In this case there had been complaints of odours from the toilet facilities in the building for over 2 years. Callouts had occurred, on-site engineers had also attended on a regular basis but the solution had not been found.
On a site inspection for an LED upgrade and ceiling replacements, I undertook an investigation while on site. An engineer at least 3 – 4 years ago had dismantled the extract system in a roof space. Couldn’t get it back together so left it and didn’t report it.
- From a compliance point of view the toilet extract system wasn’t working at all, ventilation was only via the corridor airflow as people entered the toilets.
- Relationship perspective it damaged the company reputation as they couldn’t stop the odours in a front of house location for years.
- Maintenance perspective it was evident they were not inspecting and testing the ventilation system, yet signed off its PPM’s regularly.
- Financial perspective it is also counterproductive. The costs involved in calling engineers that obviously weren’t trained and unable to locate the issue along with contractors who were unfamiliar with the site was unnecessary. £200 a time for at least 3 years of call-outs.
For me the solutions are simple but often overlooked, firstly investigating why the unit was dismantled originally, but also why the BMS didn’t detect this was still not working afterwards. Schematics being readily available for maintenance staff both internally and externally. Along with locations of important hidden assets, in this case the access point was in a ceiling of an IT data room.
Now we have the unit however, we also had to accelate its budget availability while we had the suspended ceiling down to get the new fan system installed as soon as possible.
There is always a solution to a problem, when people tell me that “it’s always been like that” the question I ask is how long have you worked here that can often give a timetable. If its someone over 10 years then it is probably from build, if it is someone in the last 5 years very likely something has been changed, damaged or failed.
But as a 3rd party I seek the issue and give it a solution, the who caused it, why it’s dismanted, why it wasn’t picked up sooner, why did people record PPM’s saying it’s working fine are internal. I am not there for that, but we do hope lessons learned occur and new measures are put in place.
