Conqueirng Your Fire & Life Safety Systems
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Presented by: Peter Harrod Watch as you learn how to recognize deficiencies in your equipment, identify code violations, and plan the retroactive and forward thinking changes that will attract and retain tenants, lower risk and positively position your property for resale! Watch the webinar on-demand: http://be.buildingengines.com/StatementofConditions_1.25.11_RegforOn-DemandWebinar.html
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Conqueirng Your Fire & Life Safety Systems
- 1. Assessing the Condition of Your Fire & Life Safety Systems Conquering the Code!
- 2. Real Estate Operations Masters Series 2012 Real Estate Operations Masters Series! Register for the complete series at www.buildingengines.com! Sarah Fisher sfisher@buildingengines.com Director, Marketing & Communications Building Engines
- 3. Peter Harrod Senior V.P., Rolf Jensen & Assoc. About Peter: Mr. Harrod joined Rolf Jensen & Associates, Inc. (RJA) in 1998 and is a Senior Vice President. Throughout his career, he has acted as an advisor to design teams and building owners on compliance with local and international fire safety codes and standards. His experience includes development of fire protection design strategies using code and performance based approaches as well as other special studies related to specific code compliance issues. Mr Harrod's area of focus includes the identification, development, and oversight of maintenance for RJA's Fortune 500 and Higher Education clients.
- 4. Instructions Insert GoToMeeting Chat Window Slide
- 5. Assessing the Condition of Your Fire & Life Safety Systems Today’s Webinar Topics Avoiding Mistakes: The Top 10 Fire & Life Safety System Mistakes and how to avoid them Keeping ahead of the Jones': Setting standards for fire and life safety across your portfolio that set you apart from the competition and mitigate risk Data-driven safety: Empowering your team with technology and real-time access to fire and life safety documentation The balance of responsibility: Between owner/managers and service providers for the fire and life safety systems
- 6. Fire & Life Safety Trends The good, the bad, and the ugly. Good: Increased focus on risk management Bad: Many fire & life safety programs are still reactive vs. proactive Ugly: When Owners/Managers defer the responsibility completely to fire and life safety contractors and service providers
- 7. Fire & Life Safety Systems The reactionary approach has negative ramifications Outdated Systems= • High replacement costs • Hard to find parts • Out of compliance
- 8. Fire & Life Safety Systems Looking at the Big Picture Have all the little improvements and tenant renovations across a building necessitated an update to the entire system?
- 9. Fire & Life Safety Systems The Importance of Standardization Owners and Mangers are standardizing across entire portfolios: - Better than relying on dozens of different contractors - Best means to assuring occupant safety - Minimizing liability
- 10. Fire & Life Safety Systems What Should You be Doing Now? Revisit all historical renovations or tenant improvements- Compare the standards at the time to current standards, with an eye toward future industry standards. Review Code Requirements- Have we properly maintained the minimum code requirements as it relates to fire, means of egress and life safety?
- 11. Fire & Life Safety Systems Statement of Conditions Statement of Conditions: Assessing fire & life safety code compliance What are the system’s: • Components • Deficiencies • Improvement Costs
- 12. Fire & Life Safety Systems Awareness of Risks Existing Part recalls/ violations / Outdated non- equipment compliance More Deep Dive Details: “Is there enough water to feed the sprinkler system?” “Is the active supression appropriate for the piece of equipment?”
- 13. Fire & Life Safety Systems Statement of Conditions- Components Homework: Study all the building documents, floor plans, existing systems, etc. Interview & Assess: Inspect existing systems, interview building management and engineers, current renovations Report: Prioritized photographic report outlining specific recommendations and violations
- 14. Fire & Life Safety Systems Getting Started • Define the corporate drivers behind the need for an assessment • Prioritize baseline requirements and goals
- 15. Fire & Life Safety Systems Statement of Conditions- Components 1. Building Representative (usually Chief Engineer)- experienced with servicing and/or contracting the fire and life safety equipment in the property. 2. An Independent Professional: experienced with fire & life safety assessments and knowledgeable in the regional and national codes.
