Problems of Building Installations in Design and Execution

Building services: the deep gap between design and construction in Iran.

The fact that Memar magazine has provided an opportunity to, in addition to introducing examples of praiseworthy works, also attend to some of the issues and shortcomings of the construction industry, arises from a clear reality—a reality that between designs and their actual execution in the country, a deep gap exists.

In a meeting recently held at the Memar office, the necessity of addressing this topic was raised: that in the country’s building construction, execution has fallen far behind design. In the continuation of the discussion, opinions were mainly directed toward the subject from the perspective of building services, including mechanical and electrical installations, fire and smoke protection, compliance with codes and standards, energy conservation, and intelligent systems—all of which are interconnected and cannot be separated.

Government Buildings

In a cursory glance at the construction activities in Tehran and some provincial capitals, it is clearly visible that one group of buildings is large with extensive infrastructure. These buildings are essentially government ones or their funding is somehow provided from the government budget. Although these buildings constitute a small fraction—perhaps less than one percent of the total built area—they command the primary attention of professional publications.

The design of various installations in these buildings is usually carried out in a consulting engineering firm whose engineers are familiar with the latest catalogs and technical documentation of the world’s advanced countries. The design engineer strives to bring the design as close as possible to the latest achievements of industrially advanced countries found in these documents. The result is a set of two-dimensional drawings and a bill of quantities, with the following problems:

With all this, the designer is relatively free and works with paper, pencil, and computer. But the contractor executing the work faces endless limitations and problems. The contractor has nothing other than the drawings and the bill of quantities to convey the designer’s thinking. One experienced architect said about a hospital he had designed: “We design one thing, something else gets built, and what actually gets used is something else entirely.”

Consequently, what gets executed differs not only from current construction practice in industrially advanced countries but also has a significant gap from what was predicted in the design and what is practically feasible for execution in the country.

To approach the reality of construction in this group of buildings, reference to some major problems is not without benefit:

First, in the course of construction of these projects, the government client usually purchases the main equipment and provides it to the contractor for installation. This practice became common mostly during the war years and was perhaps unavoidable at the time, since due to rapid price changes in the domestic market, including these items in the contractor’s obligations was not feasible, and ordering and purchasing some main equipment from foreign markets required capabilities beyond the contractor’s reach. This practice continued and persists to this day. The biggest flaw of this method is that it confuses responsibilities.

Mechanical building installations, especially in large buildings, are a collection of interconnected systems that must perform specific functions during operation and, to this end, must necessarily have a single responsible party. The contractor does not know these systems, since the main items were not procured by them, and the fee received for installation is insufficient to accept responsibility for the overall system’s performance. Worse still, the client’s purchasing agents are usually various scattered employees who may no longer be present when the systems are commissioned.

Continued analysis of contractor weakness, market chaos, and non-government building problems.

Second, another factor that has caused great damage to the quality of execution, especially in building services, is the obvious weakness of contractors that has occurred in the past two decades. This weakness extends beyond the scientific and technical domain. The absence of capable and decisive contractors essentially stems from the fact that these contractors are not present in decision-making centers. The major time and energy of the contractor is spent trying to navigate the various bureaucratic barriers of decision-making centers. A capable and reliable contractor needs a technical office, experienced and knowledgeable human resources, a stockpile of materials and equipment, machinery and sufficient tools, and financial power. Due to the prevailing economic and social conditions of the country, the contractor fears procuring experienced expert staff and relies mostly on temporary, short-term, and cheap workers for fulfilling obligations.

Third, another factor that greatly affects the decline of execution quality, especially in building services, is market chaos. Building services require thousands of items of components, accessories, and equipment that must be installed in an interconnected system and perform specific functions during operation. Previously, most of these items were imported from other countries. In industrially advanced countries, every manufacturer’s product must have a test certificate from a reputable national center. The buyer, upon seeing the test certificate, is assured that the equipment meets the requirements and will serve the design’s needs.

Now, a large number of these items are domestically produced. The manufacture of hundreds and thousands of types of installation system components—even hospital equipment—domestically is in itself encouraging and a hopeful step forward. But these products are rarely tested and certified for compliance with standards. Despite the noisy and deceptive advertisements of “ISO9000” by many manufacturers, usually the contractor’s (or client’s) purchasing agent has no scientific or technical knowledge about what they are buying, and the seller has no accurate technical information about what they are offering.

Non-Government Buildings

The absolute majority of non-government buildings consists of construction commonly known as “build-and-sell.” The design and execution process of these buildings is under the control of none of the reputable consulting engineers, supervision bodies, or other engineering organizations. For the construction of these buildings, only penetration into the hot buy-and-sell market is the motivation. No engineering principles are observed, and those involved in the design and execution of these buildings often have little knowledge of these principles.

The design of installations for these buildings is carried out by inexperienced engineers who are forced to purchase a certificate to obtain a building permit, and the person selling the certificate often has no knowledge of its design and drawings. All these efforts are just to obtain the “permit,” and after that, the executor has little to do with the design and drawings, and the execution process usually proceeds with ad-hoc and piecemeal decisions. The quality of execution and maintenance and operation of installations in these buildings is extremely weak, far from engineering principles, and has a very short lifespan.

Missing phases in building services and questions for the profession.

Missing Phases

Testing, Adjusting, and Balancing (TAB): This work is essentially not performed.

Hand-over: The hand-over of building installations, which is a long technical and legal process, is conducted in our country in a superficial and ceremonial manner.

Operation and Maintenance (O&M): Building installation maintenance is fundamentally an engineering task based on preventive maintenance. In industrially advanced countries, advanced models have been designed and organized for O&M with great importance attached to it. In this field—which is truly maintenance engineering—no serious work has yet been done and no effective steps have been taken even to establish specialized maintenance companies and their classification.

Energy Conservation: In industrially advanced countries, extensive studies have been conducted and requirements have been codified in various standards and published for design, execution, and operation, and are strictly controlled and observed in practice. But energy conservation in our country’s construction remains at the level of seminars, conferences, and the publication of “Topic 19 of the National Building Regulations” and still has no connection to the living reality of supervision bodies and classified contractors.

Several Questions

A cursory look at what has been written about construction problems in the country, especially building services, shows that the services of these buildings are not only very far from today’s scientific and technical achievements of the world but also have a very chaotic situation that both wastes vast wealth of the country’s resources and in many cases is hazardous to the health of individuals, families, and society. Furthermore, these problems are not confined to the engineering domain of society and have broader roots in the economic, social, and even cultural conditions of the country.

Therefore, one should not expect simple and quick solutions for resolving these problems. To this end, for the purpose of deliberation, the following questions are posed: