Over the course of my career completing site visits and field surveys, I have learned to make one of the first questions I ask the facilities contact is “Do you have any existing plans?” Occasionally the answer is yes and we get the pleasure of going back in time by digging through a variety of revisions of old plans. The time spent filtering through a stack of plans can save hours of popping ceiling tiles and spending time in mechanical rooms drafting existing conditions. I have still made it a point to verify if the plans are accurate, but they can have a level of detail that you can’t get by measuring ductwork and sketching piping in the field. To get insight on how the controls systems were intended to work and have the design conditions are invaluable when working on a retrofit project. It allows the designer to add specificity to the plans that you normally wouldn’t be able to and hopefully minimize the change-orders and the number of times the contractor needs to verify in the field before ordering equipment. By being able to include this level of detail makes the design feel more like a design than a good guess. My lesson learned moving forward is to share the design drawings with the property managers to lend a hand to the next designer that comes across the site.

- Tim Choma, PE