Construction Occupancy: How to Prepare for the Final Inspection

Your project is 99% done. The walls are painted, the flooring is down, lights are on, and everyone is talking about move-in day. So we're basically done, right? Not even close. Because before anyone gets the keys, there is an entire pile of testing, certificates, letters of insurance, consultant sign offs between you and the OccamC permit. Today we're talking about how to get ready for OccamC, let's get into it. Welcome to What the RFI. I'm Matt Brennan and this is the podcast all about CA. And as you kind of guessed it from the title, the opening there, it is OccamC month. It has been busy. The month of August has been incredible. We've been closing off schools, wrapping them up, going for substantial, request for takeover and most important, the OccamC side. And it's been a halt, but we're glad we're turning those keys over to the owner. It's fantastic. And with all these projects coming in and I thought this would be the perfect time to talk about OccamC, right? And it's something you don't start about the week before, before the owner actually wants to move in. This happens months in advance because there's a lot of work and you can take a look at the procrastination video that I did a few a few episodes ago and I kind of talked about again, being proactive with this kind of thing. So today we're going to get into how to get prepared for that in detail. OK, and there's just so many moving pieces that need to come together and that's why checklists are important. That's why communications is key. And we're going to get right into it now. OK, and because this is such a complicated thing, I'm going to break this out into four separate episodes. So this is, of course, episode one of kind of the pre OccamC, how to get the documents in together. Like I said, what documents need, what do we need from the contractor? What do we need the consultants? What testing needs to happen? And what does the AHA authority having jurisdiction require? So we're talking all about that today's episode. The following part two episode is the S1, S1,001 testing. And we'll dive in the details of what it looks like on testing day, who attends that, who, what gets tested and what happens when something doesn't work. Sounds like we're going for surgery or something. OK, that's part two. Part three is the OccamC inspection. So this is the final AHA walkthrough where we go through it there. What is the the building inspector? What is he looking for? What can hold up OccamC? And hopefully you get that that permit. So that's episode three of this series. And then episode four is about the project closeout. And we'll get into the final CA cleanup items, outstanding and proposed changes, CEOs, record drawings, requests for substantial requests for takeover, the two definitions there and, you know, I need deficiency cleanup and then just basically closing out the project. So jam packed. You don't want to miss this. We'll make a playlist out of this and you can just basically run through it. And it's going to help you before you get into that final push to get in this project done. So this has been on the books for a long time. And here it is. So let's get into episode one. What do we need to do for OccamC? OK, so first of all, don't wait until the week before you get OccamC. And we talked about that in the procrastination video. This biggest lesson starts early, right? This needs to start three months minimum. I'm almost thinking of pushing it back kind of four to five months because not everyone's is going home to getting it done. It sucks chasing individuals. And again, you're not just chasing the contractor. That's probably who you're going to be going after. But then they got to go chase their subs. So there's a lot of moving parts with this. Jump on this early because it's just going to creep up. And the next thing you know what you're busy doing with other projects and you haven't filled out your paperwork, etc. So again, point being, maybe the most important thing is start early and then the rest of it will just flow nice and easy. OK, there's documents that close out. This is where like close out lists are required. It helps to keep this on track. There's going to be some required testing. Some third party inspections will come from this. Some require consultants review information and before they'll sign off anything. OK. And some may involve the municipality or the HJ. Maybe not really. They usually don't want to be involved. I emailed one district that said, hey, do you want to be part of our S 1001 testing where we're kind of putting all those documents together? And they said, no, we don't want to be dealing with that. So just do your homework. Every state, every province, every municipality is different. OK, so when should you start? So like I said, do this kind of three, four months in planning. OK, ideally, when you're getting to that three months before the occupancy, as you're talking about construction schedule, you can either do it out of site meeting, but I wouldn't complicate the two. So I would set up a separate meeting, talk about it, run through this full list that you've basically provided to the GC what you're expecting to that. And you can assign responsibilities at that meeting. You can start tracking what you've been receiving. So keep an Excel chart, whatever you want to do, a word checklist. Somehow that you're tracking all this data that you're filing onto the server. And we're going to get into the list of details, what we need for all this. And just don't start sending emails, please provide all documents required for occupancy, right? You got to be specific, give a chart, give a checklist. And that will really help. And the thing when I say about a checklist