I
just completed reports for two retrocommissioning studies for different
building owners. An interesting - and potentially puzzling - similarity between
them was that they were both for relatively new buildings. One building had been completed just
one year before the owner decided retrocommissioning would be a good idea. The
other was a 4-yr-old building. Both were larger than 100,000 sq ft.
Frequently in my travels, I hear engineers offering pathetic excuses for why they didn’t do a good job or how they lost money with the fee they had. I hear these so much that I decided to write them down.
When power customers look at their costs for electricity, they tend to lump the price of the commodity (i.e., the raw cost without delivery) with the rest of the electric bill (e.g., distribution). Doing so, however, may miss the boat on options to cut the total cost of power.
When you’re trying to get back in gear after the holidays, one of the rudest traditional hurdles to face is The Dreaded Calendar Flip (TDCF). You’ve just finished being swamped with end-of-year projects, reports, and miscellaneous seasonal tasks ranging from school assemblies to Secret Santa obligation.
Deferred testing is performing FPT after substantial completion. Whereas systems performance testing should occur prior to the owner accepting the systems from the contractors, there are some instances where testing at the end of construction is either impractical or not meaningful.
Sustainable green connectivity is what building owners want now from BAS. The need is urgent, and if we are not willing to provide it, there are those that will. As I look over the subject matter and events covered on AutomatedBuildings.com for the last few months, I repeatedly see the words “sustainable,” “green,” and “connectivity” appearing.
Are you committed to excellence? How about continuous improvement? And how about those people that you are responsible for on your project, in your group, your department, or your company? If your answer was no or not all the time, and you want to change, let me suggest you go out and purchase a 3-by-5-in. spiral-bound notebook.
In either my first or second AHR Expo, I brought a new pair of dress shoes. That’s a mistake you make exactly once. Yet, we’re getting close to the next pair of AHR and ASHRAE events, so if you’re going, it’s time to start breaking in any footwear you might want to pack, and also to consider how to fill your schedule in Dallas.
In my October and November columns, I explored the complexities associated with motivating contractors to install, start up, and test new building systems as required to have the commissioning testing and demonstration be successful the first time. If there is an incentive for deficiency-free test results, the commissioning professional needs to be wary of the contractors wanting to stop and “fix” deficiencies during the testing process.