Occurrence of faults in water installations of residential buildings: An analysis based on user complaints

Abstract Fault analysis in building installations enables design optimisation and reduction of errors in future projects. This paper's objective is to catalogue, quantify and analyse faults in residential buildings' water installations, based on user complaints and the ‘learning from failures’ philosophy. To this end, 436 complaints related to plumbing and sewage installations of 318 Spanish residential buildings were analysed. The results show that ‘buried-sewage-pipes’ lead to most of problems (43.8%), followed by ‘exposed-sewage-pipes’ (38.3%) and ‘plumbing’ (17.9%). The most recurring faults were ‘leakages and humidities’ (52.98%) and ‘anomalies and mismatches’ (33.25%). As for the causes leading to said faults, the most significant one was ‘damage in the installation’ (29.31%). The type of construction in which most cases occurred was ‘apartment blocks’ (52%), followed by ‘attached houses’ (29%). These results contribute to the reduction of errors in the design and construction stages of residential buildings and are useful for drafters, designers and builders, as well as for building users and maintenance technicians.

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