The Effect of the "Estimated" Check Box for a Component-Section in BUILDER.

When entering the inventory for a component-section in BUILDER, one of the primary data elements that gets recorded is the year that component-section was installed or constructed. This denotes the time that the component-section was put in service, and is used by BUILDER to determine the component-section age and its projected life-cycle condition. It is a fundamental data element in the determination of a component’s condition index.

There are cases where the component-section install date is explicitly known, such as if the component is original to the building, or if the component was replaced recently and work records exist. There are also many cases where obtaining the exact install year for a component-section is difficult. This may be the case, for example, if the component-section is very old but not original to the building, and the year when it was installed or replaced is not known. In these situations, the assessor collecting and entering the data for that component-section should enter a year installed that best reflects the observed age based on professional judgment, and the year estimated check box shall be checked in BUILDER to reflect that. As a guide to determine the year installed for a component-section, please see the attached document.

If a component-section’s install year is estimated, as denoted by the check box, BUILDER will factor that into account when projecting the current condition index. The condition index reflects the expected condition state, based on lifecycle information such as its age in relation to its expected service life, as well as inspection based observations against that component. When no inspection are recorded against the component section, the projection of current component-section CI (CSCI) is solely based on age of the component calculated from the year installed value, whether it is estimated or not. However, if an inspection is performed, the expected value gets adjusted based on the condition based observations that are observed.

Basically, what BUILDER is doing is reconciling any differences between the expected CI based on age, and the observed condition at a point in time based on the inspection. If the expected age based CI projection and observation-based inspected CI are not significantly different, the adjustments to the projected CI curve over time are relatively minor and the projected CI tends to be close to the last inspected CI in the timeframe immediately after that inspection.

However, if the difference between the age-based expected CI and observation based inspected CI are drastically different, as may be the case where a component receives a high condition rating when its age is past its expected service life, the adjustment will be more significant. In these situations, BUILDER has to determine whether to place more emphasis on the age of the component, or the observed condition. If the estimated year installed box is check, BUILDER places less emphasis on the age-based CI, and the latest observation-based inspected CI controls the projected CI calculation. If the year installed check box is not checked, we have a higher confidence in the age of the component-section, and the age-based CI projection has more emphasis on the current CI calculation, limiting the amount that the expected service life is allowed to be adjusted.

Author: Mark Fisher, Nisha Aggarwal