Basic Building Condition Assessment – Part 2

1. Basic Building Condition Assessment – Part 2 Prepared for Delivery through AGLEARN

2. Standard Terminology

3. Common Definitions May be found at the following website: http://fsweb.wo.fs.fed.us/eng/documents/mtcconst.htm

4. Maintenance Maintenance is “the act of keeping fixed assets in acceptable condition.” It includes preventative maintenance, repairs, cyclical maintenance (component replacement) and addressing of statutory requirements needed to assure that the asset achieves its expected life. Maintenance excludes upgrade activities aimed at expanding capacity or changing function.

5. Annual Maintenance (AM) • Work performed to maintain serviceability or repair failures in the year in which they occur. It includes preventative and cyclic maintenance performed in the year which it is scheduled, as well as unscheduled or catastrophic failures of components or assets. • Typically this is the work funded by the following extended budget line items: CP09, CMFC and QMQM. • OMB allows the agency to estimate this by multiplying 3-5% by the Current Replacement Value.

6. Preventative Maintenance (PM) • Scheduled servicing, repairs, inspections and replacement of parts that result in fewer breakdowns and fewer premature replacements to help achieve the expected life of the fixed asset. • Inspections are a critical part of preventative maintenance as they provide the information for scheduling maintenance and for evaluating its effectiveness. • A component of Annual Maintenance.

7. Deferred Maintenance (DM) • Maintenance that was not performed when it should have been or when it was scheduled and which, therefore was put off or delayed for a future period. • Made up of 4 parts – a) cyclic (component replacement) b) minor repairs not done when they should have been, c) work needed to meet laws, regulations, etc as long as the original intent of the asset has not been changed, and d) functional obsolescence. • There is no current OMB requirement to report annual maintenance, only deferred maintenance.

8. Example of Functional Obsolescence From the Facility Master Plan: “This building provides office space for 7 FTE’s. It was originally a garage, but was converted to an office in the early 1990’s. The building was constructed in 1955 and is 440 ft2 in size. The building is in fair condition. Water seepage into the interior after heavy rains (>3”) has been a recurring problem. It is recommended that it be decommissioned and replaced with a modern facility.” Due to its age (> 50 years) this building needs to be evaluated for historic significance prior to demolition.

9. Operations & Maintenance (O&M) • The activities and resources required to operate and maintain facilities (recreation, administrative, etc.) at a level of quality which meets management objectives and customer satisfaction. • Costs associated with O&M are generally recurrent, as opposed to capital investments, which are generally one-time and non-recurrent.

10. O&M (continued) • O&M is like it sounds, part operations and part maintenance • The maintenance portion, is not DM, it is not all of AM, it is just a portion of AM, i.e. that portion that is recurrent • O&M is funded by CP09, CMFC, NFRW, QMQM, and a variety of other EBLIs

11. Condition Assessment Objectives

12. Purposes of Condition Assessments • Primary: • serve as physical inventory for the asset • Show accomplishment (elimination of previously identified maintenance work) • inform its valuation by determining the deferred maintenance deduction to be applied to the “raw” replacement value. • These are primarily financial upward reporting functions to allow the agency to adequately respond to requests for information and oversight

13. Purposes of Condition Surveys (cont.) • Secondary • identify future work needs, serving as a sort of periodic “reconnaissance” of the asset. In most cases the actual correction of deficiencies will require additional investigation, as there may be a number of alternatives as to how to best to address them • serve as an additional opportunity to note critical health and safety, environmental degradation or other similar conditions which need to be addressed immediately. • These two functions are more targeted to the actual day-to-day work activities.

14. How Condition Assessment Data Relates to Building Value Subtracting the deferred maintenance on this building from the current replacement value computed by I-Web based on GSF gives a truer picture of its value. It is often the case that deferred maintenance work items discovered during condition surveys may never actually be done, as for example on this building, where the building may not be really worth repairing, and the building has been determined to be of low priority.

