Building Commissioning

To ensure that building projects are completed impeccably with optimized mechanical and electrical systems and energy efficiency, building commissioning is an essential process to achieve that. NY Engineers plays an integral part in all types of building commissioning in collaboration with various stakeholders.

What is Building Commissioning?

Building commissioning is comprehensive quality assurance, analysis and documentation of mechanical and electrical systems in a building to ensure that they achieve the best performance at minimal costs to the owner. Commissioning takes into account OPR (Owner’s Project Requirements) and ascertain that all systems are designed, installed, and tested in accordance with the scope outlined in the OPR that serves as the Basis of Design.

Our engineers will draft a commissioning plan that encompasses all the systems such as your HVAC systems, water boiler, renewable energy systems, and sprinkler systems. This attempt is to ensure that all the systems work as designed and anticipated in the pre-design phase. Commissioning is an essential tool recommended for owners to save significant maintenance and energy costs. There are many benefits for commissioning buildings as we will elaborate later in this article.

Although there are a plethora of building commissioning types we advise owners to prioritize commissioning from the design phase as it is very much affordable.

Types of Building Commissioning

Types of building commissioning include fundamental commissioning, retro-commissioning, on-going commissioning, and enhance commissioning.

Fundamental commissioning

Fundamental commissioning basically entails a basic quality assurance process of ensuring that energy systems are designed, installed and calibrated to function as intended in the OPR. If you want to take your building for LEED rating system, fundamental commissioning is a mandatory prerequisite. It is not an extensive process at all. New York Engineers can quickly provide this elementary commissioning of buildings.

Enhanced commissioning

Enhanced commissioning is more extensive than fundamental commissioning. This type of commissioning is not really mandatory if you want to acquire LEED rating system credit. In enhanced commissioning, our engineers get involved from the early stages of the design process to ensure that all systems are incorporated as per your plan. Where necessary we will give our recommendations on how you can optimize these systems.

After undertaking enhanced commissioning, we will revisit your building after 10 months just before your warranty expires in 12 months period to ensure that everything is still intact and in a good operational condition.

Our commission entails the following:

A review of the owner’s project requirements and the basis of design
Drafting of commissioning scope in construction documents
Review of construction documents when the building is almost 95% complete
Development of operations and maintenance manual
A review of contractor submittals
Re-commissioning of energy systems 10 months of occupancy

Retro-commissioning

This type of building commissioning is best suited for existing buildings but it’s essentially the same as commissioning of a new building. Our engineer will review the available building systems against the original owner’s project requirements. Cost-wise, retro-commissioning is relatively expensive compared to the commissioning of a new building.

While reviewing the current systems, we will take into account at least a year’s cost of utility bills. Our goal is to optimize the systems so that you can save enormous costs in maintenance and energy. Our retro-commissioning will highlight the deficiencies in your current systems and flag them for maintenance. We provide an all-inclusive package where we can design, install and maintain mechanical and electrical systems.

The benefits of retro-commissioning include the following:

Optimized building systems
Reduced operational and maintenance costs
Improved functionality of the equipment
Lengthened building’s life cycle
Mitigation of underlying problems
Correcting of construction defects that occurred during design or construction
Improving overall performance

New York Engineers excels in retro-commissioning of all types of building and building systems. We are the best in reviewing existing structures and recommending the best solutions for them.

Recommissioning

You may wish to extend your building or add new equipment. Such an attempt may change the entire performance of your building and may also affect occupant conveniences. If a certain HVAC was designed for your initial design, for example, upon expansion it may not be sufficient to satisfy a new square area.

Recommissioning helps re-optimize building systems. This phase is best suited for buildings that have been in operation for several years and their equipment has been changed along the way. Our recommissioning process will create a balance with the systems. We still refer to the original owner’s project requirements when undertaking this process. If need be, we will recommend adjusting the systems or correcting underlying issues.

Ongoing commissioning

Ongoing commissioning, as the name says, it is continuous commissioning which is done at regular intervals. It is in other words referred to as the ongoing retro-commissioning wherein our engineer will revisit your apartment at specific time intervals to conduct commissioning. The number of time intervals depends on the building type. Typically, it can be once in a five year period.

Ongoing commissioning is actually beneficial to the building as it ensures that later additions of equipment are covered and if insufficient then the owner can adjust the systems. Our professional engineer delegated to do ongoing retro-commissioning will study your metering and analyze energy usage to compare it with the expected consumption as highlighted in the OPR.

Upon undertaking ongoing commissioning, we will continually update your commissioning plan and recommend changes where needed. We always keep our eyes focused on the Basis of Design and Owner’s Project Requirements. Furthermore, we will retrain your staff on how to operate updated systems.

Although building commissioning is not necessarily mandatory, it is strongly recommended for building owners who want to experience the massive benefits of undergoing this intensive quality-assurance process. We can help you understand the main benefits of this systemic process.

