How to Deal with Construction Site Contamination

1. Hospital Hospital Construction Construction How to Deal with Construction Site Contamination

2. Table of Contents 6 crucial stages that will help you deal with hospital site contamination  Stage 1 – Desktop Study and Soil Testing  Stage 2 – Construction Limits  Stage 3 – Regulatory Standards Compliance  Stage 4 – Better Housekeeping  Stage 5 – Validation  Stage 6 – Contractor Report Insider’s Tips to avoid getting ripped off by a General Contractor Healthcare Construction: An Overview of Challenges and Potential Solutions  Demand for Future Renovations  Limited Construction Funding  Maintaining Building Standards  Completion Delays   

3. 6 crucial stages that will help you deal with hospital site contamination Constructing a hospital is never easy, more so when you have to deal with site contamination. You have to limit the levels of air and water pollution to ensure that no lives are lost. Remember, you are also responsible for the adjacent lands and not just your construction site. You also need to put measures in place to prevent future contamination once the hospital construction is complete. Here are 6 crucial stages that will help you deal with hospital site contamination:

4. Stage 1 – Desktop Study and Soil Testing Chances are that the past owner of the piece of land where you are building filed a report concerning the site. You need to check for this report with the land authority and find old maps related to your construction site. The examination of the reports is called Desktop Study and is crucial in deciding whether to test the soil or not. If the reports show that the land is possibly contaminated, then you should test the soil right away to establish the level of contamination.

5. Stage 2 – Construction Limits After studying the Desktop Study Report, you should establish construction limits to reduce the risks of site contamination. Some of the measures you can observe at this stage are: • Proper wall ventilation • Ductwork sealing • HVAC protection and cleaning • Distinguished entries and exits • System isolation • Utility coordination With the right construction limits in place, you can work towards reducing site contamination to acceptable limits.

6. Stage 3 – Regulatory Standards Compliance You need a checklist that shows all the basic regulations that need to be observed throughout the construction. For example, your workers need to be aware of the Infection Control Risk Assessment (ICRA) standards to prevent infections on site. You also need to do auditing at the hospital construction site to check if the laid out regulatory standards are observed. During the audits, you can make adjustments and special requests

7. Stage 4 – Better Housekeeping Housekeeping is a necessity when looking to reduce the risks of hospital site contamination. You need to avoid the buildup of pollutants through the following strategies: • Neat stacking of construction supplies • Proper storage of sensitive materials • Maintaining a clean worksite • Pre-treating contaminated surfaces • minimizing dust emission

8. Stage 5 – Validation After performing soil testing and coming up with regulatory standards, you need to show evidence of compliance. Simply, you need a completion certificate that you obtain from the local construction authority. This allows both the workers and the adjacent inhabitants to trust that they are not under any contamination threat.

9. Stage 6 – Contractor Report Lastly, you should provide your contractor with a detailed report that shows what is expected of them during hospital construction. You have to define the expectations from the start to allow the project manager to come up with ways to reduce the risks of contamination throughout the construction. If possible, try to hire a construction manager who has first-hand experience in dealing with a similar construction case. It is never easy to deal with contamination at a hospital construction site. But with the right policies in place, it is less challenging to do it. Your policies need to be simple to implement and result-oriented.

10. Insider’s Tips to avoid getting ripped off by a General Contractor General contractors are not the same. Some contractors are genuine while others are a scam at their best. If you are planning a home renovation project or you want some construction work done altogether, there are high chances you are searching for a genuine contractor who will not rip you off. Here are some insider tips to help you avoid getting ripped off by a general contractor. Do Your Homework Get a minimum of three contractors who seem well suited for the project at hand. Check with industry associations, Angie’s List and any other credible bodies whether these contractors are genuine or they have a history of ripping off clients. You should also check to see the recent projects that each contractor has completed.

11. ChooseASuitable Contractor From State-Licensed Contractors Unscrupulous contractors that take advantage of innocent businesses and homeowners are mostly unlicensed. To minimize your risk of getting swindled by a prospective general contractor, make sure the contractor you opt for is licensed. Ask the contractor to give you their license number for you to verify with your state’s professional and business regulation department whether they are indeed licensed. Get References If you already have a licensed contractor in mind, do not hesitate to request them to give you a couple of recent clients they have worked with. Contact those clients and enquire from them the kind of experience they had with the contractor. If the clients rate the contractor high, then obviously you are less likely to be swindled by the contractor. Normally, unscrupulous contractors do not have credible references they can give to prospective clients.

