The role of government inspectors varies considerably based on their legal authority, responsibilities, and local practices. The inspectors, who may be referred to as inspectors, enforcement officers, compliance investigators, or by some other title, visit your site to observe whether regulatory requirements are being met.
Although inspectors may provide you with helpful information about regulatory requirements, their primary purpose for being at your site is to observe whether regulatory requirements are being met, and not to provide compliance assistance or consulting services. However, most states have compliance assistance programs to assist the regulated community. Further, keep in mind that federal and state inspectors may not conduct their activities in the same manner.
In addition to performing routine inspections of projects, federal, state or local government agency inspectors may inspect a site in response to a complaint or a report of potential problems at a site. It is possible that your demolition projects will be inspected by more than one government agency on more than one occasion.
Related InformationSee Examples of State and Local Demolition Programs for examples of a pre-demolition inspection program and what permits and notifications various communities require before demolition.
A pre-demolition inspection may be one of the most helpful and cost-efficient steps you can take to identify materials that should (or must) be removed from buildings prior to demolition. In some cases it may be required by regulation.
A pre-demolition inspection can help identify environmental issues that need to be addressed immediately or that can be included in demolition bid specifications. If you identify environmental issues in the demolition bid specification, you may receive more accurate bids from entities that are better qualified to manage the environmental responsibilities associated with demolition. This may help you avoid costly changes to contracts after they have been awarded.
If you will be demolishing multiple buildings, pre-demolition inspections may enable you to determine that the size or scope of certain environmental issues is significant enough to consolidate the environmental work and bid it separately from the demolition work.
provides the owner or operator of the building or demolition project with basic information about
It provides important detailed information about the site that should be used in preparng the request for bids.
By providing prospective bidders with more complete information about a demolition site and the work that you want them to do, you are more likely to get consistent, comparable bids that can be evaluated more easily .
is a chance for prospective bidders to look over the property and determine what they feel they will need to do in order to meet the requirements you spelled out in your solicitation for bids.
It gives prospective bidders an opportunity to give you a more complete bid that more accurately reflects the costs they will incur at the specific site for the work you want done than if they were bidding solely based on documents or photos of a site.
However, the completeness and accuracy of their bids depends, in part, on what your bid solicitation says you want done at the site.
The pre-demolition inspection can put your organization in a much better position to ensure the work you want done will be done right and at the lowest possible cost.
If a pre-demolition inspection is not done and you receive bids based primarily on what each of the prospective bidders think needs to be done, you may have a much harder time comparing the bids and determining which bid represents the best value for the money being spent.
The pre-demolition inspection gives your agency more input into what will happen at the site versus letting the bidders make that determination.
If you give the prospective bidders no clear boundaries because you have no information from a pre-demolition inspection, you may later find that the work they do is not quite what you expected or wanted. Using a pre-demolition inspection to prepare a detailed solicitation for bids reduces misunderstandings and differences of opinion about what you want bidders to bid on.
You should determine whether your in-house staff is qualified to perform such inspections or if an independent third party will perform the inspections.
In some cases, special licenses or credentials are needed. For example, there are regulations that provide for the accreditation of people involved in various types of asbestos work. (Accreditation is also known as licensing or certification in some states)
The requirement to use an accredited worker may not apply to all municipal demolitions or renovations involving all kinds of residential structures. Consult your local or state agency office that accredits workers for more information. However, it is a good practice to use accredited individuals for all types of work involving asbestos-containing materials.
The pre-demolition inspection may be a good time to determine whether you or a contractor will take care of completing government requirements.
You may need to
- submit forms
- obtain permits
- get government approvals
before you can conduct your project.
As some forms call for specific information about the building and demolition project, the pre-demolition inspection may be a good time to gather the necessary information.
Each community, county or state government may have its own requirements. There are deadlines for submitting documents and obtaining approvals, and the process may be lengthy. It's a good idea to determine, as early as possible, what you will need to do. Allow enough time to meet deadlines.
In order to manage liability, control costs, and have control over the work, you should plan to monitor the environmental work that is being done as part of the project. Trained in-house staff or a qualified independent third party should monitor the work. This is not a responsibility of federal, state or local government environmental inspectors.
It may also be helpful to consider reuse and recycling of building materials during the pre-demolition planning process. Effective planning for reuse and recycling may result in reduced disposal costs and diversion of valuable building materials from the landfill.
Some issues to consider: