Pantnagar Journal of Research

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to find out the sick buildings which are cause of hazards among residents of the district Uttarakashi of Uttarakhand. Poorly designed, maintained, constructed and inefficient HVAC (Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning) system makes a building sick. Checklist and self-made questionnaire were developed to find out sick buildings. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 120 houses of the district and further divided into LIG, MIG and HIG on the basis of income of the householder. Frequency and per centage were used for the analysis of data. The study results suggested that most of the houses in study area were located near the site prone to landslides, steep slope, river catchment area and national highway. Maximum houses reported cracks, crumbs, dampness and problems of termites hence were recognized as ill building. Further building standards and housing by-laws are completely ignored by residents as well as by the people involved in construction, making housing risky and vulnerable to earthquake, flood, and landslide. Hence there is an urgent need to take up more researches in this direction as we are not aware about poor or ill housing.