Articles by Rebecca T. Ellis, P.E.

Proper air and water balancing is critical to HVAC system performance.

The following is a question posed in a recent Request for Proposal (RFP) for commissioning services.

In December 2013, this Commissioning column addressed the challenges posed by controls contractors who “cut and paste” the design engineer’s sequences of operation into the controls submittal.

HVAC systems can do amazing things these days — things that were unthinkable even 20 years ago.

When I started building systems commissioning 25 years ago, it did not take long to figure out that more was needed to confirm that the commissioned systems were complete and ready for testing than just the general contractor’s word for it.

Over the past two months, this column has addressed the issue of sampling systems for field functional performance testing

Last month, this column addressed the need for (and philosophy behind) sample testing certain systems when 100% functional performance testing (FPT) is impractical from a time and/or budget perspective.

In the standard commissioning process, there are two primary technical activities that occur on site at the end of construction and prior to systems acceptance by the owner.

This column is a continuation of last month’s topic addressing the coordination that needs to be focused solely on HVAC controls during the construction phase of a project.

HVAC systems continue to be the most challenging part of a new construction project to get right the first time, and the most challenging parts of the HVAC systems are their controls. I believe there are two root causes.