Commercial HVAC

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ASHRAE announced that the Utah Legislature has passed HB 218-Construction Code Modifications, adopting the full commercial provisions of the 2018 International Energy Conservation Code and ASHRAE 90.1-2016.

For years, I worked for a mechanical contracting company that shifted its business plan from design-bid-build (DBB) project delivery to design-build (DB) project delivery. The move became very obvious as the optimum way to provide HVAC services.

Constructing a building takes an army. Designers, engineers, general contractors, flooring installers, HVAC contractors, plumbers, roofers, mappers, and surveyors are just a few of the blue-collar experts necessary to optimize a commercial building.  

Over the next 40 years, an estimated 2 trillion square feet of new and rebuilt building space will be constructed worldwide.

By its very nature, the engineering profession is based on the constant search for new and better ways of accomplishing a task; however, there also is a well-known human tendency to “do things the way we’ve always done them.”

Since 1914, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ (ASME’s) Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code (BPVC) has served as a worldwide model for assuring the safety, reliability, and operational efficiency of boilers. In July, ASME will release the 2019 version of its BPVC code, updating each of the “living document’s” 12 sections.

This month’s Facility File is based on a new 40,000-square-foot office building HVAC system using VRF heat pump equipment with a focus on the Back2Basics February test. The project will include two VRF systems, each serving approximately 20,000 square feet of space. The building will also have a 100 percent DOAS gas-fired rooftop HVAC system for ventilation to the occupants in the building.

In last month’s article, we discussed the topic of technology — when to use it and when not to. When we start to utilize technology on our projects, we tend to run into the concept of openness.

As demonstrated with manual winterization requirements last month (Winterization and Commissioning, January 2019), systems manuals should include more than a regurgitation of the BAS as-built documents. Not everything in a project is necessarily controlled by the BAS, and, believe it or not, some buildings are still constructed with no central BAS at all.