Critical factors influencing building service upgrade in heritage property

Heritage buildings enrich our lives and communities, providing a window back into the past where our very own origins and possible ancestors resided. Conservation of heritage buildings is significant. However, aged building services popularly exist in the heritage properties and need urgent upgrades to satisfy the changing organizational, environmental and technological requirements for modern business operations. To encourage the positive use and protection of heritage buildings, extra attention must be paid to the design, construction and management of building service systems inside. It requires creativity to respect the original design and materials while meeting current building codes and occupant needs. Heritage buildings often pose unique problems to the building service design because they do not conform to the generic types of present-day construction. Also, management of heritage buildings and their building systems often has to strike a balance between retaining original building features and accommodating new technologies and equipment. A recent research was carried out to investigate an integrated refurbishment of heritage buildings with modern building services, with focuses on mechanical and electrical services. A postal questionnaire was used to explore industry practitioners' opinion on the constraints imposed on the service upgrade in heritage properties. Preliminary findings were presented in this paper. It is hoped that the research findings help industry practitioners make informed decisions in the planning, design, coordination and installation of building service upgrades and refurbishment works in heritage buildings.