Posted By CFT Pete I have argued this one during some unhealthy midnight gatherings with fellow practitioners; for me if it is routine maintenance with breaks in between then no aggregate exists and I say a resounding NO! If it happens to be a new installation of a lift or M&E et al, then yes, [depending on what 'E' of M&E it is] but with the latter it'll be under the entire F10 app anyway controlled by the PC. Yes a full blown lift removal and replacement under Project Management with owner occupation will in most circumstances be a notifiable project. There are lots of yes's and plenty of no's, sadly one cap does not fit all. CFT

Posted By Andrew Brown I'll have a go. I try and avoid the general term maintenance and prefer building maintenance and plant maintenance. Building maintenance I interprit as anything to do with the fabric of the building and as such is construction as it involves typical construction activity and risks. Plant maintenance covers a wide range from the lift and boilers in an office through to almost any work within a power station or chemical plant. It is useful to consider the context in which plant maintenance is carried out. A gas fitter doing an annual boiler service in an office, a maintenance technician changing a valve on process pipework or replacing a pump, these are normal operations in the context of the site. Whereas construction is usually extraordinary and disruptive. Also if the fixed plant maintenance is not part of a construction project (and therefore excluded from CDM) then the activity is likely being done within an existing established workplace. I would suggest it is then well covered already by other legislation, the workplace regs, puwer, loler and WAH regs, etc. Whilst the definition of construction work is wide much of part 4 of CDM is not relevant to maintenance activiity on fixed plant. The additional requirements of CDM the design and management bits are also not relevant in that there is no design and none or few contractors to manage. So i think it correct that this work falls out of CDM. Quite rightly though maintenance of fixed plant big enough to be a structure in its own right is covered by CDM. E.g. Chemical plant shutdown fits the construction model requiring good management: Designers involved; lots of contractors in one place carrying out multiple conflicting tasks. Hope that helps

Posted By Mike Charleston Like CFT, I've had some interesting debates over this - particularly at one client's location in the City of London. The issue was resolved after a fashion, by deciding that the CDM focus should be on 'fabric of the building' and a clear contrast should be made between that and plant maintenance. This makes sense on one level but I do agree that the ACOP's definition of construction work including 'maintenance of mechanical, electrical, gas, compressed air, telecoms or similar services fixed within or to a structure' clearly muddies the water. So our localised result can't be seen as absolute and in my opinion, we will remain in limbo until there is some relevant case law. As I see it (and how a responder at the HSE's Rose Court put it), general maintenance of plant can only really cover things like replenishment of lubrication, filter changes and so on. Conversely, two M&E contractors involved in our debate took the view that as frequent maintainers of such equipment and very occasionally involved with substantial projects where equipment is changed/supplemented or removed, they only see themselves coming under CDM with the second category and cannot believe that the HSE intended to extend the scope of CDM into the generalities of plant maintenance. Andrew made the point that much of part 4 of CDM is not relevant to maintenance activiity on fixed plant - but the same argument could be applied to work on the fabric of an existing building which is clearly covered by CDM. Perhaps somebody that was more involved during the development and debate behind these Regs could give an input in due course. Mike