When should a building owner request an engineering audit?
Audits are especially valuable when the facility has incomplete records, repeated failures, unexplained utility costs, planned expansion, aging equipment or a change of ownership. They are also useful before a major retrofit because the existing systems may not have enough spare capacity for the new loads.
Before acquisition
Understand hidden technical liabilities before the commercial decision is final.
Before expansion
Check whether power, cooling, water, fire-safety and infrastructure capacities can support the new demand.
After recurring failures
Move from repeated repairs to root-cause analysis and prioritized corrective work.
For energy improvement
Identify where energy is being consumed and which interventions deserve deeper study.
What should an engineering audit cover?
The scope should match the owner's decision. A high-level condition survey is different from a detailed electrical study or an energy audit. JLC's published engineering-audit scope includes FDAS, electrical power and systems, mechanical, structural and energy.
- Available drawings, permits, previous reports and maintenance records
- Visible equipment condition and installation quality
- Known failures, nuisance alarms and recurring trouble calls
- Capacity and loading concerns
- Obsolescence and spare-parts risk
- Safety and access issues
- Metering and energy information
- Gaps between actual installation and available as-built documents
What is an energy audit?
RA 11285 defines an energy audit as an evaluation of energy consumption and current energy cost to identify appropriate interventions and efficiency projects. For owners, this means an energy audit should connect measured or documented consumption with actionable improvements, not just produce a list of generic energy-saving tips.
What should the final audit report look like?
A useful report is prioritized. Every finding should explain the observed condition, why it matters, what evidence supports it, the recommended next step and the urgency. Owners should be able to separate immediate action from budget planning.
| Priority | Typical meaning | Owner action |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | Safety, major operational or severe reliability exposure | Act or investigate urgently |
| High | Material risk with likely operational impact | Plan corrective work promptly |
| Medium | Degradation, documentation gap or efficiency opportunity | Budget and schedule |
| Low | Improvement or good-practice item | Include in lifecycle plan |
Engineering due diligence for property acquisition
When acquiring an existing property, ask for more than the architectural floor area. Review utility capacities, generator and backup systems, major mechanical equipment age, fire-safety system condition, previous incidents, maintenance history, pending repairs and whether the physical installation matches the available drawings. Deferred maintenance can materially change the true cost of ownership.
What happens after the audit?
The audit should lead to a decision path: immediate repairs, further detailed studies, replacement design, phased upgrades, value engineering, maintenance changes or energy projects. JLC can connect engineering audit with engineering design, value engineering, implementation and maintenance depending on the requirement.