Commercial MEP audits
A commercial MEP audit is an independent engineering assessment of a building's mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, measuring actual performance against design intent and ...
What is a commercial MEP audit?
A commercial MEP audit is an independent engineering assessment of a building's mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, measuring actual performance against design intent and current demand. Downtown Services carries them out across Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. The output is a written report separating safety-critical items, performance problems and efficiency opportunities, each with an indicative cost and a recommended sequence. The survey and report are free of charge and carry no obligation to proceed with any remedial work.
- Turnaround
- Survey usually within 2 working days
- Disciplines
- Mechanical, electrical, plumbing, controls
- Cost
- Free survey and written findings report
- Output
- Prioritized, costed action list
Fixed written quotation
Issued before a single tool comes out of the van.
No-obligation site survey
Free of charge on any job that cannot be priced honestly by phone.
Written warranty
On labor and on every component we supply.
Directly employed teams
Trained, uniformed, insured, never day labor.
Most building problems originate in MEP and stay invisible until they surface as something else. A riser that was never balanced becomes a comfort complaint. A distribution board loaded past its design becomes a nuisance trip. A drainage stack with insufficient venting becomes a smell nobody can locate.
An audit exists to convert that fog into a list. We survey what is installed, measure what it is actually doing, compare it against what it was meant to do, and hand you a document you can budget from.
When is an audit worth commissioning?
- Recurring faults that keep moving between contractors without resolution
- Acquisition or lease due diligence, before you inherit somebody else's deferred maintenance
- Handover from a developer or an outgoing facilities provider
- Change of use, fit-out or headcount growth beyond the original design
- Energy consumption rising without an obvious explanation
- Missing or incomplete as-built and commissioning documentation
- Preparing a capital plan and needing defensible numbers
What does the audit cover?
| Discipline | What we measure and assess |
|---|---|
| Mechanical | Cooling capacity against load, chiller and AHU performance, airflow and water balance, ventilation rates, controls and BMS points against physical readings |
| Electrical | Load against capacity, distribution board condition and labeling, insulation resistance, earth fault loop impedance, RCD operation, thermal inspection of terminations |
| Plumbing | Incoming pressure, pump and pressure system performance, tank condition, drainage flow and venting, leak detection across zones |
| Documentation | As-builts, commissioning records, O&M manuals, warranties, statutory compliance records |
| Fabric interface | Insulation, sealing, penetrations and anything driving avoidable load |
What does the report contain?
- An asset register with make, model, capacity, age, condition and criticality
- Measured readings, not impressions
- Findings split into safety-critical, performance and efficiency
- An indicative cost and a recommended sequence for each item
- A clear statement of what we could not access or verify, and why
- Photographs and thermal images where they support a finding
We deliberately separate safety-critical items from everything else, because those are the ones that should not wait for a budget cycle.
How long does it take?
| Building | Survey | Report |
|---|---|---|
| Single floor or unit | Half a day | 3 to 5 working days |
| Small commercial building | 1 to 2 days | 5 to 7 working days |
| Residential tower | 2 to 4 days | 7 to 10 working days |
| Mixed-use development | By agreement | By agreement |
What happens after the audit?
Nothing, unless you want it to. The report is yours. Plenty of clients use it to tender the remedial work competitively, and we are entirely comfortable with that.
Where clients do appoint us, the advantage is continuity: the team that measured the building is the team that corrects it, and the baseline readings become the benchmark for proving the work achieved something.
Questions we are asked about this
The survey and the written findings report are free of charge and carry no obligation. We do it because a client who understands their building is a better client to work for, and because most audits lead to work we would be glad to quote for.
Yes, and much of our audit work is exactly that. We assess what is physically installed and commissioned rather than what the drawings claim.
Yes. We are regularly engaged for independent testing, balancing and commissioning of systems installed by others, and we issue full recorded results.
Depending on emirate and building: DEWA or ADDC, the relevant municipality, Civil Defence, free zone authorities and the landlord's technical team.
You are free to. The report is written to be tenderable, with scopes described clearly enough that any competent contractor could price them.
Services that sit behind this
Where we deliver it
We cover 109 communities in total. See the full list.
Start with a survey, not a sales call
We will look at what you actually have, tell you what we find, and put it in writing before anyone talks about price.
- Fixed written quotation before any work begins
- Trained, uniformed, directly employed technicians
- Same-day attendance for genuine emergencies
- Written warranty on labor and supplied parts
- One accountable company for every trade