as you kind of go through this episode, you'll start to think of the you'll hear the items that I'm saying that we need to have included in this. Make a checklist. And one thing with that checklist is put in your specifications. Right. Put it as an appendix when you show it for tender. And it's really clear. And then when the project gets to this point, you can just issue that simple Excel chart. That's what we do at the firm I'm at. We give it to the contractor and say, these are this is what we're looking for. And away we go. Now, mechanical electrical will have their own list as well. So, you know, you can include that in terms of your general list, because typically the same per project, whether it's a small portable or if it's a brand new school, a lot of these things still apply. It doesn't matter if it's big or small. It's just part of process in to that. Okay. So, like I said, having your specs, giving it well, invest the contractor, they're not going to read it, but at least you've got it. You've done your homework, you've been proactive, and then you've got that list. You can pull out and start giving to the team right away. Okay. And some important distinctions between this is not necessarily the final project. Closeout process. We'll get into that in a later episode. But right now we're specifically talking about what do we need to get the building legally occupied? How do we get that auction based permit? What documents are required? And O&M manuals, warranty, record drawings, training, deficiencies, final payment, and that closeout, that's like I said, that's a different conversation. And that's going to be episode four of this series. So, what are some of these items that you're talking about, Matt? You're kind of going on around to put a list and everything. Well, what's that going to include? I've got my pen and paper ready to go. Let's get into that. So, first of all, architectural, mechanical, and electrical closeout list. These are the items that we're looking for in our general list. So, each consultant will be thinking of what they require. So, like I said, mechanical and electrical typically have their own project closeout items. Civil may have some, landscape may have some, but it's pretty straightforward from their end. It's there. They're not too concerned. They may just have their occupancy requirements, accessibility, whatever. But yeah, really it's architectural, mechanical, and electrical, because those are the kind of integrated systems. And I guess from the architectural point, we've got our list, mechanical, electrical, and there isn't much involved from the structural or building envelope. We'll get into what they need in a moment, but the list is pretty straightforward. And before the consultants provide their final letters of insurance, they need to be comfortable with the life safety components within their discipline, and that the work has been completed to that standard. And what I mean this, in terms of field reviews and what they're observing on site, is stuff are suited around fire separations, fire stopping, door hardware, exit signage, emergency lighting, the sprinklers, the fire alarm, the mechanical life safety systems that are in there. Maybe there's some alternate solutions, fire dampers, generator systems, accessibility requirements. That's huge. That's got to be basically wrapped up before we even consider this, but that might be in the works because we're still in this kind of three months before the construction is finished. And whatever else applies to the particular project. Like I said, alternate solutions are always a good one. And the architect shouldn't suddenly discover two days before occupancy that one, the consultant hasn't completed their final review. This is a team effort. When you're sending out your emails, you're not just going to send it to between you and the owner and the contractor, just you and the contractor, involve the team. It's going to be, give it a name, the project number, the project name, project occupancy, and just keep running everything through that chain, that email chain. So you've got some way that you can find it right away. One thing too that we haven't talked about is, but maybe setting up a shared folder where these documents can be uploaded from the GC that they can start through teams. They can live check the Excel document that they've completed these items. There's so many different ways of doing it from a process standpoint. That's not what today's episode is about. It's about what's required in that. So the next thing that we will require, and this is kind of what the GC has to start to pull together. We'll track it, is the schedules SB and SC. These are documents that can be easily forgotten until somebody asks, and they do take time to get because it involves engineers. You just don't want to be in that moment of going, "Where are the schedules? Where's the schedule for this?" Hold on, Matt. What is a schedule SB? What is an SC? A schedule SB is the assurance of the professional design and commitment from a field review of a specific item. This is provided by a registered engineer. They'll actually stamp the shop drawings that you get of this. For example, guardrails, that would be signed off by an engineer. OpenWeb, steel joists, that would be signed off by an engineer. So one thing with our shop drawings, we always know this requires a schedule. It has to be engineered and sealed by an engineer at some point. That's one thing that we'll know in our shop drawing review. But of course, at the end of the project, here we are, we need to have that letter of assurance, that schedule SB for building envelope, glazing, guardrails, structural steel components, steel connections, seismic restraints, mechanical systems, electrical