Case Study of Occupant Costs in Roof Management

Abstract

A failed or failing roof system represents a heightened opportunity for failure in the building envelope and inherently increases the risk of additional costs. A leaking roof system also imposes costs on building occupants. Present roof asset management practice typically ignores user or occupant costs in making replacement decisions, basing roof management decisions on fixed intervals, inspection results, maintenance issues, and, occasionally, failure risk. This paper presents a process for valuating occupant costs with respect to roof system failures and then considers the impact of those costs in the roof management decision process. Feedback from occupants at Carnegie Mellon University regarding the impact of approximately 1,800 reported roof leaks over a period of 9 years was used to estimate occupant cost model parameters. Results found that the occupant costs coping with leaks exceed roof maintenance and repair costs in a typical year but are smaller than the average annual roof replacement costs.