Maintenance systems and costs for wooden façades

The influence of the wood construction sector has been increasing for a while, becoming a driving force in the building industry. Durability is the main challenge when using this material in buildings, since wood undergoes several degradation phenomena that can alter both its appearance and the performance of components a few years after installation. Wooden envelopes are the elements that suffer the most from this deterioration, which in common practice is remedied only with pre-treatments, performed on materials during the production phase. The objective of this paper is to investigate the deterioration of the building material (material durability), as well as the assessment of systemic durability, understood as the ability of the building to preserve, over time, the performance requirements of the design phase, and adapt to new performance standards. Maintenance is the crucial activity to achieve this goal and should be planned since the initial stages of the project, by defining adequate construction details to facilitate inspection, assessment of the state of the building, removal, replacement and possibly recycling of individual components. The paper’s purpose is to assess some envelope solutions with respect to costs and benefits for maintenance they provide in the design phase, in order to define a range of possible solutions and their related costs.