Building Maintenance & Construction: Tools and Maintenance Tasks introduces and develops knowledge of basic building maintenance tools and materials, applied skills and techniques, industry health and safety standards, and preventive maintenance and troubleshooting practices required by employers for entry-level positions in the building trades and facilities maintenance fields.

Table of contents:

Part 1: Safety

·        1.1 First Aid & Personal Protective Equipment

·        1.2 Eye and Face Protection

·        1.3 Hearing Protection

·        1.4 Head Protection

·        1.5 Hand Protection

·        1.6 Respiratory Protection

·        1.7 Foot Protection

·        1.8 Tool & Shop Safety

·        1.9 Ladder Safety & Fall Protection

Part 2: Hand & Power Tools

·        2.1 Tool Choices and Applications

·        2.2 Measuring, Marking, Leveling & Layout Tools

·        2.3 Nails, Hammers & Pneumatic Nailers

·        2.4 Threaded Fasteners, Drivers, Pliers & Wrenches

·        2.5 Saws

·        2.6 Drills & Accessories

·        2.7 Grinders, Sanders, & Accessories

Part 3: Mathematics for Maintenance Techs

·        3.1 Required Math Concepts

·        3.2 Ohm's Law, Joules Law, and Series/Parallel Formulas

Part 4: Plumbing Systems

·        4.1 Piping & Fittings

·        4.2 Domestic Water Service

·        4.3 Drain, Waste, and Vent (DMV)

·        4.4 Valves & Prevention Devices

·        4.5 Faucets, Fixtures, & Fixture Drains

·        4.6 Plumbing for Appliances

·        4.7 Water Heating

Part 5: Electrical Systems

·        5.1 Electrical Safety

·        5.2 Electrical Tools & Testing Equipment

·        5.3 Electrical Terminology & Lighting

·        5.4 Conduit, Boxes, & Wiring

·        5.5 Fuses & Breakers

·        5.6 Receptacle & Switch Wiring

·        5.7 Outdoor Wiring Considerations

Part 6: Maintenance Management Systems

·        6.1 Maintenance Categories

·        6.2 Work Order Process

·        6.3 Parts and Material Resources 

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This open access book presents theoretical and practical research relating to the vast, publicly financed program for the construction of new schools and the reorganization of existing educational buildings in Italy. This transformative process aims to give old buildings a fresh identity, to ensure that facilities are compliant with the new educational and teaching models, and to improve both energy efficiency and structural safety with respect to seismic activity. The book is divided into three sections, the first of which focuses on the social role of the school as a civic building that can serve the needs of the community. Innovations in both design and construction processes are then analyzed, paying special attention to the Building Information Modeling (BIM) strategy as a tool for the integration of different disciplines. The final section is devoted to the built heritage and tools, technologies, and approaches for the upgrading of existing buildings so that they meet the new regulations on building performance. The book will be of interest to all who wish to learn about the latest insights into the challenges posed by, and the opportunities afforded by, a comprehensive school building and renovation program.

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This book provides a comparative perspective on housing and planning policies affecting the future of cities, focusing on people- and place-based outcomes using the nexus of planning, design and policy. A rich mosaic of case studies features good practices of city-led strategies for affordable housing provision, as well as individual projects capitalising on partnerships to build mixed-income housing and revitalise neighbourhoods. Twenty chapters provide unique perspectives on diversity of approaches in eight countries and 12 cities in Europe, Canada and the USA. Combining academic rigour with knowledge from critical practice, the book uses robust empirical analysis and evidence-based case study research to illustrate the potential of affordable housing partnerships for mixed-income, socially inclusive neighbourhoods as a model to rebuild cities. 

Cities and Affordable Housing is an essential interdisciplinary collection on planning and design that will be of great interest to scholars, urban professionals, architects, planners and policy-makers interested in housing, urban planning and city building.

Keywords:

Landscape art & architecture

City & town planning - architectural aspects

Urban & municipal planning

Urban communities

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This open access book is about mismanagement of public agencies as a threat to life and limb. Collapsing bridges and buildings kill people and often leave many more injured. Such disasters do not happen out of the blue nor are they purely technical in nature since construction and maintenance are subject to safety regulation and enforcement by governmental agencies. The book analyses four relevant cases from Australia, New Zealand, the USA and Germany. Rather than stressing well-known pathologies of bureaucracy as a potential source of disaster, this book argues, learning for the sake of prevention should aim at neutralizing threats to integrity and strengthening a sense of responsibility among public officials.

