The Business Shutdown Notice SOP

Purpose

When a shop shuts off power, water, gas or air to a business, everyone downstream finds out one of two ways: from a notice they read days earlier, or from the moment it goes off. This procedure makes sure every business the shutdown reaches gets a written notice naming the system, the window, what will stop working, who to call, and how the shop will prove it is back, and that each one confirms it before the shutdown starts. Without it, the shop learns about the server room, the vaccine refrigerator or the client in the chair at the same moment the business does. Picking the window itself is owned elsewhere (see related: How to Schedule a Shutdown Around a Business Day), and so is the question of what each kind of business can tolerate being without (see related: What a Business Cannot Shut Down and For How Long).

Scope

Covers any planned shutdown of a system that serves a business other than the person who hired the shop, or more than one business: a shared electrical service, a domestic water main in a strip of shops, a building gas meter, a rooftop unit serving two suites, a fire sprinkler riser feeding a building. Also covers a single business where the person who approved the work is not the person running the floor that day.

Does not cover emergency shutdowns, where the hazard comes first and notice follows by phone, or the authorization to do the work at all (see related: Who Can Actually Authorize Work in a Business). Fire protection impairments carry their own notification duties to the building's authority and insurer and are handled by the fire protection contractor's impairment procedure, not this one.

Roles and responsibilities

The handoff that fails most often is office to lead tech. The office tracks confirmations, but the lead tech is the one standing at the panel, so the lead tech gets the confirmation list in hand the day before and does not start without it.

The notice

PLANNED SHUTDOWN NOTICE          Notice no. ____
To          ______________ (business, contact)
Building    ______________  Suite ____
System      ______________ (what is shut off)
Window      ____ day ____ from ____ to ____
            latest restore ____
What stops  ______________
            ______________
What keeps  ______________
working
Before it   ______________ (what you should do)
Contact     lead tech ________  phone ______
            office    ________  phone ______
Restore     how we prove it is back: ______
check       we will call you at restore
Confirm     reply by ____ day ____ time ____
            name ________ role ________

The "what stops" lines are written in the business's terms, not the trade's. "Panel 2B de-energized" means nothing to an office manager; "lights, outlets and the network closet in suites 101 and 102" does.

Procedure

1. Map what the system actually serves before writing anything. The lead tech traces the system to every business on it, using panel schedules, valve locations, meter tags and a walk of the building, and confirms with the property manager. Acceptance: a written list of every suite and space served, each with how it was confirmed (traced, tested, or taken from a label). Wrong looks like a list built only from a panel directory, which is often years out of date; the stop rule is any circuit or branch the tech cannot trace gets treated as serving every business it could serve. Hazard: tracing a circuit by switching it off is itself a shutdown, so tracing on a live system is done with a tracer or by reading, never by trial breaker flips during business hours.

2. Write one notice per business and send it at least 7 days ahead. The office fills the notice for each business on the list, sends it by email or text to the named contact, and posts a paper copy inside the suite or at the shared entrance where the landlord allows. Seven days is a common starting point for planned work; a restaurant, clinic or anything with refrigerated stock gets more if the window touches their week. Acceptance: a notice sent to every business on the step 1 list, with the send time on the job. Wrong looks like a business on the list with no contact; the stop rule is the property manager supplies one or delivers the notice, and the shutdown date holds only once every business has been reached.

3. Get a written confirmation from each business by 48 hours before the window. The confirmation names the person, their role, and anything they need done first: a server shut down by their IT, refrigerated product moved, a patient day rescheduled. Acceptance: a reply from every business on the list by the deadline, recorded with the name and any requests. Wrong looks like silence from one business at 48 hours; the stop rule is the office phones that contact, then the property manager, and if no one at that business confirms by 24 hours before, the office tells the lead tech the shutdown is a no-go and reschedules. A delivered email is not a confirmation.

4. Hand the confirmation list and requests to the lead tech at 24 hours. The office sends the lead tech the list with every request, and the lead tech confirms each request is either done or assigned. Acceptance: every line shows confirmed and every request has an owner. Wrong looks like a request nobody owns, such as "please tell our alarm company"; the stop rule is it goes back to the business in writing as theirs, with a reply, before the window opens.

