Handover and O&M manual
Operation and maintenance manual, building manual
The documentation handed to the client at completion: how the building and its systems work and are maintained, as-built drawings, certificates, warranties and the health and safety file information.
The O&M manual tells the people who will run the building what was installed, how it works, how to maintain it and who to call: product data and installation details, as-built drawings, commissioning results and test certificates, warranties and guarantees, maintenance schedules, spares lists, and emergency procedures. The health and safety file, required by CDM 2015, is the subset relevant to the safety of future work on the building (residual hazards, structural principles, hazardous materials, services routes, safe access for maintenance), and it may be part of the same package or separate.
For a trade contractor, the handover pack for their package is the same in miniature: the QA records, the material certificates, the test and commissioning records, the as-installed drawings, the product data sheets and the warranties. It is asked for at practical completion and, increasingly, in digital form. Contractors who build the pack as they go (a QA record per stage, a certificate filed when the material arrives) hand it over on the day; contractors who assemble it afterwards hold up their own final account.
Where it comes from
- Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 reg.12(5) to (10): the health and safety file, its contents (Appendix 4 of L153) and the principal designer's and principal contractor's duties for it.
- Building Regulations 2010 reg.38: fire safety information to be given to the responsible person on completion.
- Building Safety Act 2022 and the golden thread requirements for higher-risk buildings.
Questions people ask
Is the health and safety file the same as the O&M manual?
No. The health and safety file is the CDM-required record of information needed for safe future work on the structure. The O&M manual is the wider operating documentation. They overlap and are often bound together; both are the client's at completion.
What does a subcontractor have to hand over?
Whatever the specification and the main contractor's requirements say, which usually means QA records, certificates, test results, as-installed drawings, product data and warranties for the package. Build it as you go.
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