Commissioning

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When every project and system is unique, there may not be a “correct” time.

In the commissioning specification, the owner made the general contractor responsible for the cost of retesting required due to deficiencies discovered during initial functional performance testing.

Commissioning is far from being “business as usual” in the design and construction world. I was reminded of this fact recently when a building owner expressed the expectation that the commissioning professional would be responsible for subcontractor coordination, workflow planning, and installation start-up scheduling.

Last month, this column acknowledged the fact that some projects do not have written Owner’s Project Requirements (OPR) documents for the commissioning professional to reference.

The Owner’s Project Requirements document (OPR) is a commissioning industry standard.

Over the past two months, this column has focused on the building owner’s role in obtaining meaningful and timely training on new equipment and systems installed as part of major capital projects. O&M training is one of the most challenging parts of the commissioning process to do well.

The commissioning professional should facilitate at least one design phase meeting with representatives of the O&M trainees, preferably including some future trainees themselves.

O&M staff training has always been a key component of new or renovated building systems commissioning.

In May’s column, I detailed the benefits to the owner of defining and enforcing a standard VAV terminal unit control sequence.

Last month, this column addressed the fact that VAV terminal units are substantially more “variable” than even their name implies.