A report from years ago, and nothing since
You maintain the air conditioning in a mid-size office building. During a service visit the facilities manager mentions that a new tenant's surveyor has asked for the latest air conditioning energy inspection report. The only one anybody can find is a TM44 report carried out years ago by a different firm. Nobody tracked when the next one was due. Now it is a rush, a conversation about who should have noticed, and a job squeezed into an already busy month.
An obligation that belongs to nobody
Periodic energy inspections for larger air conditioning systems are the building owner's or manager's responsibility, not the maintenance contractor's. In practice, the owner relies on the contractor to mention it, and the contractor assumes the owner has it in hand. The dates are long intervals apart, which makes them easy to forget, and the reports are PDFs that sit in folders.
- Inspection dates are not in your job management system.
- Past reports were done by other firms and never shared.
- Nobody records which buildings are likely to need inspections.
- Reminders depend on an engineer happening to mention it.
- Inspections need an accredited assessor, which takes arranging.
Whether a building needs an inspection, and when, is for the owner and an accredited assessor to determine. Your role is to make sure it is raised in time.
What the gap costs
For your clients, a late inspection can cause problems with tenants, sales and their own compliance obligations. For you, it is a missed chance to add value and earn work, and a risk to the relationship when a client feels you should have warned them. Rushed inspections are harder to schedule, and the recommendations in the report arrive too late to be planned into the budget.
There is also an opportunity cost. Inspection reports often recommend improvements, which you are well placed to quote for if you are the one who organised the inspection.
The inspection register we build
- For each building you maintain, we record whether the client has told you an inspection applies, the date of the last report and the next due date, starting from your records and any reports clients share.
- Buildings where the answer is unknown are flagged so your account managers can ask the client, using a short standard question.
- Reminders go to the client contact ahead of the due date, in your branding, explaining what the inspection is and offering to arrange it, with a quote attached if you want.
- When the client accepts, a job is created and the assessor (in-house or a partner) is booked, with site access and the asset register provided.
- The report is stored against the building, the next due date is set, and recommendations are listed for your team to follow up with proposals.
- A summary shows inspections due in the coming year across your client base.
| Step | Current habit | With the register |
|---|---|---|
| Knowing a building needs one | Assumed or unknown | Recorded, or flagged to ask |
| Knowing when it is due | Nobody tracks it | Next due date per building |
| Reminding the client | If someone remembers | Scheduled reminder with quote |
| Booking the assessor | Rushed | Job created on acceptance |
| Following recommendations | Report filed | Recommendations listed for proposals |
Inspections that arrive as a service, not a scramble
Clients hear from you well ahead, with a clear offer. Inspections are booked in quieter months rather than rushed. Reports are stored where your engineers can see them. Recommendations turn into planned work that clients can budget for. And your account managers have a useful reason to talk to clients that is not a price increase.
Checklist
- You do not know when your clients' next energy inspections are due.
- Clients have asked for inspection reports you did not have.
- Inspections have been arranged in a rush.
- Recommendations from inspection reports are not followed up.
- No one owns asking clients about inspections.