When a facility owner has a building program approved to move forward to the design phase, a design team needs to be contracted to produce the contract documents. At that point, the project delivery method should be decided too. Why? Well in the 2020 ASHRAE Handbook, HVAC Systems and Equipment, Chapter 1, HVAC System Analysis and Selection, there are five different project delivery methods to choose from. One can research each method and decide which would be preferred:
No matter the project delivery method, the HVAC equipment, and systems, as well as the other infrastructure equipment and systems, will require owners’ manuals (O&M manuals). To comply, these owners' manual requirements must be included in the final contract documents that go out to bid. The design team’s consulting engineer will most likely use the company’s standard O&M manual specification as an insert in the contract bid documents.