First-Week Survival Checklist
From Appendix E of BAS Field Fundamentals: A Field Guide for the New Technician
BAS Field Referencebasfieldreference.com
Before you open a panel
- Walk the entire building, including the roof and the penthouse.
- Locate the central plant, every mechanical room, and the front end.
- Identify which spaces are compliance-critical: ORs, isolation rooms, pharmacy, labs.
- Note which floors are occupied 24/7 and which are not.
Identify the system
- What product line or lines are installed? Expect more than one.
- Where are the building-level controllers, field panels, and terminal controllers?
- What network types are in use, and where does the transition from IP to field bus happen?
- Is there a gateway between vendors, and where does it live?
- What is the naming convention — and is there more than one?
Get access and documentation
- Login credentials, and know what your permission level actually allows.
- As-built drawings, submittals, and points lists.
- Sequences of operation, if they exist. If they do not, plan to write them.
- Past service history and any commissioning reports.
- Current calibration records for compliance spaces.
Establish the rules
- Who do you call before overriding or disabling a safety point?
- What is the expectation for restoring an override, and who verifies it?
- Who must be notified before work in an OR, isolation room, or pharmacy?
- What is the after-hours escalation path?
- Who receives alarm notifications today, and is that list current?
On the first real call
- Read the sequence before you touch the equipment.
- Set up a trend on any point you cannot immediately explain, before you leave.
- Verify a suspect sensor against a reference rather than assuming.
- Stroke an actuator and physically watch it rather than trusting the feedback.
- Read a drive's fault code before clearing it.
- Document what you found, what you changed, and how you confirmed it.
Habits worth building in the first month
- Mark actuator shafts with a paint pen after you verify alignment.
- Photograph panel interiors and wiring before you change anything.
- Keep your own copy of every points list you are handed.
- Write down the naming convention as you decode it.
- When you learn something the hard way, write it down the same day.
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