Rainy-day blues

Alan Millin suggests longer liability periods for construction contractors.

Alan Millin looks at the impact that the recent heavy rains have had on the FM sector, and the implications for build quality.

In the last month or so we have enjoyed the rains again. Or do facilities managers in the UAE really enjoy rain? It is hard, if not impossible, to get to work sometimes. Indeed, a lot of people spent many long hours in their cars.

Vehicles were damaged; people became tired, upset and angry. There is a lot to be said for working from home sometimes.

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But facilities managers and their teams really have no choice. They are providing a service to the client, and they have to be at the right place, at the right time to do that.

To make matters worse, the facilities they are managing in the UAE are often suffering from the effects of the rain too, whether from leaks through the building fabric or from flood waters. Even covered car parks are not immune.

At one facility I visited, parking in the rain at the roof parking level was more convenient – that is, drier – than the covered parking area where we might reasonably expect it to be dry.

Maybe FM companies can make some money carrying out the remedial works and plugging leaks, but it strains resources and generally does not really solve the underlying problems.

Just because we can see where water enters a room through the ceiling, it does not mean that the water is entering the facility from the roof directly above. Often the problem is some distance away, and the water may have flowed down a complex path to enter the room in question.

The FM team might think they have found the entry point and plugged it, but how do they know they have found the right spot, or indeed the only spot that feeds the water path? Maybe they can only hope they have got it right until it rains again.