January 9, 2009

What is this commissioning stuff?

by Environmental Building Strategies in Commissioning, Energy Tags: Commissioning, Consulting 347 Comments

Commissioning is used to deliver a building that operates as it was designed, and it’s not completed until the building operators are trained to run the building correctly. The focus is typically on the heating ventilating and air conditioning, but can involve the building envelope, emergency power and any other system that is part of the building. So what are the benefits. There is a long list of benefits and I thought it would be helpful to put it in a chart so you can see who is directly affected.

Owner	Operators	Occupants
Fewer change orders	Properly operating systems	Healthy indoor air quality
Reduced operating costs	Fewer occupant complaints	Comfortable working environment
Reduced construction costs	Training on all systems	Safer and more comfortable building
Fewer construction delays	Proper O&M manuals
Quick payback	Problems are discovered earlier
Lower maintenance costs

A great example of commissioning working correctly is the Adobe complex in San Jose. I recently took a tour of the buildings and they explained that when they originally finished their retrofit the building wasn’t producing the returns they were expecting. They had been through the whole commissioning process and done their energy modeling, but one thing they didn’t do is teach their operational people how to run the building properly. Once they educated their staff the building went from running at 50% efficient to well over 90%. This was an integral part to their 9.5 month ROI.

So it’s pretty clear that the upfront cost of commissioning will quickly be paid back throughout the construction process and definitely during the operation of the building.