Well now let's see. I guess I'll vent a little..and it will be totally unrealistic, but...We could have a law that requires an accessibility and maintenance safety review for all newly occupied buildings..say, within the first 3 months..kind of like what the fire marshall does periodically..but much more comprehensively..and publically announce the 'report card' for all the parties responsible for creating impossible or prohibitively expensive maintenance problems, including the inspectors that miss their calls. That way, the architects and engineers who design to the bare minimum, and expect the subs to field coordinate and verify their rough plans, will quickly get some feedback about their poor performance. Additionally, the contractors who play the "me-first" game will be held accountable for their lack of team play.
Obviously, the present system just barely gets the building running, and passes the hidden costs down to the businesses that have to maintain the building. They don't realize how they are being abused. They in turn pass the costs down to the consumer, so the present system is just a drag on the economy and creating safety problems for all the workers. Everyone just accepts the present situation as the norm.
Now, for a rational problem solving procedure, proposals should come AFTER the situation(s) is/are adequately described, and target areas for redress are focused on. This is the S.T.P. method (Situation, Target, Proposal). We appear to have some consensus that there are access problems to equipment above ceilings. That is one Situation that needs to be described better. Then, we would need to find out how these problems are created in the first place, to find out who makes the poor choices leading to the problems, to find out what confluence of un-coordination aggravates the problems, these are some Target areas. Then Proposals can be responsibly generated. My 'venting' proposal was just 'stirring the pot'. The real solution (if there is one) will take concerted effort. What organization is out there that can supply that concerted effort?