- 16. Fire & Life Safety Systems Who should have access to the report? Blast that Report Wide Open! • Building Manager • Chief Engineer • Any key decision makers in a potential acquisition
- 17. Fire & Life Safety Systems How often should we perform a statement of conditions? Start by getting it done. Once. And Well. BAM! Then you can… • Prioritize upgrades needed • Plan spending • Avoid glaring risks • Be prepared for future resale
- 18. Business Process Systems Fire & Life Safety Re-engineering Technology Adoption With Technology! Everything’s Better in Real Estate Access data in real-time Store all fire and across your life safety entire documentation portfolio in a central location Access data from a mobile device while inspecting equipment Automated and documented work orders
- 19. The 10 Biggest Fire & Life Safety System Mistakes! 1. Continuing to Band-Aid an outdated system, rather than replace. 2. Missing the Big Picture: Have all the little one-off improvements and renovations necessitated a change to the entire system? 3. Not implementing building and portfolio-wide fire and life safety standards. 4. Passing the buck to service providers. 5. Thinking you can catch up later when the market turns around. 6. Not doing an Assessment of Condition of your Fire and Life Safety Systems at each building. 7. Diving into a fire and life safety overhaul without outlining and prioritizing baseline requirements and goals. 8. Choosing the wrong person/team to spearhead the project 9. Sharing is Caring: Making sure that the all of appropriate building representatives get their hand on the final report 10. Neglecting to utilize technology in the process
- 20. Peter Harrod Senior V.P., Rolf Jensen & Assoc. About Peter: Mr. Harrod joined Rolf Jensen & Associates, Inc. (RJA) in 1998 and is a Senior Vice President. Throughout his career, he has acted as an advisor to design teams and building owners on compliance with local and international fire safety codes and standards. His experience includes development of fire protection design strategies using code and performance based approaches as well as other special studies related to specific code compliance issues. Mr Harrod's area of focus includes the identification, development, and oversight of maintenance for RJA's Fortune 500 and Higher Education clients.
- 21. Assessing the Condition of Your Fire & Life Safety Systems Conquering the Code!
Notas del editor
- Sarah: Good afternoon and thank you for joining us today. Today’s topic is assessing the condition of your fire & life safety systems – including a detailed look at the Statement of Conditions – a foundation for proper planning, budgeting, financing & sale.
- My name is Sarah Fisher, Director of Marketing Communications at Building Engines, and we are sponsoring today’s presentation. This Webinar is part of our webinar masters series, where we bring you a detailed look at specific technology enabled best practices for commercial real estate operations, at no charge to you. In addition to today’s webinar, we have prepared other content on this topic including video vignettes, checklists and articles that we will be sharing with you over the coming days and weeks, so please look for those as follow-up to the webinar.
- Sarah: Our featured speaker today is Peter Harrod, a Fire Protection Engineer at Rolf Jensen and Associates. Peter is a Senior Vice President and runs RJA’s corporate real estate practice internationally. He’s been with RJA for 14 years serving clients both locally as well as across 17 offices globally. Peter, thank you for joining us today. Peter: Thank you Sarah.Sarah: I also want to mention that Peter sits on several National Fire Protection Association committees, including NFPA 72, the Fire Alarm Code as it relates to testing, inspection and maintenance.
- Before we begin, I want share a few notes with the audience. Our session today is a one-way Webinar, meaning that you will be able to hear us speak, but we cannot hear you. However, you will be able to write questions in the GoToWebinar “Chat” window on the right hand side of your screen. You can also close the chat pane window to see more of the screen. I will monitor the Chat window to answer any logistical questions you might have. We will open the meeting up to Q&A at the end. We are recording this webinar, and you will receive a copy of the webinar, as well as an mp3 version and transcript for you and your colleagues as part of our follow-up after the webinar. This webinar is part of our Building Operations Masters Series. We have just opened registration for our 2012 Webinar series. To register for the complete series and view upcoming topics, please visit the link above
- Sarah: And with that, let’s get back to today’s topic of fire & life safety systems. As we prepared the agenda today, we thought some of the questions you may have for Peter include:Avoiding Mistakes: the top 10 fire & life safety system mistakes and how to avoid them Keeping ahead of the Jones': Setting standards for fire and life safety across your portfolio that set you apart from the competition and mitigate risk Data-driven safety: Empowering your team with technology and real-time access to fire and life safety documentation The balance of responsibility: Between owner/managers and service providers for the fire and life safety systems
- Sarah: Peter, could you start by giving us your assessment of key trends that are impacting commercial real estate today in your area of the business. What do you see as the key trends or issues? Sure, as it relates to fire protection and life safety and security systems we’re seeing a a mixed bag as it relates to trends. Some are negative, some are positive. Unfortunately some of the negative trends that we continue to see is that the inspection testing and maintenance of fire life safety systems generally are deferred entirely to the fire alarm and fire life safety contractors. Which on the surface is the right expectation and those folks should be servicing your systems. However, the challenges that we’re continuing to see in this regard is that the contractors often times are providing quality as well as documentation that is less than what is otherwise required by the applicable codes and standards for all life safety systems that we have in our existing facilities.
