Most people in the major design and construction business understand that commissioning is a process by which a building’s systems are verified to function properly prior to acceptance by the owner.
The particular charms of panels, chilled beams, and related options seem to be at-tracting more attention from designers and owners these days. Design, installation, and even architectural considerations can earn a hard look at radiant for a surpris-ing number of applications.
Radiant HVAC — what is it? Heating is done in three ways in buildings — convection, conduction, and radiation. Heating and cooling with air is common in most building HVAC systems.
This past May I wrote in the Back2Basics column about the design intent of a small city school system that chose to invest in an annual contract for a temporary air-cooled chiller for special events and emergency crisis shelter center.
Commissioning professionals, myself included, have always advocated the delay of systems acceptance by and turnover to the owner until the commissioning process is complete. In this sense, “complete” means the systems pass their functional performance tests and the owner’s operations staff has been properly trained.
Hospitals in the U.S., already facing daunting challenges from evolving health care reimbursement models, now have another item on their to-do list: prepare for increased health care demands and weather disasters caused by climate change.
Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) is a collaborative process that has been applied more and more frequently to building design and construction projects. Although it is implemented in slightly different ways from project to project, it is always about involving all project team members in intense planning and coordination, starting very early in design and extending through construction and facility turnover.