5. Call each contact at the start and get a go. On the day, before isolating anything, the lead tech calls or visits each business and confirms they are ready. Acceptance: a go from every contact, logged with the time. Wrong looks like "we have a client in the chair" or "our server is still up"; the stop rule is wait or reschedule, never shut down over an objection. Hazard: for electrical shutdowns, the electrician (licensed where your state or locality requires it) isolates under the shop's lockout procedure, which for electrical work in general industry is 29 CFR 1910.333(b)(2) and for construction work 29 CFR 1926.417, and verifies the circuits dead before work begins.

6. Keep to the window and call before it is missed, not after. If the work will run past the latest restore time on the notice, the lead tech calls every contact at least 30 minutes before that time with a new estimate. Acceptance: no business reaches the stated restore time without either service back or a call. Wrong looks like a tech heads-down on a repair at the deadline; the stop rule is the office calls on the lead tech's behalf at 30 minutes out if the lead tech has not.

7. Restore, prove it, and tell each business. Before restoring, the lead tech confirms covers and connections are made up, every lock is removed by the person who placed it, no one is working on the system, and each business has been told it is coming back. Then the system is restored and the notice's restore check performed: voltage at the panel and power at a named outlet in each suite, flow and pressure at a fixture in each suite, or gas leak-tested with every appliance relit by someone qualified for it. Acceptance: the restore check passed in every suite, with each business confirming their own equipment is back. Wrong looks like a suite whose equipment does not restart; the stop rule is the lead tech stays until the cause is found or the business accepts a plan in writing. Hazard: restoring gas to a building means every pilot and appliance downstream was extinguished, so the restore check includes a leak test and relighting each appliance, never just reopening the valve.

8. Close the notice in writing. The office sends each business a closing message within 2 hours of restore: what was done, the restore time, anything still open, and who to call. Acceptance: a closing message sent to every business on the list. Wrong looks like the notice left open because "it went fine"; close it anyway.

The record this produces

The job carries the system map with how each space was confirmed, each notice with send time, each confirmation with name and requests, the start go for each business, any overrun call, the restore check result per suite, and each closing message. The office reads it while chasing confirmations; the lead tech reads the 24-hour list; the property manager and the shop owner read it if a business complains after the fact.

A worked pass

A shop is replacing a failed main breaker in a two-suite building: a veterinary clinic in suite 101 and an insurance office in suite 102. The window is a Saturday, 06:00 to 09:00, latest restore 10:00; the tracker counts days back from that Saturday (D-8 is eight days before).

SHUTDOWN NOTICE TRACKER  Bldg main  Job 7310
Map: main serves 101, 102, house lights
     traced and confirmed w/ property mgr
D-8 09:10  notice sent 101 vet clinic
D-8 09:12  notice sent 102 insurance office
D-4 14:20  101 confirmed: practice mgr
           request: inpatients moved D-1 pm,
           vaccine fridge, clinic monitors
D-2 06:00  48h deadline  102 NO REPLY  FAIL
D-2 08:30  office calls 102 contact: no
           longer with company
D-2 09:05  property mgr gives new contact
D-2 10:40  102 confirmed: office mgr
           request: IT shuts server D-1
           18:00, UPS holds about 15 min
D-1 06:00  list to lead tech, all owned
D0  05:50  go from 101 and 102
D0  06:02  isolated, LOTO, proved dead
D0  08:35  restored, 120/240 at panel
           outlet ok 101, outlet ok 102
           101 fridge cooling, 102 IT ok
D0  10:15  closing message to both

Step 3 failed for suite 102. The notice had gone to a contact who had left the company, and the delivered email looked like success. At 48 hours the stop rule sent the office to the phone and then to the property manager, and the new office manager confirmed with about 43 hours left before the window. That confirmation surfaced the one request that mattered: their server's backup power would have carried it for about 15 minutes of a 3-hour window, and an uncontrolled shutdown at minute 15 was exactly what their IT person wanted to avoid. The vet clinic moved its hospitalized patients the evening before, which it only did because "what stops" named the exam room outlets and the monitors in plain words.

References

• 29 CFR 1910.333(b)(2) and 29 CFR 1926.417, for electrical lockout in steps 5 and 7
• See related: How to Schedule a Shutdown Around a Business Day
• See related: What a Business Cannot Shut Down and For How Long
• See related: Who Can Actually Authorize Work in a Business