Influence of Age on the Technical Wear of Tenement Houses

The research presented in the article, which includes methods, models, and conclusions, contains synthetic and analytical model solutions concerning the problems of the technical maintenance and wear of residential buildings with a traditional construction. The cause and effect relationships between the occurrence of damage in the elements of tenement houses (treated as proof of their maintenance conditions), and the size of the technical wear of these elements were determined using a representative and purposefully selected sample of 102 residential buildings erected during the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Wroclaw’s “Downtown” district. Quantitative damage analysis, which was carried out using empirical (visual) methods of assessing the technical condition of a building, indicates the type and size of damage to the building’s elements that are characteristic for the relevant maintenance conditions. Research concerning the cause–effect relationships (“damage–technical wear”) in observed states allows for a numerical approach to the impact of building maintenance conditions on the degree of the technical wear of its components. The maintenance and exploitation conditions determine the degree of the technical wear of the elements of an old residential building. The exploitation condition of these buildings is manifested by damage to elements caused by water and moisture penetration, which is especially important for poorly maintained buildings. The article shows that the age of the elements of an old residential building with a traditional construction is of secondary importance in the process of the intensity of losing its serviceability value. It was calculated that no more than 30% of the damage of building components is explained by the passage of time, and it is therefore not age that determines the course of the technical wear of the elements of the analyzed tenement houses.