Reviews:

“In what is certain to become an indispensable book on public failures, their origins, and consequences, Wolfgang Seibel builds piece-by-piece a unique contribution to the study of rare events and the search for resilience in public policy. Bridges and buildings are perhaps the best real-world synonym for rational design and deliberation; proper construction and maintenance is the first and primary goal of entire professions. This book demonstrates how accidents happen, how social processes are fundamental to their occurrence, and how learning and inference about their causes is a core public management function. Along the way, Seibel masterfully musters evidence from a multitude of sources to painstakingly document both bridge and building failures and the organizational pathologies that accompany them. This is a must-read for those who want to better understand such 'black swan' events and the search for resilience.” 

    --(Andrew B. Whitford, Professor at the School of Public and International Affairs, University of Georgia, USA)

“A must read for practitioners and scholars, Wolfgang Seibel's latest book provides profound insight in the intersection of public administration mismanagement and the absence of responsible leadership. Through a series of devastating cases, he provides a forensic analysis of how and why disasters occur, showing us what happens when we ignore warning signs and fail to act. His work challenges us all to step up, embrace a more strategic approach to learning, and prevent these catastrophic disasters from happening. An exceptional contribution to the field.” 

    --(Janine O’Flynn, Professor of Public Management, The Australia and New Zealand School of Government, Australia)

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This book brings together historians, anthropologists, political scientists, sociologists, urban planners and political activists to break new ground in the globalisation of knowledge about informal housing. Providing both methodological reflections and practical examples, they compare informal settlements, unauthorised occupation of flats, illegal housing construction and political squatting in different regions of the world. Subjects covered include squatter settlements in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, squatting activism in Brazil and Spain, right-wing squatting in Germany, planning laws and informality across countries in the Global North, and squatting in post-Second World War UK and Australia. The volume’s global approach is found not only in the variety of topics but in the origins of its authors, who between them contribute specialist knowledge from Africa, Asia, Australia, the Middle East, North and South America, and Eastern and Western Europe. Bringing together such a wide range of authors and subjects demonstrates the power of comparative research to open up new perspectives. By comparing, for example, toleration of informal housing in Hong Kong and Paris, squatting in the Netherlands and communist East Germany, or slums in nineteenth-century Europe and twentieth-century Africa, the chapters connect different contexts in path-breaking fashion. 

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As one of the largest consumers of energy, the housing sector and its unconscious occupants' activities negatively affect the environment. Architects and engineers have a major role in resolving the associated problems while maintaining comfort for occupants. Also very important are environmental education and awareness of appropriate environmental development in designing activity and selecting building materials and products. There are different architectural strategies that are aimed to achieve a low-energy built environment. Determining the needed strategy according to function, economy, and occupant comfort and affordability is the crucial step. This book helps the reader to achieve a sustainable development without destruction of the resources while maintaining a growing universal awareness of protecting the living and non-living environment.

Table of contents:

1. Introductory Chapter: Healthy and Affordable Housing Strategies

2. Effects of Street Geometry on Airflow Regimes for Natural Ventilation in Three

    Different Street Configurations in Enugu City

3. Fundamentals of Natural Ventilation Design within Dwellings

4. Comprehensive Strategy for Sustainable Housing Design

5. Social Innovation and Environmental Sustainability in Social Housing Policies:

    Learning from Two Experimental Case Studies in Italy

6. Socioeconomic Influences on Affordable Housing Residents:

Problem Definition and Possible Solutions

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The text draws examples and discusses a wide variety of infrastructure systems, including roadways, telecommunications, power generation, buildings and systems of infrastructure. We have found that some common fundamentals of asset management, analysis tools and informed decision-making are useful for a variety of such systems. Certainly, many infrastructure managers encounter a variety of infrastructure types during their professional careers. Moreover, due to the functional inter-dependencies of different infrastructure systems, it is certainly advantageous for managers of one infrastructure type to understand other types of infrastructure. For example, roadway managers rely upon the power grid for traffic signal operation. 

The text features discussions and materials covering the following infrastructure management related topics: 

• Introduction to Infrastructure Management,

• Importance of Infrastructure,

• Goals for Infrastructure Management,

• Role of Infrastructure Managers,

• Organizations for Infrastructure Management,

• Asset Management Process,

• Inventory,

• Inspection and Condition Assessment,

• Deterioration Modeling,

• Decision Making and Forecasting from Condition Assessment,

• Regression Models,

• Markov Deterioration Models,

• Artificial Neural Network Deterioration Models,

• Failure Rates and Survival Probabilities,

• Fault Tree Analysis,

• Optimization and Decision Making,

• Performance,

• Usage, Budget and Cost Functions,

• Short Run Cost Functions for Infrastructure,

• Life Cycle Costs, Long Run Investment Decisions and Cost Functions,

• Decision Analysis and Monte Carlo Simulation for Investment Decisions, Interdependence & Resiliency,

• Contract and Workflow Management,

• Commissioning New Facilities,

• Benchmarking and Best Practices.

