I realize that Engineered Systems readers are primarily interested in commissioning systems inside buildings; however, the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) has indefinitely tied commissioning of the buildings’ exterior enclosure to commissioning of the inside systems through its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) v4 for Building Design and Construction rating system.
Prior versions of LEED focused on commissioning the dynamic energy-consuming building systems for confirmation of successful implementation of LEED’s sustainability objectives for each project. LEED v4 recognizes that the performance of the building itself, e.g., walls, windows, roof, doors, is also critically important to achieving those objectives. In fact, failure of exterior enclosure systems can be more insidious and costly to correct after the fact than faulty HVAC or lighting control systems.