systems, mechanical restraints, electrical restraints, especially any kind of specialty components. The one thing doing a lot of schools is we want those basketballs engineered, basketball hoops engineered, because structural is designed the OpenWeb joists, the component itself, but the U-bolts that are holding that basketball hoop onto that, I want an engineer to sign off on that because if that falls because that fails, who's liable? The architect? Well, this was a product that was installed and they guaranteed based off these U-bolts. So that's where having that as an item, as a schedule SB is really important. Same thing, Jim divider curtain. We actually did have a school where Jim divider curtain actually did come off, it detached, and it fell. And that's why we want those schedules, saying the engineer is saying this component that's being attached to the structure that this engineer signed off will not fail. And put this in your specs. Really, really, really important. And we want to make sure that this comes together. Now, some of these, like this long laundry list, sometimes, for example, glazing may also cover interior glazing guardrails as well. So it depends what that schedule be. It could cover a lot of items or it could just cover one item. Same thing with the basketball hoops and the gym curtain, because it's probably coming from the same trade. They could probably just get you one schedule. So those are the little things that you want to make sure that you identify that you are collecting. So the schedule SB saying this work is being, the design intent's been done and engineered. And then the schedule C assurance that it was installed properly as per the design intent. So through that field review of them inspecting and saying it's good to go. And it's just closing the loop of the commitment that was made with that schedule SB. And it's just the professional confirming that the field reviews have been completed, that the work is sustainably complies with the design intent as per the engineered shop drawings. Makes sense? Lots to cover. I know it's a lot to take in. And so why do you want to collect these early? Well, because as a prime consultant, we need these documents to give us the insurance before we hand over our schedules to the authority, HJ, right? In this respect, we want to make sure, again, these take time. We just ran into a project where we didn't have no respect about the basketball hoops. And we really wanted that kind of wasn't required for occupancy, but just for our own sanity and that we could sleep at night in a sense. We wanted those schedules in place. So we've actually getting that going, but we're understanding it's like a two, three week timeline. I don't want this to hold up occupancy. So again, these things take time. Get onto them early. Send out this list. Just start checking these off. Do it once every second week, put in your calendar and just keep hammering on. And if anything's missing, just send a reminder email, right? Little things like that. Essentially, this just takes time. So that's our schedules, SB and SC kind of wrapped up. We need those. The next one that's really important, and this can take some time. And this is a big item on our list. Do not pass go if it's not done. It really does hold up a lot of the things. And that's our ULC Fire Alarm Monitoring Certificate. This is critical. It's basically the fire alarming certificate for the system that's been connected to a monitoring station that confirmation from the monitoring company is operational, that they are getting that live signal back and forth. And during the S 1001 testing, next episode, we're going to make sure that this is talking back. So basically when your fire alarm goes off, this signal, the monitoring goes to that third party company that's monitoring the building and that their having direct communication. This is something with the owner and they are typically responsible. It's not you as the architect. It's not the contractor. Everyone's going to try and coordinate it, but because the owner's paying for it, it's typically on their behalf. And this, like I said, when we get into S 1001 testing, we're going to put the monitor system on test. We're going to supervisory condition. We're going to trigger the alarm and we're going to confirm those signals actually being sent to the monitoring company. So it's really important. We've got to get that certification first for this project that we've got that green light, that communication is all set. It is going back and forth and we get that special paperwork saying, here's the certification. Fantastic. Move on to the next item. And that brings us up to the fire alarm verification. You've got the monitoring checked out, but the fire alarm verification is the next big one. And this is typically with the electrical trade with the GC, of course, not necessarily with electrical engineer consultant, but they want to be aware of it. They want to see the report from this. And this, like I said, you'll see fire alarm monitoring certificate comes first before you even do the verification of it. You just can't get past that until that's done. And again, that can hold the project up. So what this looks like is the fire alarm system itself needs to be verifying. So our announce the AIDR panel devices that are checked, we've got the circuits that are checked together, announce the AIDR panels working, that's talking back and forth, inputs and outputs are all confirmed. We're seeing that light up. And the verification report comes as an important piece of the occupancy documentation package. So you're going to start to see this flow coming into place and why it is so important. And all of this, both these two important pieces of documentation need to come from