The Multifamily Building Job Intake SOP

Purpose

Before a crew is dispatched into a condominium, co-op or apartment building, this procedure guarantees the shop knows who can authorize the work, the building has accepted its insurance, every shared shutoff the job needs is located, every unit that shutoff serves has been told in time, and the crew can reach the work. Without it, the costliest failure in multifamily work happens routinely: a riser goes off for one unit's repair and water stops in a dozen others whose occupants were never warned, one of whom left a faucet open over a stoppered sink.

Scope

Covers intake and scheduling of planned work in any building where households share structure or systems, from the first call to the crew handoff the day before.

It does not cover operating, draining and restoring a shared riser on site (see Shared Risers, Shutoffs and the Neighbor You Flood), work near fire alarm devices (The Fire Alarm Impairment Notification SOP, triggered at step 7), or emergencies in progress, where the building's emergency path through the engineer and management replaces the notice timelines below. Who owns each component is in Condo and Multifamily Work: Whose Property Is It?

Roles and responsibilities

The procedure

1. Classify the building and the caller. Record the building type (condominium, co-op, rental apartment, townhome association) and the caller's role (unit owner, tenant, manager, board member). Acceptance: both fields filled, and the caller's role matches what they are asking for: an owner or manager may request work, a tenant may report a problem but may not authorize anything beyond diagnosis in their unit without the owner. What wrong looks like: a tenant asking you to replace a shared water heater, or a board member authorizing a riser repair by phone. Stop rule: book diagnosis only, and do not quote or schedule repair work until step 2 produces the right authorizer. Hazard: none at this step; it is a decision made at the desk.

2. Get management's contact and the authorization scope in writing. Record the management company, a named contact, a daytime and an after-hours number and an email. For any work touching a common or limited common element, or requiring a shared shutoff, get a work order number or a written approval from management. Acceptance: a written approval in the job record naming the work, or a recorded note that the work is entirely inside the unit and needs no building approval, with the reason. What wrong looks like: "the super said go ahead" with no paper. Stop rule: no shared shutoff and no common-element work is scheduled without the written approval; the job stays at diagnosis. Hazard: none at this step; desk work.

3. Get the building's rules and an accepted insurance certificate. Request the contractor packet and order the certificate of insurance worded exactly as the packet requires, then check it on arrival and send it in. Acceptance: management's written acceptance of the certificate, dated, saved to the job, at least as far ahead of the work as the packet requires (two business days if the packet says nothing). What wrong looks like: a certificate naming the management company but not the association, or a policy that expires before the job date. Stop rule: if acceptance is not on file by the packet's deadline, the job moves, and the customer is told why the same day. Hazard: none at this step; desk work. See Getting Building Access in a Condo or High-Rise for the certificate details.

4. Locate every shared shutoff and list exactly what each one serves. Ask the engineer which valves the job requires, where each is, who operates it, when it was last operated, and, for each one, the full list of units and common areas it serves, written out by unit number and room. Acceptance: for each valve, a location, an operator, a last-operated date or "unknown", and a served list written unit by unit, not as "the C stack". What wrong looks like: a served list given as a stack or floor range, or an engineer unsure from memory. Stop rule: no shutoff goes on the schedule until the served list is confirmed by the engineer in writing; an "unknown" last-operated date flags the valve for a test closure before the shutoff day, because an old valve that will not close, or will not reopen, turns a three-hour job into a building outage. Hazard: a tech sent to look at a valve in a mechanical room is around hot piping, running pumps and electrical equipment; look, do not operate building valves, keep hands off rotating equipment, and leave operating to the engineer.

5. Get notice to every unit and area on the step 4 list. Give management the list from step 4 and the time window, and ask them to send notice through their usual channel. The notice states the date and window, asks occupants to keep every faucet closed while the water is off, says to expect air and discolored water on restore, and asks anyone with a medical need for water during that window (home dialysis is the classic case) to call management at once. Acceptance: management confirms in writing that notice went out, with the list it went to attached, and the gap between that confirmation and the shutoff is at least the building's notice period, or 48 hours where the building has none. What wrong looks like: the list management sent to differs from the step 4 list, or the gap is short. Stop rule: if any unit or area on the step 4 list has not received notice within the period, the shutoff moves to the first window that gives every one of them the full period. Management alone can call it an emergency and waive that, and the job record notes who did. Hazard: an occupant who never got notice may leave a faucet open, which floods when water returns, or may depend on water for medical care; both are why a short or partial notice is a stop and not a judgment call.

