From the first walk-round to the last test certificate

We walk the building with your chief engineer: plant rooms, risers, the roof, the fire alarm panel and a sample of rooms on each floor type. We read the maintenance logs, 12 months of electricity bills and the last Civil Defense inspection records before we form a view.

In older hotels we expect drawings to be missing. We trace and draw the plant rooms, risers and a typical floor before we price anything, and we test-close the isolation valves we plan to rely on. Where a valve won't hold, the method uses a pipe freeze or line-stop, or the valve is replaced in a planned drain-down agreed with you, never discovered on the day. In buildings from before 2000, suspect materials such as old pipe lagging, ceiling boards and floor adhesives are sampled and tested before anything is opened.

On most jobs we build to your consultant's design and produce the shop drawings; where design is in our scope, the contract says so and the design is stamped by a licensed engineering office. Shop drawings and submittals are checked against the relevant parts of the Saudi Building Code before procurement, and the trades are coordinated in the ceiling void, so a sprinkler branch and a duct never meet for the first time on site.

Approvals come before anything is ordered. Where the works change fire systems or escape routes, the fire and life safety (FLS) drawings are prepared and stamped by a licensed engineering office and approved by Civil Defense before installation starts. On a brand job, the MEP and FLS drawings and key equipment submittals go to the brand's technical services for review, and their comments are closed first.

The price is fixed against the signed scope; anything outside it goes through a written variation. What can be measured only once ceilings are open is a provisional quantity at a tendered rate and remeasured on site, such as branch valve replacement (CT-03 line PQ-01) or fire-stopping (PQ-02). What cannot yet be defined is a named provisional sum, such as sprinkler alterations (PS-01), spent only on your instruction, with any unspent balance returned to you in the final account.

The scope becomes a programme built around your occupancy forecast and events calendar. We decide with you which rooms come off sale and when, where the hoarding goes, how contractors move through the building, and when any shutdown can happen. Floors come out either as a full-floor release, when the work reaches the riser branches, ceilings or bathrooms below, or as part-floor zones behind a sealed hoarding, like the level 9 example below, when the work stays inside the rooms; your phasing plan states which applies to each floor.

Before work starts, each floor also has its method statement and isolation plan, and an inspection and test plan with the hold points where your engineer can stop us.

The level 9 plan The phasing chart

Crews we prequalify install under our engineers' daily supervision. Every working day starts with permits and a short coordination meeting with the hotel. Every electrical isolation is locked with a multi-lock hasp: our authorised person fits the isolation lock, every worker in the zone adds a personal lock, and the hotel's duty engineer adds the hotel's lock, so nothing can be re-energised without all three. Circuits are proved dead at the point of work with a voltage tester checked on a known live source before and after (live-dead-live).

On a refurbishment, one room is finished first as the mock-up and signed off before the floors are built to it. Any change to scope or cost is agreed in writing before the work is done, valued at the rate in the bill, at a rate built from those rates, or by a quotation agreed before the work starts. The baseline programme is updated in each weekly report, and each month the owner or asset manager also receives a cost report: contract sum, approved and pending variations with their SAR value, provisional sums against allowance, contingency drawn and remaining, forecast final cost and a three-month cash-flow forecast, in PDF and Excel.

Pressure tests on pipework, insulation resistance on cables, fire alarm cause-and-effect, air and water balancing on HVAC. Your engineer watches the tests. Where Civil Defense needs to witness, we book it and prepare for it.

Results are recorded on signed test sheets against the inspection and test plan agreed before work started, zone by zone, so each floor can go back as soon as its own records are complete.

Two separate sign-offs. Contractually, each zone is handed over to your owner's representative, who issues a taking-over certificate on our project manager's application, so our own work is always signed off by someone else. Operationally, a room goes back on sale only after the snags are closed, a builders' clean and a housekeeping deep clean are done, and the room has passed its return-to-sale checks:

• Every outlet on the floor is flushed, and hot water reaches 50 °C within a minute at each tap.
• Water samples are clear wherever the hotel's water management plan requires sampling.
• The fan coil runs for 24 hours with a new filter, to purge dust and odour.
• The smoke detector, door lock, safe, TV and phone are tested against the property management system (PMS), and each check is logged on the room's return-to-sale sheet.

Your chief engineer and executive housekeeper then inspect the room together, and front office changes it from out of order to vacant inspected. While a floor is closed, its outlets are flushed weekly and logged, and new or disturbed pipework is disinfected before use, with the disinfection certificate filed in CT-11.

Your engineering team gets the drawings, manuals, spares and a walk-through of every new piece of equipment.

Each zone's defects period starts from its own taking-over certificate, so floors finished early aren't left waiting. During that period we come back to put right any defect in our work. Manufacturer warranties are separate from the defects period: they often start at delivery or start-up, so the warranty register (CT-18) records both start dates for each item and shows any gap, which we ask suppliers to close by aligning their start dates. The defects period, retention and payment terms are set out in each proposal.

After that, if you want us to, a monthly maintenance agreement keeps the same engineers on the systems they installed.

Technical maintenance