Assessment of building conditions

Abstract This paper describes the work regarding assessment of building conditions within the TOBUS project [1] , a European project to develop a tool for selecting Office Building Upgrading Solutions. The condition assessment covers the degree and extent of physical degradation and the work necessary to renovate office buildings including the associated costs. A common-agreed European checklist for building objects, which has been sub-divided into types, has been defined. The checklist is not only used for assessment of the need for retrofitting due to physical degradation, but is also used for the assessment of the functional obsolescence and to identify and redress the causes for complaints from the users of the building on indoor environmental quality (IEQ). A database has been prepared in which the physical deterioration of each object and each type is described by the use of four degradation codes: “a”, “b”, “c” and “d”. Accordingly, a database with four work codes has been prepared in which the nature of work required for retrofitting the building object is defined. Also a cost related database has been established.