Five Special Areas of Interest to Include In Your Building Inspection If You Are Buying a Daycare Facility
Before buying a building, you typically have a building inspector look it over for issues or concerns during a pre-purchase inspection. These inspectors have a certain list of things that they look for, but you can add to that list. In some cases, a general inspector may be willing to look for extra issues, while in other cases you may have to hire a specialist.
If you are buying a building to use as a daycare, here are some specific things that you should ask the inspector to examine for you:
1. Presence of pests
Most standard building inspections look for evidence of pest damage, but they do not search for pests. To illustrate, a property inspector may report that there was evidence of termite damage, but unless the termites are visibly crawling around, the inspector does not note whether or not they are there.
If you are planning to open the facility as a daycare, you need to know if there is an infestation. Dealing with infestations can be expensive, and it's important to budget for that before you buy the property. Also, in most cases, you won't be able to fumigate while the daycare is open, as traps and poisons can pose a risk for children, so you will need to plan for a delay. Finally, even after removing the infestation, you need to be aware of potential lingering risks. For example, rodent feces can cause health issues with children.
2. Asbestos
Ask the inspector to pay special attention to the asbestos in the building. Asbestos fibres can be easily inhaled, and you need to know if they are in the building so that you can budget to remove them or find ways to contain them.
Knowing about the asbestos in the building also helps you make future plans to avoid issues down the road. For example, one daycare shut after pinprick-size holes were found it its walls, and daycare providers began to fear that asbestos insulation could come out of the walls. Even after that fear was mitigated, the centre remained closed.
If you own a daycare, you have to be prepared for the fact that your clients may not want to use your facility if they know that it has asbestos, and down the road that can hurt your brand image, or even force your business to shutter.
3. Lead
Most building inspectors look for asbestos as a matter of course, but you may need to request to have them check the facility for lead. It is critical to know whether or not there is lead paint in the facility so that you can plan to remove it.
Sadly, a single chip of lead paint, if ingested by a child, increases the lead level in their bloodstream to past the safe levels.
4. Fire Safety Elements
Standard building inspections typically do not check fire alarms, but you should ask your inspector to check out these elements. Also, have them check all opening windows and assess potential exit strategies from the building in case of a fire.
Obviously, the children in your care need to be able to get out of the building if there is a fire, and you need to ensure that is possible. You also need to know what sort of fire alarm and sprinkler system the building has and whether or not those elements work.
5. Special Purpose Property Report
Finally, you may want to order a special purpose property report in addition to a general report. Unlike general reports, these reports include estimates about how much certain repairs are likely to cost. This allows you to carefully budget, and it helps you assess whether or not an alternative building may be a less expensive option, even if it has a more expensive price.