The primary goal of building commissioning is to ensure that the project is a success and meets all the specifications as outlined in the OPR, and the building’s performance is optimized in such a way that it saves energy costs, maintenance costs, and improves health and safety as well as the environment.

The points below highlights the further goals of this process:

Lengthen the performance of the building for its entire life cycle
Provide project end results that satisfy the owner
Prevent or get rid of systematic or structural problems at an early stage to avoid incurring costs
Verify if the systems were installed properly
Reduce maintenance and energy costs

The above goals are not all-inclusive. Our engineers will sit with you and highlight the goals of this thought-provoking process.

For this process to be a success, various stakeholders need to converge. These include architects, commissioning agents, designers, constructors, and building managers. Commissioning seldom become successful without the involvement of all the stakeholders. We liaise with all participants to ensure that everyone plays his or her role in a quest to get the best commissioning report.

Benefits of Building Commissioning

There are plenty of benefits in commissioning your building. Among others, building commissioning helps deliver a successful project that embodies reduced energy costs, reduced maintenance and operating costs, enhanced energy usage, healthy environment, and optimize building systems.

If occupants in a commercial building are living comfortably with optimized mechanical and electrical systems, the owner may benefit from increased productivity. We will endeavor to ensure that your building is optimized enough with no leaks.

Furthermore, building commissioning enables improved energy efficiency thus saving a residential or commercial building lots of money in the long run. It also enhances the surrounding environments. The costs of not commissioning the building could be exorbitant and may incur further costs of repairs.

New York Engineers can ensure that you reap all the benefits associated with commissioning of buildings in Chicago. Our intensive quality assurance process: building commissioning, takes the same approach as commissioning of ships in ensuring their optimal performance. To ensure that this process is a success, it should start from the pre-design (planning) all the way to the occupancy and operations. The process is done in the interest of the owner to ensure that project requirements are met and all the building systems are optimized to their best performance yet at affordable costs.

Building commissioning is a professional practice that needs professional commission agents to pursue. There is no doubt our engineers are fully equipped in this intensive quality assurance. The main benefit is that a commissioned building has fewer change orders, something that we strive to have for all our clients because change orders can be exorbitantly expensive.

What Drives Building Commissioning?

What drives building owners to end up choosing building commissioning? Is it really a worthwhile decision making? There are plenty of drivers to consider commissioning your building and these drivers may differ from one owner or building to the other. In some buildings, building commissioning turns out to be a critical consideration to avoid any downtime of the systems.

Government buildings, for instance, may prioritize efficiency on their energy use and so that could be the main driver why they consider this interactive process.

Below are some of the reasons owners opt for this quality assurance process:

Energy usage optimization
Acquisition of building performance rating systems
Building code compliance
Improvement of building performance
Occupants comfort, safety, and health
Environmental impact
Internal sustainability programs
Cost effective operating and maintenance costs

Many building owners we have helped are striving to get certifications through building performance rating systems. As we have indicated at the beginning, certifications such as LEED require fundamental commissioning to ensure that the building meets minimum criteria. We can help you achieve such certification in a short period of time.

The building performance rating system was developed to improve the design, construction, and performance of energy efficiency in buildings. They also enhance environmental conditions for occupancy purposes. If your building has been certified, it can include highly efficient lighting systems, solar photovoltaics, water, and other energy resource technologies. New York Engineers will strive to ensure that your building achieves these milestones.

Building commissioning is essentially a sophisticated quality assurance process that needs the expertise and experience from whichever commissioning agent you choose. Many may claim to excel in the process but the results prove otherwise.

The process needs the agent that is well-versed with the building systems on how to optimize them to save costs. Most importantly, the agent should be able to interpret the Owner’s Project Requirements and ensure that all systems are in accordance with the OPR. Typically, the agent should be a professional engineer who can read and interpret building designs and all its components to ensure efficient conducting of this process.

Moreover, the agent should have interpersonal skills to communicate effectively with other stakeholders in the process. This process needs construction teams, building owners, architects, MEP engineers, and commissioning agents to make it a success.

Before assigning any agent this task of building commissioning, ensure that they are experienced in your building type.

Why Choose NY Engineers?

With many years of experience and expertise, New York Engineers MEP Engineers have been performing building commissioning in a plethora of buildings in Chicago, New York, and other surrounding areas. Our engineers are well equipped with all the building systems and can thus provide the best results of the project in line with the OPR.

New York Engineers is home to architects, engineers, and other design professionals who can work in synergy to provide unrivaled building commissioning. There is, therefore, no need to bring other stakeholders in the process as we can achieve all that on your behalf.

What Makes Our Engineers Unique?

Our engineers understand the importance and repercussions of building commissioning. One of the repercussions of not having this process undertaken is change orders and they can be costly to the owner. We therefore strive to prevent such inconveniences. The process can prevent any structural problems. We provide all types of commissioning: retro, ongoing enhanced, fundamental, etc.

Building Commissioning

Reliable

Energy-Efficient

Cost Effective

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