Mecklenburg County Special Inspections

Overview
Mecklenburg County's Special Inspections (SI) Program is a code compliance process that affects commercial buildings or any area of large assembly (such as churches and schools) built within Mecklenburg County Municipality. This regulatory requirement is governed by Chapter 17 of the North Carolina State Building Code, which means that a project meeting one or more of the criteria specified in this section of the building code must comply with the SI process outlined by Mecklenburg County. Consequently, failure to comply with the SI process may result in a stop work order.

A commercial project categorized with special inspections requires the project owner to retain the services of an Architect, Engineer or other independently certified professionals. These professionals must monitor, test, or inspect the materials or methodology used in the construction of the project at the construction site. Special Inspections are additional inspection processes, established to run parallel and in conjunction with the inspections performed by Mecklenburg County Code Enforcement Officials. In a way, Special inspections serve as required, high-level, quality control measures to ensure the structural integrity of commercial buildings.

Below is a list of the approved 19 Special Inspections Types
 * IT-1	 Verification of Soils
 * IT-2	 Excavation & Filling
 * IT-3	 Piling & Drilling Piers
 * IT-4	 Modular Retaining Walls
 * IT-5	 Reinforced Concrete
 * IT-6	 Post Tension Slab-on-Ground and Post Tension Concrete
 * IT-7	 Pre-Cast Concrete Erection
 * IT-8	 Pre-Stressed Concrete
 * IT-9	 Inspection of Pre-Cast Concrete Fabricators
 * IT-10 Inspection of Structural Steel Fabricators
 * IT-11 Structural Masonry
 * IT-12 Welding
 * IT-13 High Strength Bolting and Steel Frame Inspection
 * IT-14 Sprayed Fire Resistance Materials
 * IT-15 Exterior Insulation & Finish System (EIFS)
 * IT-16 Seismic Resistance
 * IT-17 Smoke Control
 * IT-18 Detention Basin
 * IT-19 Special Cases

History
The system of Special Inspections was first introduced to the State of North Carolina when the North Carolina Building Code Council adopted the 2002 NC Building Code (based on the 2000 International Building Code). In chapter 17 of the code, local municipalities were given the authority to determine and implement a Special Inspections process on a local basis. Although local governments were allowed the discretion to elect and enforce this regulation, Mecklenburg County was one of the few municipalities within the State to take the initiative to establish a comprehensive and state-of-the-art system to administer the Special Inspections process. Mecklenburg County saw the need to require Special Inspections due to numerous historic events or calamities that had taken place nationwide and within its own jurisdiction. For instance, prior to the adoption of the Special Inspections regulations, a vehicle had run through a masonry wall of a Charlotte-Mecklenburg County school building. Investigations and inspections to determine the extent of damages to the building revealed improper installation of construction materials.

www.Meck-si.com
In spite of the enthusiasm by both the construction industry and local government to embrace this life-saving regulation, there were business challenges that discouraged the adoption of Special Inspections. Costly record keeping and ambiguous rules requiring intricate time-consuming SI procedures and processes are a few of the challenges. To address these problems, an SI task force team was put together to analyze the challenges and propose a solution. After several months of numerous meetings, the task force team proposed a comprehensive web-based Special Inspections program in line with the code inspections process, which was compatible with existing technology. The team foresaw the possibility of a web-based system to eliminate the need for additional staff members, time and exorbitant costs in administering the Special Inspection process, which consequently led to the inception of http://www.meck-si.com Although the team embraced the concept of employing a web-based system, there was a need to involve other parties assigned with different roles to ensure the proper flow of the SI process. Below is a list of parties involved in the SI process.

In January 2006, Mecklenburg County Code Enforcement Department launched www.meck-si.com - the paperless, Special Inspection management website. Meck-si.com quickly became the flagship of the entire Mecklenburg County Special Inspection program, which later went on to receive several awards, including the Blue Diamond Award. This comprehensive website was designed to administer the special inspection process, to serve as a working resource for the construction industry, to provide a database for storing all the project field reports, and to offer process information, graphic flowcharts, forms, document retrieval, and professional certifications.

Website Users
Frequent users of the meck-si web site are categorized into three groups:

Guest users
are users who navigate the website for informational purposes only, such as learning about the process, downloading program forms, submitting an application to register either a firm or an inspector. Their intent is to retrieve information about the program and so, for this reason, they are not required to log into the system. Obviously, this means guest users are extremely limited in terms of the functions they are able to perform in the system.