In addition, the text examines in some detail the following infrastructure systems: 

• Roadway Infrastructure,

• Building Infrastructure,

• Water Infrastructure,

• Telecommunications Infrastructure,

• Electricity Power Generation Infrastructure,

• Base, Campus,

• Park and Port Infrastructure. 

This list is certainly not exhaustive, and in fact, the various strategies, techniques and tools expressed in the text can be readily extended to virtually any infrastructure system. 

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This book focuses on the role of workplace management in the organization and the tasks that workplace management needs to consider. The 18 theories that are presented in this book and applied to workplace research, discuss management aspects from the organization’s perspective, or dive deeper into issues related to people and/or building management. They all emphasize that workplace management is a complex matter that requires more strategic attention in order to add value for various stakeholders. The final chapter of the book describes a first step towards integrating the presented theories into an interdisciplinary framework for developing a grand workplace management theory.

This is the second title in the series ‘Transdisciplinary Workplace Research and Management’.

Keywords:

Action regulation theory; Activity theory; Alignment; Asset management; Attractive quality theory; 

Behavioural economics theories; biophilia hypothesis; business continuity planning; 

Corporate real estate; Corporate real estate asset management; CREAM; CREM; CREM branding; CREM Maturity model; decision making theories; disaster management; 

Ecological Systems theory; Evolutionary psychology theories; 

Facilities management; Flourish theory; FM; Hospitality theory; 

Information space; Knowledge Creation theory; Lean; Life-span theory of control; 

Management; Management models; Management theory; Managing people and buildings

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The challenge of housing is increasingly recognised in international policy discussions in connection to the processes of migration, climate change, and economic globalisation. This book addresses the challenges of housing and emerging solutions along the lines of three major dynamics: migration, climate change, and neo-liberalism. It explores the outcomes of neo-liberal »enabling« ideas, responses to extreme climate events with different housing approaches, and how the dynamics of migration reshape the urban housing provision in a changing world. The aim is to contextualise the theoretical discourses by reflecting on the case study context of the eleven papers published in this book.

With forewords by Raquel Rolnik (University Sao Paulo) and Mohammed El Sioufi (UN-Habitat).

Table of contents:

FOREWORDS

Foreword

Foreword

Introduction: Housing and Human Settlements in a World of Change

PART I: HOUSING IN THE NEOLIBERAL PARADIGM

Chapter 1: Indonesian Housing Policy in the Era of Globalization

Chapter 2: Let's Get Down to Business – Private Influences in the Making of Affordable Housing Policies

Chapter 3: Mutual Aid, Self-Management and Collective Ownership

PART II: HOUSING AND MIGRATION

Chapter 4: Understanding the Housing Needs of Low-Skilled Bangladeshi Migrants in Oman

Chapter 5: Between Need for Housing and Speculation

Chapter 6: Influence of Migrants' Two-Directional Rural-Urban Linkages in Urban Villages in China

Chapter 7: Urban Environmental Migrants

PART III: HOUSING AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Chapter 8: Heat-Stress-Related Climate-Change Adaptation in Informal Urban Communities

Chapter 9: From the Hyper-ghetto to Statesubsidised Urban Sprawl

Chapter 10: Learning From Co-Produced Landslide Risk Mitigation Strategies in Low-Income Settlements in Medellín (Colombia) and São Paulo (Brazil)

Bio Notes

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[From the Author's Note, by Lani van Vuuren:]

This glossy, full colour 340 page publication takes the reader on a journey through the history of South Africa’s largest dams, starting with the traditional attitudes and indigenous knowledge around water resources prior to European settlement and ending with a glimpse into the future of dam building in the country. It explores the reasoning behind the construction of these massive structures, the laws that guided their development, and the people and institutions that made them possible. Woven in between are the tales behind some of the country’s most iconic dams and dam engineers.

South Africa is home to some of the leading dam builders in the world, and many engineering innovations were developed here. While some engineering aspects are included in the book, this has been kept to a minimum so as to keep the publication  relevant for a wider audience. Other remarkable publications have been published on the engineering aspects of South African dams, most notably the South African National Committee on Large Dams’ (SANCOLD’s) Large Dams and Water Systems in South Africa, published in 1994, which does much more justice to this aspect of dam history. [...]