the S before the S 1001 testing. If you don't do it, you're not going to get that pass. It's a waste of the time when you go into that process because they're relying that these have already been checked the boxes. They're not even going to pretend to try and check it out unless they've got this physical certification documentation for this. And you just don't want to be doing integrated testing on a fire alarm system that hasn't been properly verified. It's just going to be a waste of everyone's time. Now we've talked about this S 1001 testing. We need to hire them. This is something that should have been figured out right at the start of the project before it actually went out to Tender. Who's responsible for hiring the S 1001 consultant, the engineering firm, the testing agency? Well, check your contract documents because I've been on both sides of the spectrum where we've had the general contractor do it because we note in our specs and we've also had the owner hire them out. Kind of similar like the owner would hire the geotech or the surveyor. And this is a third party testing where they would also hire them out as well. But again, it can go either way. There's no right or wrong. If the GC hires them out, it's not the end of the world because again, they're a third party app agency in that sense. So they're not tied to the GC. They may prefer one group to the other. But the reality is, is they're still putting their name on the line that they're saying this has been completed. So it doesn't matter who it is, but if you've got a preference, you can know, you can find out maybe availability. It's always good to have a few companies in line. And again, we'll dive into that into the next episode in great detail. Okay. But the point is, is identifying someone early in the process is very, very, very helpful. Okay. And again, regardless, get them on board for months in advance because it takes time to secure contracts, especially if at that point where you are getting multiple contracts because the owner's responsible, that's where we're going to want to get them on board, take time, review those contracts, those quotes at that point, sign them up, give them the green light and away they go. And then start including them in the email chain. Really, really important because we want, as we get closer to that, obviously we want to make sure that they're actually available in the next few days. And I know they are very flexible and huge thanks to the companies I work with because sometimes we're ready to go for that S1000 testing and it has to shift because the GC is not ready, right? Or they didn't get their ULC certification for the fire monitoring, right? Maybe the fire alarm verification failed and they still had to do something. So we're always trying to set a target in advance of it. Okay. And then kind of just to conclude, what does this S1000 coordinator do? Well, they coordinate the integrated testing of the buildings, fire protection and life safety systems, integrated testing, we would call it. Okay. And it isn't just about does that fire alarm work? It is, you know, a full inspection of making sure that the elevators, that fire doors, smoked ampers, release hold opens on doors, fans, fire dampers, sprinkler signals, emergency power, the emergency lighting is a stand on for the minimum of 30 minutes. Any fire shutters monitoring, is it checking out and potentially many other systems. So it's a full run of the building test to ensure that in case of an emergency, the building is going to do what we originally designed it to be. And the previous S1000 one checklist that we developed the projects is very extensive, right? It's an extensive list. And that's like, I said, why there's a whole episode on it. And that's why we're, you take a whole day to do it. Okay. And again, we'll save that monster for the next episode. So a lot of these things have been more on the contractor side, the schedule SBCs, right? We've got the testing, the certification, you had to get involved with the S1000 one, maybe, maybe the general is hiring them out and they are coordinating it. Fantastic. But at least you're having that conversation. Now it's your turn. The schedule CA. As we get to this, we, as the CRP, we need to provide a schedule CA that is the insurance of the coordination of the professional field review. Basically it's provided by the, the Courtney Redshirt professional, the CRP saying this meets the standard. When you submitted this project in for your building permit, you would have handed over your schedules at the beginning. This is now closing those schedules out saying the project had been built as per the initial design intent. We've reviewed it. We've done all our field reviews of this. We, the contractors basically wrapping up and this schedule kind of comes at the end because it's, it's, it, this is typically the architects, it's their final schedule that goes into it. Okay. Sometimes I've been on a couple of jobs where we do have a structural engineer acting in the CRP and they'll sign off the schedule CA. Sometimes we've hired a code consultant to be that CRP that's a possibility. It's not very fine. They don't, I find they don't really know what they're, they're not involved as much as the architect. It's a little bit more of a headache. So typically it's the architect that holds that master schedule CA and there's only one CA for the project. Okay. We don't have it from the consultants in any way. Okay. But basically it's, you do not release that schedule until you know everyone else is good with the work that you're happy with the work and you're holding this master schedule to pass off to the district. It's really the final document for this. So that leads me into the CB. Now who has these insurances of the