International Journal on Advanced Science Engineering Information Technology The Importance of On-Going Maintenance in Preserving the Heritage Listed Buildings M.A.A. Rahman, Z.A. Akasah, S.N.F. Zuraidi Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia 86400 Parit Raja, Johor, Malaysia E-mail: ashrafr@uthm.edu.my Abstract— Maintenance is not only important in ensuring the condition and physical of the old building to operate safely and effectively, but it also for an activity that is important in determining the life long of the building, so that it can be preserve and be inherit by the next generation. The need of maintenance is not only on repairing but more towards prevention method. According to the previous study, maintenance is done reactively; this further will cost serious problems in future. Therefore maintenance need good planning from the early stage and is followed with on-going implementation from time to time by all those who are responsible in it. In conjunction with this, this paper is to discuss about the importance of on-going maintenance in order to manage the old building after it has been gazette as heritage listed. At the end of the discussion, several strategies have been put forward in order to stimulate the practice of on-going maintenance as an initiative to encourage the culture of maintenance and also help to increase the quality process in a more effective maintenance management Keywords— On-going Maintenance, Heritage Building, Preservation I. INTRODUCTION Malaysian has seeing the positive development when many of the old buildings had undergone the process of conservation and preservation to be reuse again. This is a success that should be appreciated by everyone in the effort of preserving and protect the national heritage asset so that it can be inherited by the next generation. Without these effort, the beautifully heritage buildings in Malaysia like Sultan Abdul Samad Building, Stadhuys Building and Kuala Lumpur Railway Station would not be seen till today. It cannot be denied that the uniqueness and artistic found in the building has made the building valueless as compared to its’ varied historical background. According to Yahya [1], the old building that can be seen till now is synonym to the historical development in a country. It has its own uniqueness in all aspect such as the architecture, history, culture and the skill in its built and emotional value that can be seen through its society [2]. Hence, it is a total loss if these buildings are left uncared without good conservation and preservation. Dunn and Cantell [3] see the practice of conservation of the old building act as a transformation in giving the chance to the building so that it becomes a challenge to the environment. At the same time the practice of conservation will give the chance to the old building to be in this comprehensive modern community. Nevertheless, the practice of preservation is only on temporarily basis because the art of preservation does not guarantee the life long and function of a building. The preserved building can be lasted within certain duration before it comes dilapidated. This can bring loss to all. To restore the condition, many experts agree that each and every building that has already been preserved need to be manage and maintain routinely from time to time. According to Adi Irfan C.A. et. al. [4], maintenance is the best continuation in preservation practice. Besides concealing the physical condition, maintenance can reduce the inconvenience risk in the building operation. The practice of preservation is very costly; therefore care has to be taken in seeing the maintenance is carried out carefully so that it can give a positive feed back. Without maintenance, the effort in preservation is a failure. How efficient the preservation is, but if there is no observation and protection, the building will not functioning well to it utmost optimum. Therefore, efforts in persevering not only focus on the practice of preservation, but it also involves the process of preservation and long term maintenance so that the building can still hang on. 83