While appreciating the role that dams play, we are not denying the mistakes of the past. Most of South Africa’s dams were built in a different milieu, at a time when human rights were often ignored and the importance of a sound aquatic environment was neither comprehended nor appreciated. There are many arguments for and against the construction of dams, and it is not the aim of this publication to either condone or condemn the actions of the past. Rather, the book aims to salute achievements and record mistakes so that we can avoid them in the future. [...]

The construction of large dams might have slowed drastically in South Africa, but the country has not yet reached the end of this era of dam-building. It is the hope of the author that as we move forward any decision to build new dams will be inclusive, transparent and negotiated, with full recognition of the alternatives that exist. In the words of former Water Affairs Minister Kader Asmal: “Water is not for fighting over. Water is for conserving. Water is for bathing. Water is for drinking. Water is for sharing. Water can be our catalyst for peace.”

[From an interview with the author, published in Infrastructure News in June 2012:]

The author of the book, Lani van Vuuren, who is the editor of The Water Wheel magazine, says her research took her on a nationwide tour to meet the people involved in the construction of South Africa’s dams. 

“The book actually started as a series of water history articles in The Water Wheel. I first wanted to see how people would react to the articles, and what the demand for such a book would be. My first history article was on the Hartbeespoort Dam, which was originally completed in 1924, and it appeared in the May/ June 2008 edition of the magazine. I have been researching dam-related history for four years,” explains Van Vuuren. On a lighter note she points out that she realised she had been working too long on the book when the staff at the national library began greeting her by her first name every time she walked through the door!

“The book has confirmed to me that, just like other people working in the water sector, engineers are hard-working, passionate people. Every dam project they tackle they do so in the hope that it will make a real difference to people on the ground. Without our extremely sophisticated water resources infrastructure network, this country would not have been able to develop."

[Source: https://infrastructurenews.co.za/2012/06/27/the-history-behind-south-africas-large-dams/ ]

Comments by the CEO:

“The book tells us that we should not rely on one solution. While we have this wonderful legacy of building largescale infrastructure, our future lies in using that same ingenuity and innovation that helped us be a dam-building giant in the world to apply similar kinds of paradigms and know-how in the areas of water conservation and water demand management. ' Footsteps' organises to pitch a series of questions about our water past, our water present and our water future that we would like researchers to examine further." -- WRC CEO, Dhesigen Naidoo

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The electricity supply crisis that gripped South Africa in 2007 impacted heavily on economic productivity, political stability, and every citizen.

To date, all attempts to understand how the country’s Electricity Supply Industry (ESI) has evolved focus narrowly on Eskom. This approach has become increasingly limited over the last 15 years as the national utility continues to spiral deeper into operational failure. Yet, commentators and analysts have paid little attention to Municipal Electricity Undertakings (MEUs) – the utilities responsible for distributing electricity at municipal level – which started operating two decades before Eskom was formed in 1923.

Through a detailed historical account, Running to Stand Still shows how MEUs have contributed to the country’s broader ESI. The book disentangles the complex linkages that have developed between Eskom, MEUs, and the three spheres of government. In doing so, it examines two fundamental but diametrically opposed government objectives. First, the ideal of having financially self-sufficient municipalities that in reality are over-burdened and have to rely heavily on revenue from electricity distribution to cross-subsidise their operations. And second, to have a national utility that generates electricity at the lowest cost to provide the country’s energy-intensive economy with a competitive advantage.

These path-dependent practices have endured for more than a century and have cemented institutional lock-in that blocks much-needed sectoral reform. This is aptly demonstrated through the case study of the country’s most powerful financial centre and largest MEU, Johannesburg, which is currently in a state of crisis.

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In Japan, as a large number of sewer lines approach and exceed their design service life, rehabilitation of these ageing sewers to ensure their safe operation and upgrade their functions gains urgence. In this pioneering work, Z. Shi, M. Nakano and Y. Takahashi present a systematic treatment of structural analysis and renovation design of ageing sewers as semi-composite pipes, including testing and construction guidelines. 

The concept of a semi-composite pipe and the application of fracture mechanics of concrete in numerical modelling are the two distinctive features of the established design theories, which have been employed for sewer renovation in Japan for more than 20 years, with the total length of renovation construction now exceeding 700 km. The leading authors have engaged in designing the renovation of ageing sewers since the mid 1990s, and the book will become a valuable reference work for sewer engineers worldwide, and academics and students in civil, urban and architectural engineering departments.

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Sustainable Property Management is a 150-page, peer-reviewed open textbook intended for students majoring in property management and real estate at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. It can be incorporated into an existing property management operations course or used for a stand-alone course focused on sustainable property management. Although sustainability, as used in the real estate context, is about preserving the environment, it is about more than that. In sustainable property management, sustainability encompasses three spheres—environmental, social, and economic. Sustainable property management is about reconciling these three spheres throughout the operations and maintenance phases of the building lifecycle in such a way that a balance is achieved between economic development and the protection of environmental and social resources.

