12 Days of Christmas with a Building Enclosure Consultant

Partnering with a building enclosure consultant is one of the best things you can do to maximize the efficiency of your facility, extend the life of your building envelope assets and lower total cost of ownership. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. Follow along with us through the “12 days of Christmas with a building enclosure consultant” and see just what kind of gifts are in store for you when you partner with Technical Assurance.

Day 1

On the first day of Christmas my building enclosure consultant gave to me…
an enterprise building management solution.

We believe that the complexities facilities executives face when it comes to managing physical assets can be simplified through programmatic asset management. Asset management programs save time, effort and financial resources and allow for a more robust portfolio analysis. We see total cost of ownership savings of 15-30%.

Day 2

On the second day of Christmas my building enclosure consultant gave to me…
an understanding of my portfolio’s condition.

Before implementing any sort of building asset management program, it is imperative to establish a health baseline for your portfolio. You must understand where you are now in order to introduce life cycle management strategies to lower your facilities’ total cost of ownership.

Day 3

On the third day of Christmas my building enclosure consultant gave to me…
a project implementation timeline.

When talking with multi-facility managers, one of the common pain-points we inevitably discover is how capital and repair projects are prioritized over a 1-, 3-, 5- or 10-year period. We’ve heard it all:

By who complains the loudest
Inter-organizational politics
Which projects have been on “the list” the longest
The least expensive first
And our personal favorite…close your eyes and point!

At Technical Assurance, we aim to take the bias—whatever that may be—out of your prioritization process. We take a scientific approach based on the most critical facilities within your portfolio and the most critical building systems, with each weighted by the condition ranked worst to best.

Day 4

On the fourth day of Christmas my building enclosure consultant gave to me…
a mobile GIS app.

The purpose of the ON-PNT® GIS app is two-fold:

to streamline the data collection process
to create a real-time connectivity between the field and the asset management database

When it comes to a workflow, keeping it simple is always our preferred approach. The GIS app was initially developed to help our team be more efficient; then over the years we’ve refined the technology to help our client teams work more effectively.

Before the field technicians are deployed to a client project, the building sections and systems are mapped. Each section and system is a polygon, line drawn and accessible within the app. This prepares our field assessors with the tools they need to efficiently record deficiency type, location and quantity when performing the condition assessment in a standardized format – eliminating inconsistent data collection that results in difficulty assimilating, organizing and inputting the data into a database.

Once all the data is collected, the GIS maps help you to visualize the condition of your building system assets and analyze the effects that repair and maintenance have on the portfolio’s condition.

Day 5

On the fifth day of Christmas my building enclosure consultant gave to me…
an understanding of my deferred maintenance backlog and how it will impact my portfolio.

One of the primary dilemmas for facility managers is a constantly growing backlog of capital renewal repairs due to inadequate funding appropriations to correct all the problems. The tough questions: How did we get in this situation? How do we get out of it?

Oftentimes you have inherited the backlog of problems due to long-term reactive facility management and run-to-failure building system management. You may know a planned, proactive maintenance program is needed but feel that there are too many fires to address before such a program can be funded.

At this time, you have 2 choices:

Stay the reactive course and hope for more funding.
Institute a dramatic programmatic change that takes the onus off you and places it in the hands of the financial administration.

The multi-facility institutions that have been able to tell the most comprehensive, independent, scientific, financial, objective and repeatable stories are the best maintained environments. It is easy to understand why many multi-facility institutions haven’t undertaken such a comprehensive programmatic approach, because they have millions of square feet of buildings built at different times with different systems and different life cycles. Millions of building square feet, hundreds and hundreds of different building systems and thousands upon thousands of different deficiencies. Where and how to get started can be mind boggling!

Day 6

On the sixth day of Christmas my building enclosure consultant gave to me…
a preventative maintenance sustainability checklist.

By implementing a preventative maintenance plan for your facilities, you can get ahead of repairs before they become larger, more labor- and capital-intensive projects. This also helps extend the life of your building envelope assets by maintaining their condition and maximizing their performance. Small repairs over time retain structural integrity, allowing you to stave off the need for a complete system overhaul.

Preventative (and predictive) maintenance is something that Technical Assurance believes in whole-heartedly. It is worth the upfront investment in order to extend the life cycle of your facilities and to lower your overall total cost of ownership.

