Building owner's manual - O and M manual
The building owner's manual, or operation and maintenance manual (O&M manual), contains the information required for the operation, maintenance, decommissioning and demolition of a building.
The building owner's manual is prepared by the contractor or the sub-contractor with additional information from the designers (in particular, the services engineer) and suppliers. It is a requirement that is generally defined in the preliminaries section of the tender documentation where its contents will be described, although there may be additional requirements regarding mechanical and electrical services in the mechanical and electrical specification.
A draft version of the document should be provided for the client as part of the handover procedure prior to certifying practical completion. The final document is not usually available in full form until several months after practical completion, as commissioning information often needs to include summer and winter readings taken in the fully occupied building. The preliminaries may require several copies of the building owner's manual and might require an electronic version.
The building owner's manual might include:
- A description of the main design principles.
- Details of the building's construction (such as finishes, cladding, doors and windows, roof construction, and so on).
- As-built drawings and specifications.
- Instructions for its operation and maintenance (including health and safety information and manufacturers' instructions for efficient and proper operation).
- An asset register of plant and equipment.
- Commissioning and testing results.
- Guarantees, warranties and certificates.
- Particular requirements for demolition, decommissioning and disposal.
Much of this information will already exist in one form or another, so preparing the building owner's manual might simply be a matter of compiling and assembling its components.
Over the life of the buildings, the building owner's manual may be developed to reflect changes that take place to the fabric of the building or its systems, along with details of maintenance that has taken place .
The building owner's manual is different from the health and safety file which only needs to include information important to health and safety and does not need to include information about the construction process, contractual information or information about the normal operation of the completed structure.
The building owner's manual may also include a non-technical 'building user's guide' with information for users about environmental controls, access, security and safety systems, etc.
NB - Building owner's manuals might now be referred to as building manuals. For more information see: Building manual.
[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings
- BSRIA updates Handover and O&M manuals.
- Building log book.
- Building manual.
- Building user's guide.
- Decommissioning.
- Deferred maintenance.
- End-user.
- Handover to client.
- Health and safety file.
- Maintenance.
- Operation, maintenance and training (OMT).
- Practical completion.
- Preliminaries.
- Soft Landings for owners.
- Technical guide.
- Tender documentation.
- Users.
- Working with maintenance contractors.
[edit] External references
- BSRIA Handover, O&M Manuals, and Project Feedback. A toolkit for designers and contractors (BG 1/2007).
Featured articles and news
OpenUSD possibilities: Look before you leap
Being ready for the OpenUSD solutions set to transform architecture and design.
Global Asbestos Awareness Week 2025
Highlighting the continuing threat to trades persons.
Retrofit of Buildings, a CIOB Technical Publication
Now available in Arabic and Chinese aswell as English.
The context, schemes, standards, roles and relevance of the Building Safety Act.
Retrofit 25 – What's Stopping Us?
Exhibition Opens at The Building Centre.
Types of work to existing buildings
A simple circular economy wiki breakdown with further links.
A threat to the creativity that makes London special.
How can digital twins boost profitability within construction?
The smart construction dashboard, as-built data and site changes forming an accurate digital twin.
Unlocking surplus public defence land and more to speed up the delivery of housing.
The Planning and Infrastructure Bill
An outline of the bill with a mix of reactions on potential impacts from IHBC, CIEEM, CIC, ACE and EIC.
Farnborough College Unveils its Half-house for Sustainable Construction Training.
Spring Statement 2025 with reactions from industry
Confirming previously announced funding, and welfare changes amid adjusted growth forecast.
Scottish Government responds to Grenfell report
As fund for unsafe cladding assessments is launched.
CLC and BSR process map for HRB approvals
One of the initial outputs of their weekly BSR meetings.
Building Safety Levy technical consultation response
Details of the planned levy now due in 2026.
Great British Energy install solar on school and NHS sites
200 schools and 200 NHS sites to get solar systems, as first project of the newly formed government initiative.
600 million for 60,000 more skilled construction workers
Announced by Treasury ahead of the Spring Statement.
Comments