schedule CBs? Well, it's your architect, it's your structural engineer, it's your mechanical, it's your electrical, it's your building envelope. They'll have their own and you have your civil, maybe landscape. They'll have an actual CL schedule. Okay. But that's kind of the list of schedules from it. Okay. And again, just practical tips with these schedules is don't wait till occupancy to send everyone. Okay. Can you please send me your CBs? Right. We want to get this prepped well in advance. And what I mean by that is it depends where you are, your state, your local building code, your state building code, your province building code, in my case, under British Columbia, we've got the BCBC building code. So again, 2024 was the latest code in that respect. They've got in the building code, they've actually got their schedules CA and schedule CB. You can download these as templates in Adobe and you can change all the fields as you need to in that respect, this project name, the address, et cetera, signature, what your discipline is, and so on. And that's kind of what that schedule is. But what I would do is pre-fill out that schedule CB or yeah, your CB, give it to your consultants because we don't want to mix up the name of the school. We don't want to mix up if we're doing like a phase occupancy. So, you know, school name, phase one of gym addition or something like that. We don't want everyone coming up with their own titles because that gets confusing. And that's where an authority having jurisdiction, the building inspector would reject them. So by you doing this template well in advance, give it to the team. They can give you a schedule way in advance of the actual occupancy and they'll tell you, hold off, don't issue it until I'm happy. Structural may not be happy with some of the welds, some of the connection details. They want to get that rectified. They want a third party welder testing to go out there, check them, all these important things in this respect. Okay. And like I said, that template matching the project name, address, permit numbers, own information. Everything is clean and it's matching and really, really important. Okay. You've got six different consultants filling out this form. Let's make sure we're consistent. So get that template organized first and get it out there. Okay. Send it to everyone. And yeah. And just for a tip, these schedules, the CRP should take both the CB, make a template in by email. We're becoming a broken record with this, but it's really, really important. Okay. One little caveat. Hey, if when you went in for a building permit and just say you had this, like we, in this case, we had a geotech. Well, because this project was issued, you know, three years ago and now we've come up to the three years, well, lots can change that time. Well, in our case, our geotech actually retired, or maybe he moved on to a new firm or whatever the case is, he's not accessible, right? We can't get his schedule. He's not signing off on it. So because it was under the firm and everything, if the firm is comfortable with it, you will have to get some kind of transfer memo of the schedule saying this person no longer works here, or they've retired or they're not practicing, whatever. If you get in those scenarios, make sure you get a memo from that engineering firm, noting that it's going from, you know, person who's retired to new person that is still part of the firm. And that's really important because then your schedules aren't going to match, your building spire is going to catch that. And they're going to tell you what's going on with this. I can't take it from a different engineer, but if you've got that letter, then you're golden. Okay. Pretty straightforward stuff. It just takes time. Get onto it early. Okay. And then we've got some specific HD items with this. Okay. Like what I mean by this, like certain municipalities may have their own process, what they require on day. And then typically it still involves all the, the testing and all the other documents, but it's just in the format that they like to see. There's nothing wrong with it. It's a good process for them. It ensures that they're seeing everything come to what they need to do and do their checklist and their, yeah, just given that before they give that occupancy, they want to know it. So just be, don't assume that your process is the process. Double check with your local state, your local AHA municipality and make sure that they, if there's anything that they've got that you can follow. Okay. And a good example here is a city of Chillock. They've required the red binder and it's basically on that front of that binder, they've got a schedule G. Okay. And in that schedule G it's just a two page document and they break up, you know, form one, form two, form three. And you basically build your binder exactly like that. And you put the documents, if you're issuing stuff through digitally, then organize it like that. That's what I did. I created a folder on one drive. I gave a form one, form two, four, three, and I put all the specific documents based on that schedule that they wanted and in that particular schedule, once you checked off everything saying you're done, the CRP had to digitally seal and sign that one off as well. So that could hold up your occupancy. So do your checks, make sure you've got your list, but then is there a district list that you have to follow? Okay. And again, you don't want to discover on the day of occupancy that they needed these documents. Otherwise it's just going to hold everything up. Everyone starts rolling their eyes. Why can't we get occupancy? We're waiting for this. You're absolutely right. If you do your homework, you won't be in that position. You'll just look like rock stars. And then kind