Our team was called upon to prepare as-builts for the mechanical system in the 100+ year old VA hospital. In order to map the mechanical and plumbing piping systems of the building, our team faced some challenges:

• Determining the diameters of insulated piping systems without tearing or cutting the insulation.
• Many of the piping systems were never demolished from remodel to remodel, or from multiple additions. Deciphering what was abandoned or not was very difficult.
• Crawling around in crawlspaces trying to find where pipes go and if they are abandoned or not. We got very dirty as these are hard to access dirty crawlspaces among multiple levels.
• Mapping and drawing complicated piping systems on paper in very tight spaces and then showing them accurately and readable in AutoCAD.
• Estimating distances from walls or other land marks to accurately show the routing of the piping systems in AutoCAD.
• Determining where piping systems route above hard or sheet rock ceilings.
• The hospital was built on a hillside so the floor levels are very confusing, not to mention various additions in the last 100 years.

The final product was 31 pages of as-built drawings spanning across an 8 story, T-shaped, hospital building but made up of several additions which are numbered as different buildings themselves.