The Technical Building Inspection (TBI – ITE) comes from the obligation of the owners and users of buildings to preserve and maintain the housing assets the live in.
Any building needs proper maintenance and conservation during its lifetime. At a elapsed time it may be restored or rehabilitated, prolonging its life and adapting to innovations that may have arisen since its construction took place. Sometimes its use can be changed, too.
That’s the reason why many City Councils are asking for a TBI for the old buildings.
In a TBI, the following aspects of a building need to be analyzed:
- Structural elements:
- foundations: concrete footing, piles, etc
- roof structure
- Columns, beams, floors…
- Stairs
- Building envelope and its components:
- Facade: composition, external rendering…
- Other elements in the facade: windows, balconies, drainpipes, exterior wiring…
- Roof: tipology, roofing elements…
- Installations:
- Water supply: plumbing, boosting pressure equipment, water meters…
- Water disposal: gutters, downpipes, manholes…
- Wiring: drop wire, circuit breaker panel, electric meters…
- Elevators, escalators
- Gas/fuel supply installation: pipes, fuel tanks…
The inspector will perform a sensory evaluation of the issues described above, using his senses and knowledge of the construction processes carried in many different periods of construction. With these methods of information, the inspector should be able to recognize and deduce the general condition of the building. He should determine the affections that may be enduring as a consequence of decay over time, or even those derived from misuse or the lack of maintenance.
The result of the Technical Inspection must be set out in a document called “Inspection Report”, in which there will be outlined the information obtained from the inspection process.
If serious problems were detected during the inspection which require a greater range of research, the Inspector should recommend to the property the need to perform more complex tests and assays, which should be performed by specialist companies (eg, laboratory or geotechnical tests ).
At Neoglobal we have qualified technicians to perform this inspection. Ask us.
