While you could wait until construction starts before bringing a Commissioning Agent (CxA) onboard, you’d be missing out on significant benefits by waiting until that point, and could even be doing your project a disservice. Involving a CxA early in the process will help you make sure your goals and needs for the project [...]
Retro-Commissioning (RCx), sometimes referred to as Existing Building Commissioning (EBCx), is an important process for optimizing the performance of existing buildings. It involves the comprehensive evaluation of a building’s systems, their components, and how they interact with each other. The goal of RCx is to identify areas of improvement in the building’s operation maintenance, [...]
When performing envelope testing, whether spray testing or adhesion testing, the results are clear immediately following the test. Same-day results could trick some into thinking that the benefits of envelope testing are short-term. However, most of the benefits of building envelope testing occur in the long term, as they provide peace of mind that [...]
What are the Connecticut State Building Code Commissioning Requirements? Building and energy codes are constantly changing, evolving and often reference additional codes and standards. In the State of Connecticut, commissioning is not only standard good practice for construction but also a code-driven requirement in the Connecticut State Building Code. Like all codes, they often [...]
Across the nation, various energy efficiency, sustainable and high performance programs require building commissioning to be incorporated into construction projects. Many national, state, and municipal codes also require commissioning. While engaging a design and construction team in a project is standard practice, commissioning still is often approached with ambiguity. Given how long commissioning has [...]
Building envelope testing is an important quality control measure for nearly all construction projects, but there are times when pursuing envelope testing does not make sense because it is not adding value to the project. More and more project leaders are testing their windows, roofs, and air-vapor barriers to ensure that their building is [...]
As the field of commissioning has grown and evolved over the past 25+ years, it has become a valued component of building projects in the Architecture/Engineering/Construction (A/E/C) industry. There are hundreds of highly respected and qualified commissioning providers throughout the country. Many of them are part of a team within larger engineering firms. When [...]
Laboratories, whether in a college/university, medical building, or research facility, are one of the highest energy-consuming functions in any building. Lab spaces require large amounts of outside air, have high air change rates, and in many cases strict space temperature and humidity requirements. The HVAC systems that serve these spaces typically operate 24/7, 365 [...]
When a multi-zone variable air volume (VAV) air handling system is designed, you might notice that the scheduled leaving air temperature of this unit is about 55°F. Why is that? The 55°F setpoint is based on the typical cooling space temperature and relative humidity (RH) setpoints commonly needed in buildings, which typically ranges from [...]
When designing a building’s heating hot water system, determining the peak heating hot water supply temperature is a critical decision. These systems provide heat to air handling systems, perimeter radiation, radiant panels, fan coil units, reheat VAV boxes and other hydronic heating elements. The hot water supply temperature (HWST) must be high enough to [...]
