What If Plan Check Returns Energy Corrections on a Multi-Family Project?
Send the correction letter in full and the current drawings. On multi-family the usual causes are a unit schedule that no longer matches the forms, or documents produced on the wrong form family.
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The mismatch corrections
The most common comment is that the submittal contradicts itself. A unit mix changed, a plan type was added or dropped, a window schedule was revised, or equipment was re-specified after the compliance documents were issued. Multi-family is especially prone to this because a single change to one repeated plan type propagates across many units, and it is easy for the drawings to move while the forms do not. Reissuing the documents against the current drawings clears it.
The correction specific to multi-family
Documents produced on the wrong form family. If a building's habitable-storey count was read one way by the designer and another way by the plan checker — usually because a partly below-grade level is arguable — the project may have been documented on the low-rise multifamily set when the nonresidential and high-rise set applies, or the reverse. That is not a revision so much as a re-do, which is why the storey count is worth settling before the documents are started.
The related one is unit count. A project documented as single-family because it reads as a duplex, but which actually has three dwelling units, is on the wrong standards entirely.
The corrections that need a decision
Where the design as drawn does not meet the requirement, the response is a choice rather than a resubmittal: glazing performance or area, envelope, or equipment. On multi-family those choices multiply across units, so the cheapest fix per unit is usually the one worth finding.
What to send
The correction letter in full, the current drawing set, and the unit matrix as it now stands. Two revisions are included, so an ordinary round of comments is covered.