Before the days of advanced control systems, buildings would be preheated or precooled prior to occupancy using a standard warm up or cool down mode of operation. These primitive sequences would start the air handling units at a set time interval before the building entered into occupied mode. The air handling unit would then [...]
Discussing building energy management can be overwhelming. Everyone wants to save energy and money, but utility contract negotiations, retrofitting HVAC systems, renewable energy, and battery storage can add a lot of complexity to the conversation. With numerous retro-commissioning projects under our belt, we want to share our knowledge with building owners and facility managers [...]
The Benefits of Near End of Warranty Reviews Most people that have been in the construction industry are familiar with the phrase “taillight warranty.” The phrase is used to describe how the only warranty service at the end of a construction project was watching the taillight of your contractors as they drove away, never [...]
What is it, which strategy is right for you, and how does this test benefit your building? ASTM E 1186 is a testing standard for air leakage as applies to building envelopes & air barrier systems. Air leakage is the cause for many concerns related to occupant comfort and indoor air quality. It also [...]
Every few years the Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) certification program goes through a review process and is updated to reflect the constantly changing technologies of today’s world and ways in which to leverage them to improve building performance. When the LEED program was updated to Version 4, a new option was [...]
Since the beginning of the modern HVAC industry, the design, installation and testing of a building automation system (BAS) has remained relatively untouched. The process is as follows: First, an engineer will develop control drawings and desired sequence of operations for the various pieces of HVAC equipment in their design documents. From there, an [...]
Staying Warm in the Land of Lumber (and Moose) SES was hired by a school district in northern Maine to provide commissioning services for their new 213,000-square-foot middle/high school. One unique aspect of this project was the use of a hybrid central heating plant that combined liquid propane fired [...]
Getting the Last 10% Anyone involved in construction projects has at least one war story about completing the last 10 percent of a challenging project. The last 10 percent I’m referring to here is the range of tasks or deliverables that can include: punch list work, commissioning issues close-out, as-built documentation, O&M manuals delivery, [...]
Canned Routines: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly I recently found myself sitting in a mechanical penthouse being told by the automated temperature controls (ATC) contractor, through the hum of rotating equipment and the incessant whine of variable frequency drives, that yet another sequence was not provided as specified. Instead, we got a [...]
