Tenant finish runs on a schedule with a rent commencement date attached to it. The mechanical trades are usually what decides whether that date holds, which is exactly the pressure commercial work trains you for.
AT A GLANCE
- Where we are strongest
- Restaurants, clinics and medical, and office conversions
- Typical constraints
- Landlord work letter, base building capacity, rent commencement
- Grease interceptor
- Sizing and location are jurisdiction-specific and decided early
- Documentation
- Submittals, RFIs and closeout package as standard
The base building is the first question
Before drawings, before scope, before pricing, the question worth answering is whether the space can actually support the intended use. A suite that was an office for fifteen years has a water service, a sanitary connection, a gas allocation and a venting arrangement that were all sized for an office.
Turn it into a restaurant or a dental clinic and every one of those numbers changes. Fixture count goes up, hot water demand goes up dramatically, gas demand may appear where there was none, and requirements arrive that did not previously apply — grease interception, backflow prevention, health department fixtures.
Finding a constraint during design is a design decision. Finding it during construction is a change order and a schedule slip.
Coordination is the actual deliverable
On tenant finish, the plumbing work itself is rarely the hard part. What is hard is that six trades are working in a small space against a date, and each one’s work blocks somebody else’s.
Underground has to be in and inspected before the slab goes back. Overhead rough has to be coordinated with mechanical ductwork and electrical, in a ceiling cavity that never has as much room as the drawings imply. Inspection has to be sequenced so that no trade is waiting on another trade’s sign-off.
That is a project management problem more than a plumbing one, and it is what commercial experience is genuinely for.
Documentation as a habit
Submittals get produced. RFIs get answered rather than worked around and explained later. Changes get priced in writing before they are built. The closeout package is assembled as the job goes rather than reconstructed at the end.
None of this is remarkable on a hospital job. It is simply how commercial work is done, and it is the standard we brought with us.
WHAT'S INCLUDED
- Review of the base building capacity against the intended use
- Bid against drawings with a clear scope and clear exclusions
- Submittals and RFIs handled rather than ignored
- Coordination with the GC and other trades on a real schedule
- Grease interceptor, backflow and health department requirements addressed early
- Inspection sequencing and a complete closeout package
COMMON QUESTIONS
What makes tenant finish different from residential work?
Documentation and schedule. Commercial work runs on drawings, submittals, RFIs and an inspection sequence, with a general contractor coordinating trades against a date that has money attached to it. The plumbing itself is not harder than residential — the coordination is. That is the part twenty-three years of commercial experience actually buys.
Do you handle grease interceptors for restaurants?
Yes, and it is one of the first things to resolve rather than one of the last. Sizing, location, and whether an interior or exterior unit is required vary by jurisdiction and by the type of food service. It affects the floor plan and sometimes the site, so it needs to be settled during design rather than discovered at plan review.
Can you work within a landlord work letter?
Yes. We are used to reading a work letter, identifying what the base building actually provides against what the tenant improvement requires, and flagging the gap in writing before it becomes a change order argument. That gap is where most tenant finish disputes originate.
Will the existing building services support my use?
That is the question to answer before anything else, particularly for restaurants and medical. Water service size, sanitary capacity, gas capacity and venting were sized for a previous use that may be nothing like yours. We check it against your actual fixture count and equipment schedule early, because it is much cheaper to find a constraint on paper.
Do you provide a closeout package?
Yes — as-builts, warranties, test reports and inspection sign-offs, assembled properly. On commercial work the closeout package is part of the deliverable, not an afterthought, and an incomplete one holds up final payment and sometimes occupancy.