Without maintenance, our built environment would fall apart. Maintenance quite literally keeps the lights on. Our culture, on the other hand, seems to value “innovation” over all else, and it’s leading to unfortunate consequences.

Andrews Russell and Lee Vinsel’s excellent article, Let’s Get Excited About Maintenance, aims to turn that around.

Technology and innovation are important, they argue, but since every new thing eventually becomes old and needs to be kept up, maintenance is even more important. Time and time again, maintenance budgets are underfunded or slashed, when they need to be increased. Emphasizing innovation and discarding maintenance is neither practical nor sustainable.

To turn this around, society must learn to value the “maintainers” – the engineers, the operators, the technicians – who get their hands dirty and get things done.

Click here to read their article in full.

Header Image “HVAC Pipes” by Aidan has been cropped and used via Creative Commons license.

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