Hydraulic Drawings and Operation & Maintenance Manuals "Do I need to have them?"

Own, run or manage a commercial building and have up to date and accurate Hydraulic Drawings of your plumbing infrastructure and an Operation & Maintenance manual (O&M)? - some of you are laughing now aren't you?

Our experience when inspecting sites is we find that the bulk of them do not have hydraulic drawings and if they do they are out of date and inaccurate, it is very rare to find a complete and accurate O&M manual, only on new buildings will we tend to see them.

There are cloud based programs available to upload all of this type of documentation, retain and update it within cloud based environments - Example cloud based system is OandMs.

Over the years plumbing systems get upgraded, changed, extensions added, buildings change owners but the drawings if they are handed over to the site do not get updated, let alone digital copies available that can be properly modified.

Now we do not dare to suggest that this is an anomaly with just plumbing hydraulic systems, we would bet that the same goes for mechanical and electrical for example.

What are the legal and best practice requirements for having hydraulic drawings and O&M manuals showing your infrastructure?

Within legislation, AS/NZS 3666 and also many state guidelines! (check your local requirements)

So why have them?

- Knowing pipework location and type.

- Isolation valve locations.

- Asset management.

- Thermostatic mixing valve and tempering valve locations.

- Plant-room schematic showing what you have in place and the configuration in which it was installed.

. Heating plant make, model, serial numbers.

. Type - Gas, Electric, Heat Exchange etc.

. Circulation pumps, Pipework configuration.

- Who installed it.