Day 7

On the seventh day of Christmas my building enclosure consultant gave to me…
a warranty management process.

The value of a roof manufacturer warranty has been a hotly contested topic for decades. We try to help our clients navigate a variety of warranty questions:

What good is the warranty if they only patch a leak and won’t fix the condition of the roof?
The warranty says no dollar limit, but doesn’t it seem like it is only a roof leak repair warranty?
The warranty says it is prorated over time and each year the value of the warranty goes down. What good is that?
The manufacturer says we voided the warranty because we never completed any roof maintenance. What are my options now?

The list of questions goes on.

We believe the real value of a roof warranty is not the piece of paper or the terms and conditions of the document. Instead, we believe a well-managed warranty process is the real value as this ensures the best roof performance. And we know they are imperative to have just in case of a premature (rare) catastrophic failure.

Day 8

On the eighth day of Christmas my building enclosure consultant gave to me…
a look at building IR scans.

With colder weather approaching, it is a good time to consider performing an infrared (IR) scan on your facility’s building envelope, specifically the wall assemblies this time of year. IR scans help you to understand the conditions of your building envelope that are invisible to the naked eye, giving you a more comprehensive understanding of your building’s performance. The non-invasive, non-destructive inspection process identifies:

thermal variances within the wall insulation systems
moisture penetration into the wall assembly
moisture laden insulation
air infiltration and exfiltration through the fenestrations (doors, windows and skylights)
radiant floor heat
other applications that relate to the building envelope.

Day 9

On the ninth day of Christmas my building enclosure consultant gave to me…
the seven elements to develop a comprehensive building enclosure asset management plan.

With proactive, planned life cycle management, it is possible to eliminate one or more roof system capital renewals over the total life cycle of a building. What if this could be done on over 50% of the building inventory or perhaps 70% portfolio wide? Depending on the size of the portfolio, a programmatic management plan could save millions or hundreds of millions of dollars.

The following 7 elements are required when developing a comprehensive facility asset management plan:

Inventory each roof asset.
Thoroughly assess the condition of each roof system by collecting deficiency data and quantity to help establish a Condition Index.
Analyze each system from a total cost of ownership perspective and determine whether repair improvements will extend the service life and lower total cost ownership over the remaining service life of the roof asset.
Calculate and understand the key metrics of a qualified condition assessment for each roof system.
Prioritize capital renewal projects, expense repairs and maintenance work objectively.
Plan different spending scenarios that demonstrate impact on the current and future capital renewal backlogs. Constrained budget reports are critical for showing what spend levels will be required to maintain or buy down the current capital renewal backlogs, and how this will affect the roof condition over the life of the spend plan.
Create and analyze KPI reports that highlight spend plans, capital plans, historical metric accountability and KPI reports.

Day 10

On the tenth day of Christmas my building enclosure consultant gave to me…
a brief look into pavement and parking consulting.

Parking areas, structured parking facilities, surface lots and exterior hardscapes serve as a first impression and welcome visitors to your facility. Regular cleaning and maintenance of those areas will increase the perceived value of your facility, improve safety and protect the revenue stream that parking facilities can offer.

Day 11

On the eleventh day of Christmas my building enclosure consultant gave to me…
performance testing and the benefits of building enclosure commissioning (BECx).

Building enclosures directly affect the longevity and energy efficiency of a building. With a systematic approach to quality assurance, the commissioning process improves the performance, safety and efficiency of a building and ensures that a project meets specific quality requirements outlined by the owner.

The Technical Assurance full-service building enclosure commissioning (BECx) group specializes in providing data-driven, quality improvement suggestions to new construction building design and performs functional testing during construction. The team also performs retro-commissioning services to improve existing building exfiltration and infiltration energy loss, poor indoor air quality and water/moisture leakage problems.

Day 12

On the twelfth day of Christmas my building enclosure consultant gave to me…
a wish for a very merry holiday season!

Thank you for following along with us during our 12 days of Christmas celebration. We hope that you learned a little more about our company, our services and programmatic approach to building system asset management.

If something piqued your interest, we’d love to chat with you about it.

From all of us at Technical Assurance, we wish you a very merry holiday with your loved ones and a prosperous New Year!

The 12 Days of Christmas with a Building Enclosure Consultant