6. Plan access to everything the crew must reach. Service elevator block, dock and parking, keys, and entry to any other unit the work needs: a valve inside a neighbor's unit, the unit below for checking leaks, an access panel in a hallway ceiling. Acceptance: an elevator confirmation, a parking plan, and for each other unit, an occupant notified by management and either present or a key and management escort arranged. What wrong looks like: the valve sits in a unit whose occupant is away and has not authorized entry. Stop rule: the job does not start until every space on the access list is confirmed; never accept a key from a neighbor or a doorman without management's authorization. Hazard: entering an occupied unit carries the risk of an unexpected occupant or a loose dog; enter with management or with the occupant present, announce yourself at the door, and back out if a dog is loose.

7. Flag fire and life-safety contact. Ask three questions and record each answer: will the work make dust, heat, smoke or steam in a space with smoke or heat detectors; will it touch sprinkler or standpipe piping or heads; does any shutoff from step 4 serve fire protection? Acceptance: three recorded answers; any yes carries the building's impairment plan in the record. What wrong looks like: "probably not" as an answer. Stop rule: any yes without a plan from the building means the job is not scheduled; run The Fire Alarm Impairment Notification SOP for alarm devices, and leave sprinkler impairment to the building, which owns it. Hazard: an unplanned alarm in a high-rise starts an evacuation, sends elevators to recall and brings the fire department; occupants with limited mobility are the ones at risk.

8. Reconfirm the day before and hand the record to the lead tech. Call the engineer to reconfirm attendance and the valve list, confirm with management that notice is posted, and send the lead tech the complete job record. The lead tech reads back the served list and the access plan. Acceptance: engineer confirmed, notice confirmed, read-back matches the record. What wrong looks like: the engineer's valve list or served list has changed since step 4. Stop rule: any change sends the job back through steps 4 and 5 for the changed part, including the notice period for any newly added unit. Hazard: none at this step; desk and phone work.

The record this produces

The job record carries: building type and caller role; management contact and approval number; the dated certificate acceptance; a valve table with location, operator, last-operated date and served list; management's notice confirmation with its attached list and the hours between notice and shutoff; the access plan; the three fire and life-safety answers; and the reconfirmation time and read-back. The lead tech reads it before arriving, management reads it if an occupant complains, and anyone reconstructing a flood months later can see who was told, when, and from what list.

Worked pass: a shower valve in 6B

A unit owner in 6B of a nine-story condominium reports that the shower valve leaks into the wall when the shower runs. The units have no individual shutoffs, so replacing the valve means shutting the hot and cold risers that serve the bathroom.

• Step 1. Condominium; caller is the owner. Pass.
• Step 2. Management contact recorded. The risers are common elements, so the office gets a work order from management Monday morning. Pass.
• Step 3. Certificate already accepted for this building in the last three months, still in force on the job date. Pass.
• Step 4. The engineer names the basement hot and cold valves for the B risers, last operated four months ago, serving units 2B through 9B, eight units, written out by number. Pass on the record as given.
• Step 5. Management sends notice to the eight B units Monday at 2 p.m. for a shutoff Wednesday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.; from Monday 2 p.m. to Wednesday 10 a.m. is 44 hours, short of the building's 48 hour rule, so the window moves to Wednesday 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., exactly 48 hours. Pass after correction.
• Step 6. Elevator not needed for hand tools; 5B's occupant agrees to let the tech check their ceiling during the restore. Pass.
• Step 7. No detectors in the bathroom, no sprinkler contact, risers are domestic water only. Three answers recorded. Pass.
• Step 8. Fails. At Tuesday's reconfirmation, the engineer has checked the drawings again: the A-line kitchens share the wall with the B-line bathrooms and are fed from the same risers. The served list is units 2A to 9A as well as 2B to 9B, sixteen units, eight never notified. It is Tuesday 3 p.m.; Wednesday 2 p.m. is 23 hours away. The stop rule sends the job back through steps 4 and 5. Management notifies 2A to 9A at 4 p.m. Tuesday; 48 hours later is Thursday 4 p.m., leaving one hour before the building's 5 p.m. cutoff for a three-hour job, so the shutoff moves to Friday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Management declines to treat it as an emergency because the leak only runs while the shower is on, so the owner agrees not to use the shower until Friday, and that agreement is noted in the record.

Step 4's acceptance asked for a served list confirmed in writing, and it was, but it was wrong. The record now carries both lists and when the second was confirmed, which is exactly what the step 8 stop rule exists to catch.

References

• The building's declaration, rules and contractor packet
• See related: Condo and Multifamily Work: Whose Property Is It?
• See related: Getting Building Access in a Condo or High-Rise
• See related: Shared Risers, Shutoffs and the Neighbor You Flood
• See related: The Fire Alarm Impairment Notification SOP