- What we’re seeing in the industry as it relates to fire and life safety replacement is that often times the end user or the building owner is very reactionary as it relates to why and when they’re going to upgrade the fire life safety systems that they have within their facilities. And often times we’re seeing fire alarm systems that have been in place for 30 plus years where the replacement costs are getting incredibly expensive and/or parts are difficult to come by. We often times have notification appliances that are not in compliance with what the industry is used to seeing as it relates to accessibility, requirements or strobe devices for the hearing impaired and the like. Rather they’re waiting until the system completely dies on them at which point they’re reliant on their vendor or their fire alarm or fire life safety system provider to help them continue to put band-aids on their systems as opposed to taking a more timely approach, understand what their fire life safety systems have to offer, what some of the feasibility options are to design and install more importantly a phased installation maybe and they can budget as appropriate.
- Additionally, what we’re seeing on the negative side is as it relates to tenant improvements and/or renovations that are continuously happening over the life cycle of a building. And the question is being asked is are the building owners and/or the design teams doing their proper due diligence to insure that as we continue to renovate spaces or perform changes of uses of certain areas of our buildings have we taken a step back and looked at the appropriateness of the fire life safety systems that are provided not only in the space that we’re renovating but in the entire building. Could this renovation that we’re doing now or the ones that we’ve done over time otherwise retroactively necessitated a level of improvement for our fire life safety systems. Should we now be a fully sprinkler building given all these renovations rather than just sprinkler in one renovation at a time? Have all these renovations over time otherwise triggered a requirement to have full visual notification in accordance with the requirements for the disabled throughout our entire facility and the likes.
- That being said, there are some positive trends that we’re seeing, specifically in some of the corporate real estate firms that have a larger portfolio or a larger geographic spread. These folks are recognizing the importance of having a greater level of standardization and assurance that their facilities are in compliance whether they’re the owners or the managers of these facilities. They understand that relying on any number of dozens or hundreds of different contractors or one off engineers in these facilities to maintain their buildings without some semblance of a national or international standard of care is not the best means to assure that they’re not only providing the building occupants with a certain degree of life safety. But they’re also at the same time relieving and minimizing liability. And separately if we have these fire life safety systems not only are we contracting out to have a vendor service, inspect and test these facilities but are they doing it in accordance with the applicable codes and standards. Even though we might feel that we’re passing on the liability to our service provider, there is still a significant level of responsibility as us as building manager and/or owner to insure that we’re testing, inspecting and maintaining our fire life safety systems in accordance with the codes and standards in a particular jurisdiction.
- Sarah: Our customers in the audience today – the question they’re asking themselves and their peers – is what should they be doing now to prepare for the market turnaround. What specific actions do you recommend buildings should be taking now to prepare for the future specifically with an eye towards attracting and retaining tenants? PETER HARROD I would answer this question referencing concern within our existing buildings that perhaps over time we might not have the appropriate level of protection given the amount of renovations or tenant improvements that we’ve seen within our building or given retroactive fire life safety upgrades that have occurred or requirements that have occurred over time given legislation within the state or city that our building is located in. And one way to accomplish that is to take a step back and do a fire life safety system due diligence to appreciate not only what was required at the time of construction and maybe not only what was required at the time of last significant renovation. But also looking forward to what the industry is expecting as it relates to minimum standard of care for fire life safety features. Examples of that might be do we have full audio and visual notification within our facility and that is not only going to be the standard flashing red light and water gong. But do we have appropriate coverage relative to ADA approved visual appliances located at the proper height and the proper dimensional criteria. Do we have not only the standard zoned fire, smoke and heat detection devices within our facility but do we have fully addressable devices -- can we say with full confidence that our facility is fully sprinklered. And not only is it fully sprinklered but the water supply that we have provided is consistent and appropriate with the use occupancy or type of commodity storage that is required given its current contents or will be required given the type of perspective tenant that we’re looking to attract within our building. The other aspect of it is beyond just fire life safety systems. Have we properly maintained the minimum code requirements as it relates to fire, means of egress and life safety? Again taking most certainly a look back at what the applicable code was at the time of construction and also perhaps looking at what the minimum expectation would be moving forward for the type of tenant that we’re looking to attract. Do we have minimum dead ends and minimum common paths of travel before we get to exits? Are we properly maintaining at least two exits or more given the arrangement of our building, given the occupant load that were expected. It’s these minimum level of fire life safety features and means of egress features that we should be taking a look at proactively knowing full well that as part of a formalized purchase and sale or perspective acquisition process that the buyer is going to be taking a close look at these things and using it as a means of negotiation.