12. Vet and verify Check the credibility of the contractor you intend to entrust with your project before handing over the project to them. You can verify their credibility using Angie’s List before verifying their status with the right licensing agency. The contractors should provide you with proof of worker’s compensation insurance as well as bonding if applicable. Get Multiple Bids Getting multiple bids is crucial for ensuring you are getting the fairest possible price. Do not just compare prices by different general contractors, but further check to see what exactly is featured in those costs. Be wary of contractors that quote prices that are much lower than the average competitors are. In most instances, scammers use low prices to lure potential clients. After landing the project, they either ask the client to pay the whole amount at once for work to commence. Alternatively, they can demand additional payments once work on the project has begun.

13. Recommendations The easiest way to avoid getting ripped off by a prospective general contractor is by getting recommendations from homeowners or people who have worked with a genuine contractor before. As such, you should ask around for a suitable contractor from neighbors, family members, acquaintances, friends, and coworkers who have worked with a legitimate contractor before. Make sure they explain everything about the contractor in detail. Getting a legitimate general contractor for any project can be much easier for those with a detailed understanding of what to look for in a genuine contractor. Hopefully, the above tips will help you choose a genuine contractor.

14. Healthcare Construction: An Overview of Challenges and Potential Solutions Healthcare construction is one of the most demanding and challenging undertakings in the building sector. Subject to ever-changing standards and codes, healthcare building requires sober and experienced minds coordinated together to meet deadlines and demands. It, therefore, becomes necessary to examine the potential challenges affecting healthcare construction and how construction companies can mitigate them for timely completion and satisfaction.

15. Demand for Future Renovations The world population is ever rising, and this calls for the construction of more healthcare centers. Nevertheless, future developments may require hospitals to remodel and expand to accommodate newer but complicated systems, equipment, and more patients. Contractors must plan to meet today’s as well as tomorrow’s demands. Solution Contractors should consult with stakeholders to analyze the future demands for healthcare buildings. The forecasting can be achieved by looking at the competitors’ plans for the future, surging medical practices, predictions of hospital services, population trend, and potential building code changes in the future. Additionally, incorporating unfinished spaces and adaptable rooms in a healthcare building allows for future expansion and conversions to accommodate growth. Contractors should ensure that whatever they are building now would remain relevant in the future.

16. Limited Construction Funding With the demand for sophisticated healthcare centers increasing, hospital management is finding it hard to fund the necessary construction improvements required in the construction of buildings. Also, capital resources are increasingly becoming limited. Solution Hospitals need to weigh the total construction cost against the stipulated budget and opt for facility designs and construction methods geared to reduce or optimize costs. Comparing the services and prices of various proven contractors is highly recommendable. Secondly, there is a need for hospital or construction management to work with financial consultants to decide on the type of capital most appropriate for the construction and the best time to undertake the building phase. This way, hospitals can mitigate potentially high costs of funding. Additionally, 3-D modeling allows for early correction of errors and prevents costly future changes.

17. Maintaining Building Standards As mentioned earlier, building codes are ever-changing, or new ones are being introduced every other day. This brings in a challenge to healthcare construction as buildings should meet the stipulated requirements to get approved for medical applications. Failure to comply with this obligation compromises the building’s safety and puts patients’and staff’s lives at risk. Solution Healthcare construction is indeed a highly specialized project and it is necessary to involve certified healthcare facility managers and healthcare contractors who will guide everyone involved in the project on the best practices, regulatory mandates, and accepted guidelines. Third-party inspection is paramount to ensure that the construction progresses as per the standards.

18. Completion Delays It is becoming harder and harder for healthcare constructions to meet deadlines partly due to materials used and practices employed. Such delays ruin the reputation of contractors besides leaving clients dissatisfied. Unmet deadlines have also led to standoffs between clients and constructors. Solution It is time for contractors to start investing in reliable products and time-saving techniques in healthcare construction. For instance, the use of rapid-dry cement (guaranteed to dry within 43 days) has been shown to effectively eliminate time- consuming and expensive moisture mitigation methods applied to conventional cement. Additionally, the prefabrication of building components has the potential of reducing construction time by half.

19. Bottom-line Healthcare construction, like any other sector, has its share of challenges, but the good thing is that there are practical solutions to the issues. Through collaboration with stakeholders, contractors can employ the strategies discussed above to counter off- schedules, meet future needs, comply with the statutory standards and codes as well as optimize the cost of construction.

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