This textbook explains how ecologically sustainable concepts may be implemented throughout the property management operation functions while also considering the other spheres of sustainability. It also incorporates the theme of sustainable building practices as a human science as well as a building science by highlighting motivations and impacts to various stakeholders. The author draws on industry examples to illustrate these concepts and provides many experiential activities through which students can apply these concepts.

Table of contents:

Introduction

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Instructor Resources

List of Abbreviations

• Ch. 1: Introduction to Sustainable Property Management

• Ch. 2: The Three Spheres of Sustainable Property Management

• Ch. 3: Stakeholder Motivations for Sustainable Property Management Practices

• Ch. 4: Sustainable Building Maintenance and Repair Practices

• Ch. 5: The Intersection of Sustainable Property Management and Risk Management

• Ch. 6: Integrating Sustainable Practices into Marketing and Leasing

• Ch. 7: Financial Evaluation of Sustainable Building Initiatives

• Ch. 8: Human Health Considerations

Glossary

Index

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Informal settlements are a pressing urban challenge in South Africa and elsewhere in the world. Intervention and investment are needed, not only to improve material conditions, but also to combat social and political exclusion and marginalisation.

What would a progressive upgrading agenda for informal settlements entail, and how could it be achieved? This has been widely debated in South Africa and internationally. In Upgrading informal settlements in South Africa: A partnership-based approach, the editors argue that approaches which are participatory and incremental offer possibilities which are both radical and attainable. This agenda departs substantially from conventional housing delivery models, requiring a reassembling of policies, programming, practices and – most importantly – power.

The 26 chapters of this book are written by researchers and practitioners from a diverse range of backgrounds and experiences, and explore various aspects of participatory and incremental upgrading. They cover a wide range of topics, from alternative infrastructure technologies to redesigned fiscal frameworks. Together, these chapters articulate an agenda as contested and complex as informal settlements themselves.

This book documents, synthesises and reflects on a strong body of innovation and reflection that can inspire policy-makers, practitioners and researchers to continue to improve and transform approaches to upgrading informal settlements in South Africa and beyond.

Contents page:

Preface and acknowledgements  

Notes on contributors  

Introduction  

• 1. Upgrading informal settlements in South Africa: An introduction

• 2. Informal settlement upgrading: International lessons and local challenges

Section I—Grappling with Informality and Upgrading: The City Scale  

• 3. Pressures on practice: How ‘RDP housing’ and other factors have shaped informal settlement upgrading in eThekwini municipality

• 4. The ‘other half ’ of the backlog: (Re)considering the role of backyarding in South Africa

• 5. Enhancing the voices of the poor in housing

• 6. Adopting an incremental approach to informal settlement upgrading: The Johannesburg experience

• 7. ‘Public structure’: A starting point for incremental upgrading

• 8. An uneasy symbiosis: Mining and informal settlement in South Africa, with particular reference to the Platinum Belt in North West Province

Section II—Partnerships, Actors and Capabilities

• 9. Creating ‘urban commons’: Towards a sustainable informal settlement upgrading paradigm in South Africa

• 10. ‘Development from within’: Advancing a people-centred, partnership-based model for informal settlement development in the City of Johannesburg

• 11. Who needs partnerships? An informal settlement upgrading partnership framework

• 12. Incremental slum upgrading in Nairobi, Kenya: What can South Africa learn?

• 13. Visualising process and the actors of change: Settlement upgrading in Duncan Village, East London

• 14. Rethinking incremental urbanism: Co-production of incremental informal settlement upgrading strategies

• 15. Facilitating state-community interfaces: The role of NGOs as intermediaries in participatory informal settlement upgrading processes in South Africa

• 16. Navigating hostile territory? Where participation and design converge in the upgrade debate

Section III—Tools, Instruments and Methodologies

• 17. Slum upgrading: Community groups as principled agents

• 18. The role of the fiscal framework in shaping the informal settlement upgrading agenda

• 19. Using planning tools to enable informal settlement upgrading: Identifying future opportunities for South African cities

• 20. Courts as a site of struggle for informal settlement upgrading in South Africa

• 21. Between a shack and an RDP house: Managed land settlement

• Section IV—Implications for Urban Transformation

• 22. From resilience to transformation: Towards a strategic approach to upgrading informal settlements

• 23. Strategic upgrading: Lessons from international critical practices

• 24. South Africa’s emerging national urban policy and upgrading agenda

• 25. Conclusion: Reflecting on informal settlement upgrading experiences in South Africa

Index

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