Recurring Issues in Historic Building Conservation

Historic building conservation is often challenged by a number of issues in its process. This paper reviews past studies about challenges of heritage building conservation, then goes on to describe a small pilot study carried out in Malaysia to measure the number of significant issues faced among local conservators. A total of 46 issues were identified from literature and classified into five themes of technical, environmental, organisational, financial and human issues. Tentative findings showed that technical issues such as limited availability of specialists, availability of original components, labour and skill shortages, and lack of personnel training, were the biggest challenges in conservation projects.