Give Your Building a Physical: FCAs as Preventive Care | Facilities Unfiltered | Episode 27

Facility Condition Assessments (FCAs) can be the difference between clear, fact-based capital planning—and endless “political harangues” over who gets what. In Episode 27, Josh and Nic sit down with architect and FCA/PCA specialist Kyle Christiansen (and fellow ASTM committee member) to unpack what actually makes an assessment reliable, defensible, and technically accurate—and when it makes sense to keep FCA work in-house versus bringing in outside experts. They dig into the unglamorous but mission-critical side of the work: data hygiene. Kyle explains why portfolios get buried in duplication errors, mismatched inventories, and “assessor’s best guess” assumptions—and why the future looks a lot more like a “living FCA,” supported by dedicated data ownership, smarter document transfer, and real interviews with the people who know the building history. Along the way, the conversation tackles consistency across assessors, the role of pilot projects before scaling to hundreds of buildings, and how emerging standards can help owners compare scope, pricing, and deliverables without being misled by apples-to-oranges proposals—all through a memorable “buildings as healthcare” analogy that reframes how to think about preventative maintenance and long-term risk. Chapters (00:00:23) - Facility Condition Insights with Kyle Christiansen(00:01:22) - In-House vs Outsourcing: Capital Planning(00:03:55) - Facility and Data Management(00:10:27) - MR: Prepping the Client for Standards(00:18:45) - Healthcare in the Nursing Home(00:21:19) - Building Safety in the Healthcare Industry