Phasing work in an occupied building
The clinic manager has one condition for the renovation: the clinic stays open, weekdays 08:00 to 18:00, and no appointment is cancelled. The work rebuilds the treatment rooms, reception and staff area, all inside 950 m². Your first draft has the whole floor under construction by week two.
Close one zone at a time, after its occupants have somewhere to go; do the noisy and dusty work when the rooms around it are empty; seal each zone off with its own way in and out; and tell the occupants weekly what is coming. In an occupied building, the occupants' routine sets the schedule: which rooms close, when, and where people go. A blocked exit, an unannounced shutdown or dust through a barrier can stop the job faster than any late delivery.
- Map the operation with the owner's contact: opening hours, rooms that can close and when, swing space, services that must never stop, fixed dates.
- Draw the phases on the floor plan: each zone emptied, built, inspected, cleaned and handed back before the next closes, with the occupants' moves as activities.
- Set hours by type of work, within the municipal noise bylaw. Toronto, for example, prohibits clearly audible construction noise from 19:00 to 07:00 on weekdays without a noise exemption permit.
- Agree each zone's barriers with the owner's facility and infection prevention staff, including containment above the ceiling. CSA Z317.13 sets out a health-care risk assessment process; the approved assessment and local fire requirements determine the barriers.
- Give the work its own route: separate entrance, set elevator times, a debris path clear of waiting rooms and exits.
- Plan every shutdown with the owner's facility staff; see coordinating a utility shutdown.
- Send a weekly notice, with a contact, and walk the barriers and exits daily.
Common mistakes
- Closing the next zone before the occupants have moved.
- Treating a ceiling tile as a complete dust barrier.
- Changing a shutdown date without updating the staff notice.
Checklist
Before the first phase starts
- Hours, swing space and fixed dates in writing
- Phases on the plan, moves in the schedule
- Noisy hours checked against the bylaw
- Barriers agreed, and walked daily
- Separate route for workers and debris
- A weekly notice, with a contact
Check your understanding
The clinic asks for daytime coring in phase 3, because night work costs more. What do you weigh?
Show the answer
Sources
- Noise (construction noise hours and noise exemption permits)
- CSA Z317.13:22 Infection control during construction, renovation, and maintenance of health care facilities
- Recommendations for Environmental Infection Control in Health-Care Facilities (construction, renovation, remediation, repair and demolition)
- Occupation of a building undergoing construction or alterations