Firm Registration
is the first group of users with an assigned login user id and password. Mostly, these are architectural, engineering and constructions firms that will be involved in an SI project at some point. The firm’s user id and password allow employees within these firms to login to the website and perform limited assigned functions, such as reviewing project documents and uploading certain documents to a project. In addition, every SIF is required to register prior to individuals within the firm registering as special inspectors.

DSI and ASI Registration
requires that each Special Inspector submit an application along with an appropriate certificate and license through the website, in order to be approved as a Special Inspector. Once an applicant has been registered, the inspector receives a login user ID and password to access, navigate and perform the functions assigned to that individual. In addition, Mecklenburg County charges each Special Inspector a $99 registration fee, which is valid for a year, after which a $99 annual renewal fee will be charged in order for inspectors to remain active and perform special inspections within their jurisdictions. Given that DSIs and ASIs play such a key role in the special inspections process, they have the most assigned administrative rights in navigating the meck-si website. Their registrations allow them to perform such functions as registering projects, authorizing firms on projects, uploading project documents, and amending project documents.

Stages of Special Inspection Process
Mecklenburg County’s Special Inspection Process comprises the following four phases:

Plan Review
The initial SI process begins with the plan review stage. At this stage, the DPIRC completes and submits the Onschedule Review application to the Plan Review Office. Once the onschedule review process has been completed, the DPIRC then determines the SI scope and how it will impact the project, submits the whole plan set, including the completed signed and sealed SSI, Appendix B, and the building permit application for review. At this juncture, one of two things may happen. Either the plans will be approved or disapproved for revisions to be made. Once the plans have been approved and the department has collected all appropriate plan review and permitting fees, the building permit is then issued.

Pre-Construction

 * 1) The next stage in the SI process is the pre-construction stage. Unlike regular non-SI projects where the contractor is able to start construction once the permit has been issued, with SI projects, additional tasks must be completed prior to construction.  Although the building permit has been issued at this point, a pre-construction hold is placed in the permitting system, which prevents the GC from requesting any code enforcement inspections until these required tasks have been completed.  First and foremost, the DSI/ASI is required to create the SI project by registering the permit and uploading a copy of the signed and sealed SSI to meck-si.com.  (Note: Allow at least 24 hours after permit has been issued before registering permit)
 * 2) Once the permit has been registered in the system, the GC or DSI must contact the building inspector via cell phone five days in advance of start of work (Note: automated system will prevent the scheduling request without first conducting pre-con meeting) to setup a preconstruction meeting date and time acceptable to all parties, i.e. GC, DSIs, DPIRC, Building Inspector and all other sub contractors involved in the SI process. It is, however, optional for the Project Owner to attend the meeting.
 * 3) At the end of the meeting, as long as all requirements have been met, the Building Inspector releases the pre-construction hold to allow construction to begin and for the GC to request code enforcement inspections. The DPIRC will then prepare the pre-construction meeting minutes, for which the DSI is responsible to upload to the registered permit in http://www.meck-si.com

Construction
The construction phase is the stage in which the special inspections and testing process runs parallel with the code enforcement inspections. Construction begins and as the GC requests regular code enforcement inspections, the special inspections team, consisting of mainly the DSI/ASI, will visit the job site at appropriate intervals, perform special inspections as outlined in the SSI and upload the field reports to Meck-si.com. The two processes run parallel until the GC is ready to request a temporary occupancy or final inspection. A system auto generated hold is in place to prevent the GC from requesting a final/TCO inspection until the Building Inspector has reviewed the SI documents, ensuring compliance with the SI tasks.

Closeout

 * 1) The final stage of the SI process is the closeout phase in which all construction at the job site has been completed and the GC is ready to finalize the job. At this point all SI document must be uploaded to the system, each DSI must review the project, as well as all project documents, to ensure testing and inspections have been completed.  The DSIs shall then proceed to complete, sign, seal and upload the SI Final Report.  After this task has been completed, the DPIRC reviews the SSI and SI final reports, completes, signs, seals and uploads the DPIRC letter into the system.  Once the DPIRC letter has been uploaded, the project status automatically changes to “Closed.” At this point, no more documents can be uploaded to the project, unless the program administrator is notified to re-open the project.
 * 2) It is then the responsibility of the DSI, ASI, DPIRC or GC to notify the Meck-si administrator that all SI documents have been uploaded to the project and request an SI closeout. The program Administrator reviews the project to make sure all requirements have been met and, if they have, the administrator schedules an SI closeout for the Building Inspector to review the content of the documents.  Provided all requirements have been met, the building inspector removes the SI hold, allowing the contractor to request TCO/Final inspection.  (Note:  the automated system will prevent a final inspection request without first obtaining an SI closeout.)