- That being said, there are some positive trends that we’re seeing, specifically in some of the corporate real estate firms that have a larger portfolio or a larger geographic spread. These folks are recognizing the importance of having a greater level of standardization and assurance that their facilities are in compliance whether they’re the owners or the managers of these facilities. They understand that relying on any number of dozens or hundreds of different contractors or one off engineers in these facilities to maintain their buildings without some semblance of a national or international standard of care is not the best means to assure that they’re not only providing the building occupants with a certain degree of life safety. But they’re also at the same time relieving and minimizing liability. And separately if we have these fire life safety systems not only are we contracting out to have a vendor service, inspect and test these facilities but are they doing it in accordance with the applicable codes and standards. Even though we might feel that we’re passing on the liability to our service provider, there is still a significant level of responsibility as us as building manager and/or owner to insure that we’re testing, inspecting and maintaining our fire life safety systems in accordance with the codes and standards in a particular jurisdiction.
- Sarah: Risk management is a huge issue today. How does the statement of conditions call out specific risks? PETER HARROD: So specifically it’s working to cite section and verse of the applicable codes in which we have noncompliant conditions, whether it’s associated with a fire life safety system or it’s associated with a building component, meaning perhaps we have an open stairway that otherwise should be enclosed. Specifically outlining not just that you should have two enclosed means of egress but identifying the specific code section and verse so that we know for sure here is where and why it’s going to be applicable. The other risks that this process will make you aware of is any existing and known violations. If we’re representing the owner you might very well be aware of those items. But if we’re representing the purchaser these items may not be transparent as of yet and there’s some level of due diligence that’s done by way of the building and fire departments as well as interviewing key staff associated with the facility as it stands today. The other risks that it will make you aware of is again not only perhaps recognizing that yes this building is fully sprinklered but is it sprinklered and provided with an appropriate level of water supply given the use of occupancy and commodity storage. So taking a step beyond just yes it’s provided with active suppression but it’s provided with active suppression appropriate for the commodity. Identifying risks relative to the appropriateness of the fire alarm systems and the smoke control systems moving forward in ability to get replacement costs and/or whether or not there are particular recalls associated with a vendor’s fire alarm panel or remote panel. And whether there’s issues and/or recalls associated with equipment that is tied to those fire life safety systems.
- Sarah: Could you take us through the major components of a statement of conditions? PETER HARROD: what we do at the outset is take a look at any documentation associated with the fire life safety systems for a building before we even step foot into it. We take a look at understanding the building elements, the floor plans and overall where and what has been provided from a fire life safety system aspect of it. We try to do our due diligence and our homework going into it such that when we step foot in the facility we can with a critical eye and as efficiently as possible evaluate all aspects of fire suppression, sprinkler, water supply, detection alarm, security and egress and building construction features for the purposes of providing candid feedback as it relates to the appropriateness of all these features given what was required at the time of existing construction. What is required now given substantial renovations and alterations as well as what our recommendations are given best practices associated with any of these features in the industry? We then work to identify and outline any existing violations that might be on file with the chief engineer and/or with the building and fire departments and bring light to that and identify what the ramifications are associated with those violations and how big of an item they are. What recommendations and/or deficiencies need to be changed to correct that and how challenging of a process or cost burdensome that process will be. While we’re on site we’ll interview the building management and engineering staff to best understand any complaints, problems or modifications associated with any of the fire life safety systems, any work planned for the future. If there are any renovations or constructions going on in the facility at the current time we’re going to be paying particular attention to that. And then the ultimate deliverable is a written report identifying the status of all the fire life safety systems specifically identifying recommendations given our findings associated with what improvements should be made given code requirements, given best practices and outlining specifically what those recommendations are, citing sections and verses of the applicable codes such that the buyer and/or the seller can best present these recommendations with more teeth behind . We give different level of prioritization associated with our recommendations specifically associated with the buyer so he can best appreciate how and where to allocate capital and/or use these items as negotiation items as part of the purchase and sale and the like. And within the report we’re going to provide photographic documentation associated with the representative system or specific area of concern or deficiency. And generally at the end it involves participation in teleconferences and/or meetings with the appropriate individuals to help them best understand the ramifications of these deficiencies and/or how the appropriateness of including some recommendations as part of the negotiation process or are they more appropriate for a five year out capital expenditure plan in the interest of budgeting and the like.
