Terms of use

The Site provides information about Mike Hassaballa’s professional background, experience, projects, qualifications, educational content, and areas of interest, together with access to BuiltSmart.

Information on the Site is provided for general informational and educational purposes. Visiting the Site, reviewing its content, sending an inquiry, communicating through the Site, or using BuiltSmart does not create an engineer-client, consultant-client, fiduciary, advisory, agency or other professional relationship.

References to academic degrees, professional designations, certifications, employment experience, projects or technical experience describe professional background and qualifications only. They do not, by themselves, constitute an offer to provide professional engineering services or any other regulated professional service.

BuiltSmart is not offered as a professional engineering service.

BuiltSmart is intended solely as a self-directed preliminary screening and educational tool. No BuiltSmart assessment is performed for you by Mike Hassaballa in his capacity as a professional engineer, and no BuiltSmart output constitutes a professional engineering opinion, engineering design, engineering report, certification, verification, approval or other professional engineering deliverable.

No BuiltSmart output has been signed, sealed, authenticated or professionally certified by a professional engineer.

BuiltSmart is a personal project of Mike Hassaballa and is not offered under, through or pursuant to the Certificate of Authorization of his employer. Mike Hassaballa’s employer has not reviewed, approved, certified or assumed professional responsibility for BuiltSmart or its outputs unless expressly stated otherwise.

Any future service requiring professional licensing, authorization or a Certificate of Authorization would have to be provided separately through an appropriately authorized person or entity and under a separate written agreement. Nothing on this Site represents that such services are presently being offered through mhassaballa.com.

BuiltSmart is a self-directed, preliminary screening and educational tool. It produces high-level calculations, estimates and comparisons using information supplied by the user together with assumptions, methodologies and limitations identified by the tool.

BuiltSmart results are not:

• engineering design or professional engineering advice;
• an energy audit;
• a site assessment or inspection;
• a feasibility study;
• a code, permit or regulatory-compliance determination;
• a safety assessment;
• a utility, tariff or incentive determination;
• investment, financial, accounting, tax or legal advice;
• a contractor quotation, tender or construction estimate; or
• a guarantee, warranty or prediction of actual cost, savings, energy consumption, emissions, performance, incentives, return on investment or payback.

BuiltSmart does not inspect a property, verify equipment, observe operating conditions or independently verify information entered by a user unless the tool expressly states otherwise.

Results must not be used as the sole basis for procurement, construction, equipment selection, financing, investment, safety, regulatory compliance or other material decisions.

Before making a material decision, obtain appropriate independent verification from qualified professionals and other relevant parties.

You are responsible for the completeness, accuracy and suitability of the information you enter into BuiltSmart.

You are also responsible for reviewing the assumptions, units, methodologies, confidence indicators, qualifications and limitations displayed by the tool.

Actual outcomes may differ materially from BuiltSmart results. Relevant factors may include, without limitation, site conditions, building characteristics, equipment condition, weather, operating schedules, occupancy, energy prices, tariffs, utility rules, incentives, taxes, financing, contractor pricing, installation conditions, maintenance, degradation, code requirements and changes in law or market conditions.

Information, rates, incentives, assumptions and other inputs used by BuiltSmart may become outdated. Unless expressly stated otherwise, neither the Site nor BuiltSmart represents that any particular input, rate, incentive, regulation or assumption remains current after an assessment is generated.

You are responsible for determining whether a result remains suitable for your intended purpose.

BuiltSmart is not intended for life-safety, structural-safety, electrical-safety, fire-safety, equipment-protection, emergency, hazardous-process or other safety-critical decisions.

BuiltSmart does not determine whether a proposed project, measure, design, installation or course of action complies with any statute, regulation, building code, electrical code, fire code, standard, permit, utility requirement, manufacturer requirement or other legal or technical requirement.

Do not use BuiltSmart outputs as construction instructions, design documents, specifications or issued-for-construction information.

Where professional judgment, regulatory approval, site-specific investigation, engineering design or other specialized expertise is required, obtain it independently before proceeding.

BuiltSmart project information that is identified as being stored locally is kept in your browser or on your device as described in the Privacy Notice.

You are responsible for controlling access to your device, safeguarding project files, maintaining backups and deciding when and with whom project information is shared.

Locally stored information may be lost if browser data is cleared, a device is lost or damaged, storage is reset, software changes occur, or other local data loss occurs. BuiltSmart cannot recover information that exists only on your device.

The Site or its supporting infrastructure may process technical, communications or other information as described in the Privacy Notice. The Privacy Notice governs the handling of personal information associated with the Site and BuiltSmart.

You should not enter confidential, security-sensitive or legally restricted information into BuiltSmart unless the tool expressly indicates that such use is appropriate and you are authorized to do so.

Unless otherwise identified, the Site, BuiltSmart, their branding, interfaces, design, text, graphics, methodologies, software elements and original materials are owned by or licensed to Mike Hassaballa and are protected by applicable intellectual-property laws.

You may access and use publicly available Site content and BuiltSmart for lawful personal or internal informational purposes.

Unless permission is expressly provided, you may not reproduce, republish, sell, sublicense, commercially redistribute, reverse engineer, circumvent access controls, scrape at scale or create a competing product substantially derived from protected Site or BuiltSmart materials.

