Chile (corresponding author). Email: ajprieto2201@gmail.com 2 Professor, Dept. of Architectural Construction II, Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería de Edificaci´ on, Univ. of Seville, Ave. Reina Mercedes, 4A, 41012 Seville, Spain. Email: jmmacias@us.es 3 Professor, Dept. of Applied Mathematics I, Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería de Edificaci´ on, Univ. of Seville, Ave. Reina Mercedes, 4A, 41012 Seville, Spain. Email: mjchavez@us.es 4 Professor, Dept. of Architectural Construction II, Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingeniería de Edificaci´ on, Univ. of Seville, Ave. Reina Mercedes, 4A, 41012 Seville, Spain. Email: falejan@us.es 5 Postdoctoral Researcher, Civil Engineering Research and Innovation for Sustainability-ICIST, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Ave. Rovisco Pais, 1049–001 Lisbon, Portugal. Email: anasilva931@ msn.com Note. This manuscript was submitted on March 6, 2018; approved on September 7, 2018; published online on January 29, 2019. Discussion per- iod open until June 29, 2019; separate discussions must be submitted for individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, © ASCE, ISSN 0887-3828. © ASCE 04019011-1 J. Perform. Constr. Facil. J. Perform. Constr. Facil., 2019, 33(2): 04019011 Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Universidad De Sevilla on 03/16/23. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.