- Sarah: For our audience today who is looking to take action --- what should they do first? What are the things they need to be doing to prepare, to think about, to assess? PETER HARROD: I would answer that question coming to what the particular drivers are of the corporate real estate client. And with that the firm needs to appreciate what they’re trying to accomplish as an institution. Is it to satisfy a certain level of fire life safety requirements as required by their insurance provider? Is it to be able to speak with confidence that their fire life safety systems in all of their buildings satisfy the testing, inspection and maintenance requirements associated with the applicable codes and standards? And as they answer those questions they’ll better appreciate what steps they need to be taking as part of the due diligence process to best determine where their facilities stand in satisfying their core objectives. And until those baseline requirements are created it becomes challenging for our corporate real estate clients to prioritize and be less reactionary and more driving the process and being able to answer those questions that they were otherwise asking themselves that yes we can speak to any particular facility in any particular region -- we do have standards and practices in place that our building managers and our service providers shall meet. And we can speak to and pull from specific models and/or databases that can protect ourselves and answer the questions when and if a due diligence occurs, when and if there’s a loss of property and/or an injury the appropriate certificates and/or testing, inspection and maintenance requirements and/or the status of our fire life safety systems to protect ourselves moving forward.
- Sarah: Who should be involved in a project like this? PETER HARROD: Internally generally we find that the chief engineer associated with a particular facility ideally with any number of years of experience in servicing and/or contracting the service of the fire life safety systems is a great resource for the building manager or account manager to involve in the process. I would recommend that you’re looking towards an independent fire protection life safety professional who has experience in assessing the appropriateness of existing conditions, has experience in designing and/or determining the appropriateness of existing fire protection and fire alarm and security systems. And that might not be all the same person within an organization. But most certainly we want to make sure that this individual has full knowledge of not only the national codes and standards but has an appreciation of what the local nuances are and retroactive requirements are within the jurisdiction that the facility is located in. And that’s absolutely critical and what goes hand in hand with that is perhaps having relationships with the building and/or fire officials such that we can best represent to the building owner and/or perspective buyer what the municipality might otherwise expect within this facility today and/or moving forward given trends that they’re seeing and/or expectations that they’re having as part of existing and/or perspective renovated buildings within their jurisdiction.
- Sarah: And Peter who should have access to and be aware of the information within the statement of conditions? PETER HARROD: Well it’s important that several different individuals have access to this information -- and that importance varies given the course of the life cycle of the disposition, the occupancy and the acquisition of these facilities. Over the course of the potential acquisition we want to make sure that the key decision makers associated with the negotiations appreciate the findings that are identified within the statement of conditions report. And appropriately utilize this information to drive the cost of the acquisition of the property down and/or include certain requirements for improvement prior to the acquisition. And over the course of the occupancy process we obviously want to make sure that the building manager and the engineer are aware of this report. And where we’ve struggled over time as an organization is we are very involved during the acquisition process and we developed these reports and we hand them over to the acquisition team and it’s used however it’s used as part of the negotiation. But we rarely do our due diligence to keep in touch with the building manager who is now left with a building that has all these deficient systems and/or building elements that might god forbid result in some level of liability should the appropriate corrective actions not be taken. And I think as an industry of fire protection consultants we lose track of who the key decision makers are during that acquisition and disposition process. So we’re not necessarily holding the hand throughout the whole process of identifying deficiencies and implementing corrective actions and ultimately testing and documenting the appropriateness that these corrective actions occurred.
