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Across the Table: The Commercial Field Manual · ← 02 The room · 04 Paperwork and the climb →

All parts: 01 Before you drive · 02 The room · 03 The walk · 04 Paperwork and the climb · 05 The long middle · 06 When it goes sideways · 07 Your own system · Carry cards

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An hour in their building makes you the restoration contractor who knows the place.

A RocketLevel piece for the people who walk commercial buildings, backed by decades of experience in the trade. About a 15-minute read with the twelve stops open.

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On the citations here. Every technical statement on this page was checked against the standard or agency it rests on, and the section numbers are named so you can pull them yourself. The safety rules in 3.0 are company rules built on those standards.

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3.0 Before you go in

Read this once, then follow it on every walk.

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Rule 0. Do the written hazard assessment before the visit. 29 CFR 1910.132(d) requires the employer to assess the workplace for hazards and to certify that assessment in writing. This is the one obligation here that plainly attaches to your own people wherever they work, and it is also what makes the rest of these rules enforceable rather than advisory.

In the same step, get from the facility manager in writing: which spaces you will visit, how the roof is accessed and whether edge protection exists, any asbestos survey the owner holds, and confirmation that you will be escorted.

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• [ ] No bodily entry into any pit, sump, vault, tank or crawl space. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) defines entry at 29 CFR 1910.146(b), and for construction work at 29 CFR 1926.1202, as having occurred as soon as any part of the entrant's body breaks the plane of an opening into the space, so leaning in to photograph counts. That definition is written for permit-required spaces, and whether a given pit is permit-required is not a call you make in somebody else's building, so we hold the same line everywhere as a company rule. OSHA has held since 1995 that elevator pits generally meet the confined space definition, because needing a ladder to get out is a restricted means of exit. The same letter carries the exception, that a deep pit with a standard door entry at its base is not restricted, and it interprets the general industry rule at 1910.146 rather than the construction rule at 1926 Subpart AA. Photograph from outside the plane, or have their qualified staff do it.
• [ ] Do not go on a roof unless edge protection already exists, or the host runs you under their own roof access program. Then stay 15 feet back from every edge, hatch, skylight and mechanical well, and never stand on a skylight or hatch cover. The relaxed option in 1910.28(b)(13) requires the work to be both infrequent and temporary, and OSHA's 2020 interpretation says infrequent excludes what a worker does "as a primary or routine part of their job or repeatedly at various locations." Roof looks are routine for a rep, so we do not claim it. The 15 feet is the standard's own outer boundary, the distance at which 1910.28(b)(13)(iii) stops requiring fall protection for infrequent and temporary work. Between 6 and 15 feet the standard allows a designated area instead, and inside 6 feet it requires conventional fall protection. We hold the 15-foot line as a company rule even though the infrequent-and-temporary exception it belongs to is not available to us. Drone imagery or owner-supplied photos are the normal answer.
• [ ] Never open, unlatch or remove any door, cover or panel on electrical equipment. You cannot tell from outside which cabinet exposes live parts, and you are not a qualified person as 1910.399 defines it. The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) electrical safety standard, NFPA 70E, treats equipment as being in a normal operating condition only while doors are closed and covers are secured. Opening a door or cover is what creates the hazard.
• [ ] Operate nothing. No valve, breaker, switch, damper, lever or control, including anything you believe is already off. If something needs operating to evaluate it, their staff does it and you write down who.
• [ ] Pre-1981, treat pipe lagging, boiler and duct insulation, sprayed fireproofing, textured or acoustic ceilings and asphalt or vinyl flooring as asbestos. The presumption is written down. 29 CFR 1926.1101(b) for construction work and 29 CFR 1910.1001(j)(2) for general industry both presume thermal system insulation and surfacing material, meaning anything sprayed or troweled on, in a building put up no later than 1980 to contain asbestos until testing says otherwise. Read the rest of that paragraph. 1910.1001(j)(2) goes on to say that asphalt and vinyl flooring material installed no later than 1980 also must be treated as asbestos-containing, and 1926.1101(k)(1) says the same. The presumption reaches flooring, and a rep who tells a facility director that pre-1981 floor tile sits outside it is wrong. Sprayed or troweled ceiling texture, textured and acoustic ceilings included, is surfacing material, so it sits inside the presumption too. What does sit outside it is mastic and joint compound, which went in well past 1980 and carry their own risk, so handle those the same way in the field without calling them the presumption. Keep the two dates straight while you are at it: 1980 is asbestos, 1978 is lead, and reps mix them up. Do not touch, scrape, lift, probe or sample any of it. Sampling is licensed work and the license sits in state law, so look up yours. Photograph from a distance and ask for the survey.
  • Lead sits in the same buildings. Painted surfaces in older buildings may contain lead, and OSHA's lead in construction standard, 29 CFR 1926.62, governs any activity that disturbs it. Sanding, scraping and chipping are not site-walk activities.
• [ ] Escort at all times, and the walk ends when their permission ends.
• [ ] Do not enter a structure that has not been cleared. After a fire, flood, impact or any partial collapse, you go in only after the authority having jurisdiction or the owner's qualified professional has released it, and only where they say. "The property manager said it was fine" is not a clearance.

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There is a sales move buried in the asbestos rule. 29 CFR 1926.1101(k)(2)(ii) puts a duty on the building owner to notify prospective employers applying or bidding for work about asbestos in areas where their employees can reasonably be expected to work. As a bidder you are entitled to the information, so ask for the survey. It protects your crew, it puts what the owner knows on the record, and it lands better in the room than a warning label.

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3.1 What the walk is really for

Three things happen on a walk that cannot happen in a conference room. You learn the building, which is the exact competence commercial decision makers say restoration contractors lack. They watch you work, which beats any case study. And the plan becomes partly theirs, because their engineer showed you the shutoffs and their security lead told you which door actually opens at night.

This is not an inspection. Follow the water, and be the first contractor who ever asked them where it would go.