• Welcome to the new and improved Building Code Forum. We appreciate you being here and hope that you are getting the information that you need concerning all codes of the building trades. This is a free forum to the public due to the generosity of the Sawhorses, Corporate Supporters and Supporters who have upgraded their accounts. If you would like to have improved access to the forum please upgrade to Sawhorse by first logging in then clicking here: Upgrades

Who Inspects Federal Government Projects?

I have known of times when they where goverment employees and other times when they where private agecies. It may be dependant on the project.
 
It varies based upon the agency and the contract. Some projects hire an independant inspection firm. On some projects, the Government handles most of it themselves. On design - bid - build projects, the original designer may or may not be involved. On design build projects (which are becoming more common) the firm that prepared the bridging documents may or may not be involved.

There is no one answer.
 
jar546,

Check with the RDP's of the project and seek clarification as to what

is required, and according the design specs. & plans.

.
 
The only one I ever dealt with was a SSI office in MA...privately owned and leased to the feds.....AHJ did the permits and inspections because it wasn't fed property, but they had a guy come out several times from the GSA also....to check in on us...

Other State property jobs which are exempt locally, they usually have some kind of engineer "clerk of the works" guy.....which I imagine might not be much different at the fed level....
 
In PA, State owned property is only permitted, inspected and reviewed by the State.

Federal projects where the property is owned by the Federal Government is inspected by the Federal Government and we have nothing to do with it. I know. I just had a airport tower built and we could not touch it with a 10 foot pole. The renovations of the airport itself, however, was mine.

If there are private entities that do federal inspections, I would like to know how they began that process.
 
jar,

The contracts are awarded typically one of two ways. Some firms have IDIQ contracts where the agency will contract specific task orders. Other times, the feds will advertise in fedbizops.gov and choose from those firms that respond.
 
Federal Project on FederaL PROPERTY = Fed Inspection

Federal Project on Leased or state land = State / local jurisdiction for inspection

In CFR ther is and exemption by the Feds themselves from fees to state or local jurisdiction

for review and inspection of course,

so we in RI review and inspect the Fed project on State or lease land.
 
Coug Dad said:
jar,The contracts are awarded typically one of two ways. Some firms have IDIQ contracts where the agency will contract specific task orders. Other times, the feds will advertise in fedbizops.gov and choose from those firms that respond.
Click to expand...
Not a good website address
 
I did inspections for the Navy on a military base while working for a private company. The job was water storage tanks. I had to have a security clearance and certifications. They had fifty pages of rules for absolutely everything.
 
Looking at fbo.gov you may find projects that require a CQC team (Contractor Quality Control), which can include inspections of the work.

There are also GSA pre-lease requirements for federal tenants in privately-owned buildings. The building manager independently seeks inspectors as needed when a federal tenant is looking to sign a lease with them.
 
To the degree that the Federal government hires outside companies to do inspections, there are firms which specialize in it.

I would anticipate that the paperwork would bury a firm not prepared to handle it.

I would also anticipate that the firms which specialize in this work have employees who formerly worked on Federal projects in a capacity which gave them expertise.

In my opinion, it's a market which has significant barriers to entry.
 
brudgers said:
To the degree that the Federal government hires outside companies to do inspections, there are firms which specialize in it. I would anticipate that the paperwork would bury a firm not prepared to handle it.

I would also anticipate that the firms which specialize in this work have employees who formerly worked on Federal projects in a capacity which gave them expertise.

In my opinion, it's a market which has significant barriers to entry.
Click to expand...
In my experience, left up to the contractor and/or construction manager and/or architect of record.
 
JAR,

I have spent the last ten years working as a quality control manager on federal projects in four different states and three countries (Djibouti, Iraq & Afghanistan) for both the DoD and DoS. Depending on the size and scope of the project generally there will be one of two situations;

1) The RFP will require the contractor to provide quality control which often employs a 3rd party testing and inspection organization. This 3rd party will generate test reports reviewed by their engineer and submitted for government approval through the contractor QC manager. The QC manager will often have one or two inspectors employed by his company that will perform inspections outside the scope of the 3rd party. In addition, the government typically has federal employee engineering technicians that do periodic inspections and observations in a quality assurance role. Most RFPs also require milestone site observations by the architects and engineers involved in the design as well.

2) On very large projects the government will use large established A&E firms like URS Corporation, Jacobs Engineering, Parsons Corporation, and Team Integrated to perform Title II inspections and observations

https://www.fbo.gov/spg/USAF/AFSC/30CONS/FA4610-TII-INSP /listing.html. These companies are accustomed to working on government projects and are familiar with the process. The Title II people will report to at least one federal employee who performs quality assurance. Title II usually cannot direct the contractor but if what they find is a valid deficiency, then the government will issue a "cure letter" requiring corrections within a prescribed time frame. Like the rest of us, some Title II people are extraordinary and others are quite mediocre.

There is money to be made working for the Feds and they are required to contract with a percentage of small business owners to level the playing field a little. It might be worth it for you to explore these possibilities.
 
Architect1281 said:
Federal Project on FederaL PROPERTY = Fed Inspection Federal Project on Leased or state land = State / local jurisdiction for inspection

In CFR ther is and exemption by the Feds themselves from fees to state or local jurisdiction

for review and inspection of course,

so we in RI review and inspect the Fed project on State or lease land.
Click to expand...
Interesting because at the county airport I work at, the FAA is building a new tower on land leased from us and the local AHJ can't step foot on the property. The local fire department tried to mandate some local fire code amendments and the FAA politely declined to implement them. Even the local dust cops (air quality monitors) don't step foot on their project.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top