Major repairs of tenement buildings and its role for sustaining the human living environment

The article is devoted to the role and contribution of major repairs of tenement buildings for sustaining a comfortable human living environment, which is directly linked to a region's living standards. The author identifies the constituents of a living environment and the factors influencing its maintenance in the framework of normative regulation. Major repairs include the maintenance of the performance properties - eliminating the physical deterioration and obsolescence of a tenement building, as well as ensuring the tenants' and other persons' safety (in terms of a wide variety of microclimate-creating factors like the quality of breathing air, lighting, noise, vibration, etc.) during and after the repair works. However, it does not target the principal technical and economic characteristics. In compliance with legal and normative regulations, major repairs programs target parts of hard assets and public premises of a tenement building. The author proposes a methodological approach to the assessment of the factors affecting the quality of life during and after the major repairs. The approach is based on the well-known method of socio-economic research involving a systemic analysis, which incorporates the multitude of interdependent and interrelated living-environment-forming factors.