A facility condition assessment is a comprehensive evaluation of a property and its infrastructure to determine the current performance and understand how much longer it can continue to perform as designed. This information is critical for making decisions about needed repairs, maintenance, or improvements and the associated costs. This is similar to a property condition assessment for commercial real estate.
Facility condition assessments are typically organized by building systems, such as foundation, cladding, HVAC system, security system, etc. Whether the issues are maintenance or wholesale renovations, a facility condition assessment enables building owners and facility managers to make informed money and business decisions about the future of their properties.
When You Need a Facility Condition Assessment
New property
When you are preparing to purchase a large commercial or industrial facility that is more than five years old, a facility condition assessment can tell you what shape the building is in—including elements like the roof condition, status of mechanical systems, and costs to repair any issues.
Bring a building up to code
Building codes and environmental regulations are constantly changing in response to updated federal and state laws, new building technologies, and current social and political trends. Solar power, accessibility, energy efficiency, green buildings, climate change, and terrorist attacks are examples of recent events or new technologies that have resulted in significant changes to building codes in the past several years.
Planned repairs, renovations, or expansion trigger code reviews and potentially required code upgrades. This can influence long-term planning for property owners, such as knowing how much it will cost to become ADA compliant. Prospective buyers will a handle on the necessary upgrades expected and the costs to make those improvements, including improving the energy efficiency or updating mechanical systems.
Many older buildings are exempt from some changes to codes or regulations. A thorough facility condition assessment can identify areas that will need upgrading to comply with applicable regulations.
Change in Building Use
A facility condition assessment by a design professional is required to determine the current conditions and determine whether the facility is fit for the new purpose. For example, if your organization is using different materials, the existing facility may not meet the building and fire codes for this new use.
Lifecycle
A lifecycle cost analysis can determine when maintenance of aging building equipment and systems should be economically sensible to be replaced. Despite sometimes initial high costs to replace things like roofs, mechanical systems, or an entire building, the cost of continual repairs and wasted energy may ultimately be more expensive than replacement.
Disaster Preparedness
Governments, public utilities, and large organizations are responsible for maintaining much of the aging facilities and infrastructure in this country. Strong storms, earthquakes, floods, and other incidents affect these facilities frequently. Determining the resilience of a facility and the cost of additional resilience of a facility requires skillful analysis. Risk analysis can be performed on these facilities once the means and cost of hardening facilities against disasters are known.
Conducting a thorough facility condition assessment requires a team with extensive experience in the design and engineering of highly complex facilities, forensic investigations, and cost estimation. Here at CCA, we have the experience and knowledge to help with your condition assessment. Contact us with any of your condition assessment needs for more information.
