Commercial Property Inspections in Central Arkansas

What a commercial property inspection covers

The money in a commercial building is in the roof, the equipment on top of it, and the service feeding the tenants. David starts there. The roof is usually low-slope, living on its seams and flashing. The service is often three-phase, split into panels by suite. Not always, though. Plenty of small commercial in Conway is a converted house with a pitched roof and single-phase power.

Occupancy changes the walk. In a leased building, much of the square footage sits behind someone else's door, and racking hides a warehouse wall. David inspects what he can reach that day and writes down what he couldn't, because a known gap is one you can work with. Get the mechanical and electrical rooms and the roof hatch open ahead of time.

What comes back is a defect list with photos, weighted toward what costs real money. Two rooftop units showing their age and a third that won't hold a temperature split. A slab cracked where the forklifts turn. That's the condition on the day he walked it, which is all an inspection reports.

• Low-slope roof and drainage

  Seams, parapet flashing, ponding water, and clogged drains, since a membrane rarely fails in one spot.

• Rooftop HVAC units

  Condition unit by unit and the age off each nameplate, since they rarely fail together.

• Three-phase electrical

  Panel labeling, breaker fill, open knockouts, and tenant disconnects, where added loads show up first.

• Structure and slab

  Columns, joists, cracking above openings, and slab cracks in drive lanes and under racking.

• Dock and overhead doors

  Doors, levelers, bumpers, and bollards take hits, and when they quit the building stops.

• Life safety in plain view

  Blocked exits, obstructed sprinkler heads, exit signs, and emergency lighting, checked by eye, not as a fire marshal would.

• Repeated defects across units

  In a multi-unit building, one bad water heater is worth checking door to door.