New Construction Commissioning
Com•mis•sion(ing)
ASHRAE: A quality oriented process for achieving, verifying and documenting that the performance of facilities, systems, and assemblies meets defined objectives and criteria.
All new or renovation building programs can benefit from some level of commissioning.
For complex building types with highly integrated building systems, formal
building commissioning processes will provide compounding benefits.
The basic goal of commissioning is to assist in the delivery of a project that provides an Efficient, Safe and Healthy facility.
Benefits:
- Optimizes energy use
- Reduces operating costs
- Ensures adequate O&M staff orientation and training
- Improves installed building systems documentation
- Improved occupant workplace performance due to higher quality environments
- Reduced risks from threats and prevention of business losses.
The Bottom Line
Research shows owners who commission can achieve savings in operations of $4 over the first five years of occupancy as a direct result of every $1 invested in commissioning — an excellent return on investment.
Recent case studies conducted in private sector facilities have shown that the Building Commissioning Process can improve new building energy performance by 8% to 30%*.
*National Institute of Building Sciences
Total Building Commissioning Experience
System WorCx uses an integrated building system approach to ensure that the building systems are coordinated during design and working together during operation, through all operating scenarios and seasons. Our capabilities extend to building envelope commissioning.
Our experience and our philosophy is ‘hands-on.” We get our hands dirty ensuring that systems work, whether in testing, troubleshooting, or just looking.
Our end result is a building that works, not just systems that work.
Design Involvement
We view our role as commissioning provider a critical one during design, and as such we take an active role in the development of the design. We are a strong supporter of the integrated design team approach, and see our role as collaborative rather than oversight. We accomplish this through multiple integrated design team meetings, assistance to Owners in developing Owner’s Project Requirements, assistance to Designers in developing Basis of Design documents, formal design reviews and followup review sessions, and provision of commissioning specifications.
Construction and Occupancy Involvement
Commissioning cannot be implemented effectively from afar. It requires frequent site visits to catch problems early and
work with the project team to both avoid and resolve problems. Our goal is to find solutions, not issues. The complexity of this project warrants a great deal of observation and attention, and we choose to stay very involved in the project.
Superior Service
While many firms employ a “sampling” strategy for commissioned systems, We practice a 100% Verification and choose to observe and review all equipment. We have found this to be very beneficial to Owners since the sampling strategy often misses problematic components or equipment. We create customized construction checklists and functional test procedures for each project, and use our own special test equipment and data loggers as needed to ensure complete functional performance testing of systems. We verify all systems are installed properly, then we conduct all functional testing with assistance by the construction team.
Follow – Up
Our involvement does not end at occupancy, because not all issues can be found during construction. We spend frequent time after occupancy following up on issues, conducting occupant interviews, reviewing trending, and performing opposed‐season commissioning.
Why 100% Verification?
Inevitably Sampling will miss some issues. Whether we’re working on a Commercial Interiors project (tenant up-fit) and find the spaces are not correctly connected to the main terminals or one program code in a new hospital center is incorrect, throwing off a stream of problems affecting several systems and functions, we understand, and our clients realize, the value of finding the problem and fixing it the first time around is well worth the initial investment.
Finding, diagnosing and fixing the problem after the fact
inevitably will cost significantly more than if these were found in
the design or construction phases.
Our experience is second to none.
All of our staff has years of direct, practical experience both in the field and in the office. Our president has been commissioning complex projects for more than 20 years and that doesn’t include our teams additional years of experience with intricate designs and systems, including nuclear and chemical, laboratory, hospitals, commercial, residential, university, educational, and other specialty facilities.
Additionally, our president is hands on and understands the challenges a job site faces. An often overlooked, incredibly valuable asset is the ability to develop interpersonal relationships with the entire project team. We understand how important the intricate relationships between all parties are and respect them while working together to solve an issue.