- Sarah: Thanks Peter. Now how often should the statement of conditions be performed? PETER HARROD: Our recommendation to our corporate real estate clients is unless there is something on file relative to the status of the fire life safety systems that it’s a good idea for them to take a step back and take a look at as a baseline what the status of the fire life safety systems are in each of the buildings that they’re managing so that they can best plan for the future. This in our opinion is a great way for the building manager to prioritize and appreciate where they should be spending their capital as they commence fire life safety initiatives. And the reason we want to do that prior to is that given the scope of work associated with that renovation, we want to make sure that the design team is considering not only the envelope of their tenant improvement but also insuring that the fire life safety features associated with the whole building can support this project. And what we see as we serve as co-consultants to design teams is often times they just want to keep their blinders on and look to see what fire and life safety features need to be included within the perspective renovation area. But what we always need to be cognizant of is perhaps is this change of use that we’re doing or is this substantial renovation otherwise going to trigger fire life safety feature upgrades associated with the whole building that might not have otherwise been budgeted. And this really should be a deliverable that the building department is requiring by way of an existing building evaluation before any renovation. That being said there are times when the building department is not asking for this and/or we have clients who have plowed forward with the renovation projects maybe without even pulling a permit and were occupying those spaces with new tenants or reconfigured it for existing tenants. And that might be all well and good for a number of years to come but what happens when in the future we’re left with a potential disposition and we want to look at selling the facility and we realize that certain fire life safety upgrades did not happen. And just because we didn’t need a permit or just because we pulled a permit but the fire life safety officials didn’t tell us we had to do it doesn’t mean it wasn’t required by code and there’s some level of liability associated with not having done our due diligence in that regard. And god forbid there is an incident over the course of the discovery phase investigation is going to occur to determine if the appropriate steps were taken and the corrective actions were taken along the way.
- Sarah: Another key question on the mind of our audience is how should technology and tools be used to support the entire process that we’ve been talking about? PETER HARROD: So one of the challenges that the corporate real estate industry is faced with particularly these larger accounts is they’re left with the responsibility as they manage these facilities to assure their clients that their facilities, fire and life safety equipments are being tested, inspected and maintained in accordance with the applicable codes and standards. And the challenge associated with that is specifically as we span different counties and different states and perhaps even different countries that there might be different levels of requirements. And there might be nuances associated with one jurisdiction as opposed to another. And to speak with confidence that all of the facilities are properly being maintained is a very challenging exercise. And to at a moment’s notice be able to pull the appropriate documentation associated with these systems, whether it’s annual inspection reports or being able to speak specifically to the applicable codes and standards at one facility as opposed to another. Or be able to speak to what the recommended capital expenditures are if given 5 million dollars for 2012 to do fire life safety upgrades over a particular account that they’re managing, where do we start? There’s opportunities to utilize software platforms that will allow over the course of any dozens or hundreds of facilities or dozens or hundreds of jurisdictions that we can specifically pull from each facility from each type of fire life safety system, understand the condition of each of these fire life safety systems, pull specifically the testing inspection maintenance report uploaded from the contractor, understand and with confidence see that the systems are being appropriately tested, inspected and maintained. Furthermore, not only could we document and store these inspection reports but it might allow us to utilize an independent third party to do an audit of these inspection and maintenance reports. Just because the local engineer is contracting with his local service provider to test and inspect his fire alarm system annually doesn’t mean that the testing inspection reports reflects as much. Are there manners and means in which that contractor should be doing more or should be documenting better? -- allow the building engineer to allocate work orders and for the service provider to positively indicate that those work orders have been performed in accordance with section X, Y and Z of the applicable code. if they’re built and populated in appropriate means these tools can be very powerful to assist the corporate real estate industry to answer questions such as are we managing our accounts to the degree that we’re required in our contract to assure that all of the fire and life safety systems are in compliance with the applicable codes and standards? On the surface it seems very black and white but in practice it’s a very challenging endeavor for the account manager and utilizing some of the professionals and service providers in the industry in concert with tools can allow the corporate real estate account manager to positively answer any number of these types of questions to appropriately plan and budget for future improvements given prioritization and due diligence work that has been done in the past. And really tie a bow around the planning, the existing components and the appropriateness of future upgrades.
- The 10 Biggest Mistakes People Make in regards to their Fire and Life Safety Systems…and how to avoid them:Continuing to band-aid an outdated system, rather than replace.Missing the Big Picture: Have all the little one-off improvements and renovations necessitated a change to the entire system? (Slide 13 should probably be moved to this section)Not implementing building and portfolio-wide fire and life safety standardsPassing the Buck to Service Providers. Thinking you can catch up later when the market turns around- Codes Change. Tenant requirements change. New technology is introduced. Don’t fall behind your competition!Not doing an Assessment of Condition of your Fire and Life Safety Systems at each buildingDiving into a fire and life safety overhaul without outlining and prioritizing baseline requirements and goals.Choosing the wrong person/team to spearhead the projectSharing is Caring: Making sure that the all of appropriate building representatives get their hand on the final reportNeglecting to utilize technology in the process