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Capital maintenance expenditure is the cost of renewing, replacing, rehabilitating, refurbishing or restoring assets to ensure that services continue at the same level of performance that was first delivered. Examples include replacing a motor on a power pump or the pump rods/rising main/handle in a handpump; cleaning/re-excavating the base of a hand-dug well; relaying the drainage field for a septic tank; flushing a borehole which no longer delivers the desired flow; cleaning a water tank, etc. The renewal of these assets, often after some years of operation, ensures the same level of service that users received when the asset was first installed.
The replacement of a small valve on a piped system, or repairing a leaking pipe is [[Operational and Minor Maintenance Expenditure (OpEx)|operational and minor maintenance expenditure (OpEx)]], although its failure can significantly affect the serviceability of the system, because this is a small cost which occurs frequently compared to the life of the system. Replacing a length of pipe because there have been a number of leaks, or replacing a major valve after several years of use would be classified as capital maintenance expenditure.
===Examples===
====Video capital maintenance expenditure====
In this video interview of 6.47 minutes, [http://youtu.be/nYTMXigt0p0 Life-cycle costs with Erik Stowe], from the non-governmental organisation [http://splash.org/about Splash] (formerly known as A Child's Right) talks about how capital maintenance expenditure is often forgotten and also how he has tried to explain capital maintenance expenditure to their international staff.
In practice, capital maintenance costs, which occur for instance when a pump needs to be replaced or a borehole redeveloped, are covered through a combination of any savings made by the community service provider and ad hoc funding by the service authority or an external project or programme. Unfortunately in many cases, these expenditures are simply not made, resulting in insufficient capital maintenance, which is reflected in high rates of nonfunctionality and poor service levels (Fonseca et.al, 2013).
===Key documents===
* Fonseca, C., Brikké, F. and Kouassi Komlan, E., 2005. Planning for Sustainable Cost Recovery in Community-Based Water Supply Services. Delft: IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre.
:Information sheet provides an overview of the minimum benchmarks for costing sustainable basic services in developing countries. The benchmarks have been derived from the WASHCost project dataset and the best available cost data from other organisations all over the world. The benchmarks are useful for planning, assessing sustainability from a cost perspective and for monitoring value for money.
===Links===
<div id="WASHCost">'''WASHCost'''</div>
* WASHCost was a five-year action research programme, running from 2008 to 2012. The WASHCost team gathered information related to the costs of providing water, sanitation, and hygiene services for an entire life cycle of a service -- from implementation all the way to post-construction. The WASHCost programme was led by IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre with several partners to collect data in the rural and peri-urban areas of Burkina Faso, Ghana, India, and Mozambique. For more information see: [http://www.washcost.info WASHCost]