You may reference publicly available content in accordance with applicable law, but attribution does not by itself grant a right to reproduce copyrighted material.

You must not:

• interfere with the operation or security of the Site or BuiltSmart;
• attempt unauthorized access to systems or information;
• introduce malware or malicious code;
• use the Site or BuiltSmart unlawfully;
• intentionally manipulate or misrepresent BuiltSmart outputs;
• remove notices, qualifications or limitations from an output in a manner that makes the output misleading;
• represent a BuiltSmart result as professionally engineered, certified, approved, audited or verified when it is not; or
• state or imply that Mike Hassaballa endorses a person, company, product, project or decision without express written permission.

The Site and BuiltSmart may refer or link to utilities, incentive programs, manufacturers, government information, scheduling services, email providers, social networks or other third-party information or services.

Third-party information may change without notice and may be incomplete, inaccurate or unavailable.

Links and references are provided for convenience and do not constitute endorsement, certification or verification unless expressly stated.

Third-party services are governed by their own terms, policies and privacy practices. Their operation, security, availability and content are outside the control of the Site.

You are responsible for confirming material third-party information directly with the relevant provider or authority.

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, the Site and BuiltSmart are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis.

No representation, warranty or condition, express, implied, statutory or otherwise, is made regarding accuracy, completeness, reliability, currency, availability, uninterrupted operation, security, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, performance, results or non-infringement.

No representation is made that BuiltSmart will identify every relevant option, risk, cost, requirement or consideration applicable to a project.

No oral or written information obtained through the Site or BuiltSmart creates a warranty unless expressly stated in a separate written agreement signed by the person legally authorized to provide that warranty.

Nothing in these Terms excludes a warranty, condition, right or remedy that applicable law does not permit to be excluded.

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, Mike Hassaballa will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or reliance-based damages or losses arising from or relating to the Site, BuiltSmart, any BuiltSmart result, or their use or inability to be used.

This includes, without limitation, loss of profit, revenue, business opportunity, anticipated savings, energy savings, incentives, data, productivity or goodwill; business interruption; increased project or operating costs; financing losses; procurement losses; or losses arising from reliance on an estimate or screening result.

This limitation applies regardless of the form of claim, including contract, tort, negligence, negligent misrepresentation or otherwise, to the extent permitted by law.

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, Mike Hassaballa’s total aggregate liability to you for all claims arising from or relating to the Site or BuiltSmart will not exceed the greater of:

• (a) the amount, if any, you paid specifically for BuiltSmart during the twelve months preceding the event giving rise to the claim; and
• (b) CAD $10.

The limitations in these Terms are intended to allocate the risks associated with providing a preliminary informational tool without the investigation, verification, professional judgment and fees associated with a professional engagement.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability, statutory duties, professional obligations, consumer rights or remedies that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.

You are responsible for your use of the Site, BuiltSmart and any information or output you choose to provide to another person.

To the extent permitted by applicable law, you agree to indemnify and hold Mike Hassaballa harmless from third-party claims, losses and reasonable costs arising directly from your unlawful use of the Site or BuiltSmart, your material breach of these Terms, or your deliberate alteration or misrepresentation of a BuiltSmart output.

This section does not require you to indemnify Mike Hassaballa for liability that applicable law does not permit to be transferred to you.

The Site and BuiltSmart may be modified, suspended, restricted or discontinued at any time.

Features, methodologies, assumptions and outputs may change as BuiltSmart develops. An output generated at one time may therefore differ from an output generated later using the same or similar information.

There is no obligation to maintain a particular feature, calculation methodology, data source or level of availability.

Access may be restricted or terminated where reasonably necessary to protect the Site, other users, intellectual property, security or legal compliance, or where these Terms are materially breached.

These Terms may be updated from time to time.

Changes apply prospectively from the effective date identified at the top of the Terms. Material changes affecting BuiltSmart may be presented for renewed acceptance before further use.

Unless permitted by law and expressly agreed, an update to these Terms does not retroactively alter rights or obligations that arose before the update became effective.

Where BuiltSmart asks you to select an “I agree,” “Continue,” “Start assessment” or similar control after presenting or linking to these Terms, that action indicates your agreement to these Terms.

If you use BuiltSmart on behalf of a business or other organization, you represent that you have authority to act on its behalf. If you do not have that authority, you must use BuiltSmart only in your individual capacity.

You must have the legal capacity required to agree to these Terms.

These Terms are governed by the laws of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada applicable in Ontario, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles and without limiting any rights that cannot lawfully be excluded.

Subject to any mandatory law providing otherwise, the courts of Ontario have jurisdiction over disputes relating to these Terms, the Site or BuiltSmart.

If any provision of these Terms is found invalid, illegal or unenforceable, that provision will be limited or severed to the minimum extent necessary and the remaining provisions will continue in effect.

A failure to enforce a provision of these Terms is not a waiver of that provision.

These Terms and the Privacy Notice constitute the terms applicable to use of the Site and BuiltSmart. A separate written agreement, where applicable, governs any separate service covered by that agreement.

Questions about these Terms may be submitted through the Contact page.