of the last thing is just like all the random other contractual documents that we require part of this occupancy review. Okay. And this is like I said, was why the checklist are extremely important. Okay. So some of these items in no particular order include fire, sprinkler material test certificates, right? Fire department connection testing, underground fire main testing, backflow testing, sanitary testing, water main chlorination and bacterial bug testing, all these things. Technical safety BC, you know, they have their own group that comes out and gives their verification on it. You'll probably have something for the state as well. A legal site survey. We need that. We based on what's been built, we need to get that and obtain the elevator inspecting a certificate. This is one of those things that constantly fails. And if you don't have it, it all buggers up. And again, a lot of these things you can kind of do between the S 1001 staging and some of them like the elevator, you've got to do way before that happens. Each fact balancing reports for life safety. I want to make sure those fire dampers, emergency generator verification. So a special test on that. Energy modeling compliance based on climate change and how the code is changing, how we have to have that. That's something else that's in there. Maybe there's a health authority. You've got a commercial kitchen where you got to get your local health authority in there to come in and sign off. That's another piece of paper and any commissioning, testing reports. This is not a list of everything. This is a good list, but there's a lot of things that come out of this. And somebody determines what actually applies this project. You as the architect on the job, you should be looking at that. Do I have a generator? Yes, I do. Okay. We need that documentation. Do we have a commercial kitchen? We do. We need to get our interior health, Fraser Health or whatever health authority coming in here and sign off on that. So these are all really important things and track this with that documentation. Like I said, throw it in an Excel chart, just do a simple check off as you get through these items. I think what you get under why we want to do this four months of math, it is a lot of work. And even if you kind of jump in and kind of handle it one week, it will consume your time because you're constantly chasing. You're hurting this and hurting cats with this information. You're trying to get it from so many people, ideally the GC. And this list that I just went into is a lot of the responsibility of the general contractor. But again, you've got to help them just keep track. And again, just be that broken record. Be that squeaking wheel because we need these documents to move forward. And the consultants shouldn't be chasing the 12 solid contractors trying to get this. It's really the contractor. But if he's having a hard time, then maybe the consultants can jump in. But the point is we need these documents to kind of wrap up this full checklist of items. Okay. That was a lot. Let's take a breath here. Just literally just breathe in right now. Now we've got it all. Let's pull it all together. Let's wrap this up. Okay. So as we're approaching occupancy, we've gone through this checklist and it becomes our roadmap to this. Okay. So final take, we need that contractor documentation. We need those finalized consultant field reviews, the specialty letters of insurance, schedule SBSCs. We need the fire alarm verification, the monitoring that we talked about. And of course, preparing for the S-1001. We don't need it right now, but that's going to be our next big step that we'll get into the next episode. And then of course, schedule CBs from all while you as the architect and also your consultants and engineers, and then your final schedule CA as well. And then of course, any HJ things. This is a lot of information. File it on your server, a nice clean folder under correspondence, AHA, put it in there, create a folder that we're doing our, so in the end on the server, there's probably close to 100 documents based on this, right? It's for all testing. And then those documents are ranging by two pages to a hundred pages, whatever the case is. Okay. And all those things have to converge roughly at the same time, right? We got to get this. There is certain milestones that we got to hit before they come into play. Okay. And that's why the occupancy prep takes months ahead of the actual occupancy. It had a lot of work to do this in the week before it sucks. You can, but it's a headache. It's stressful. We let's just not do it. Let's be proactive. Let's get this information. The conversation started early because again, you just don't want to be in that moment trying to chase that one schedule. Okay. So once you've collected all this paperwork, you completed those fill the reuse, you verify the fire alarm and the building is set and ready is time to intentionally set off some and see what breaks. So next episode, like I said, we're going to dive in through the ULC S 1001 integrated life safety testing, what that looks like, what that looks like on the field, how should we prepare for that? Elevators are going to be moving up and down. Fans are going to be going to shut down in this moment. Dampers going to be closed. Alarms are going to be going off. Bring your earplugs. Like seriously, bring your earplugs to that meeting. And a whole bunch of other consultants are going to be standing around, staring at the equipment and hoping it does exactly what they designed it to. And that's when things really get interesting. So till next time guys, just keep those RFIs moving. And last but not least, architects keep designing and contractors keep making those blueprints reality. We'll see on the next one.