15. Coordination with Other Required SurveysSee FSM 7309 44.1 Exhibit 01 • Physical Inventory – Every 5 Years • Condition Assessment – Every 5 years • Health and Safety Inspection – Annual, except Maintenance Level 1 Buildings • Quarters Inspections– Annual, prior to each occupancy • Facility Performance (Master Plan) – Every 10 years • Accessibility - Every 3 Years • Vulnerability – Every 5 Years • Friable Asbestos Materials – Annual • Energy Conservation – As Needed • Pre-Occupancy – Prior to Leasing • ECAP Audits (Internal) – Annual • EACP Audits (External) – Every 5 Years • EMS – Annual/Every 3 Years • EMS Second Party – Every 5 Years

16. I-Web vs. Maintenance Management Systems (MMS) • It has been recognized that INFRA may not be the most useful way to handle scheduling of the multitude of day to day activities (preventative maintenance, minor repairs,) that are often needed on a facility • Instead a more specialized maintenance management software is more appropriate. • We will likely investigate the acquisition of a corporate maintenance management system in the near future. • Condition assessment work items should consist of removal and replacement of major building components. These work items have the most impact on the value of an asset.

17. Minor vs. Major Items • In the past we tended to focus more on minor work items when doing condition assessments. As an example, one Forest found that approximately 85% of the maintenance work items which it had recorded in I-Web were estimated to cost less than $2,000 each, but this only added up to about 6% in value of the total maintenance work recorded for that Forest. • Therefore it is probably more productive to focus on major items when doing condition assessments, and keep up with the small stuff on a much more regular basis.

18. Minor Items Left Undone Lead to DM • It should be recognized that usually it is relatively minor items left unaddressed that lead to deferred maintenance. • Therefore as a matter of practice these items should not be left to be discovered during a condition assessment which might occur only on a 5-year interval. • Correction of small recurring items such as replacing a filter, a burned out light bulb or fixing a broken lock should be addressed as ongoing “operations” using appropriate fund types.

19. Preventative Maintenance Tips Replacing furnace filters on a regular basis will prevent compressor freeze-up, dirty ductwork, fan failures, etc. Non-functional exit signs, emergency lighting, smoke detectors need to be replaced immediately to prevent loss of life in case of a fire. Putting off repairing a roof leak or a waterproofing project may result in mold infestations that are extremely expensive to restore to useable condition. You sure don’t want to wait long before you address this maintenance item!

20. Vegetation Removal This is an example of some work that really ought to be done as a part of operations & maintenance (O&M) on a regular basis, and if done could result in reduced deferred maintenance later on.

21. Additional Condition Assessment Objective • Perhaps the most important objective for facility condition assessments beyond those stated above relate to the need to have standardized inspections across the agency, standardized “acceptable” care, and cost estimates that are consistent, repeatable and defendable. • For the purpose of consistent upward reporting this is more important than developing detailed construction cost estimates.

22. Consistent Standard of Care Standard work items shown on the inspection form are “representative” of a consistent standard of repair and/or replacement quality across the agency, and should be used whenever possible, otherwise custom work items and minor improvement needs are available in the system.

23. Consistent Costing Method Costing is automated in the I-web module, requiring only limited interaction by the user; work item costs are based on R S Means, an industry-standard construction and maintenance cost database, with appropriate multipliers applied to capture conditions of the Forest Service business environment in a consistent fashion.

24. Note about costs • All costs are assumed to be based on contracting, with overhead and profit as described in R S Means • Costs may not be indicative of what would be encountered using force account, local jacks-of-all-trades, brother-in-laws, etc.

25. Consistent Replacement Schedule Replacement will be based upon condition as well as age and “typical expected life”. Sources of Building Component Data: • R S Means • Agency Experience

26. Review Question #1 Which of the following work items would it be appropriate to capture in a building condition assessment? a. Furnace filter replacement b. Roof replacement c. Window screen repair d. Both “a” and “c” e. Both “b” and “c”

27. Review Question #2 True or False - If actual costs for performing a work item are known by an inspector those values should be used in lieu of the standard costs in the system.

28. Answers to Review Questions 1 & 2 • Correct Answer to Question 1 – “b” • Correct Answer to Question 2 – “False. The purpose of using standard work items and standard costs is based upon consistency across units.”