Rebecca T. Ellis, P.E.

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.

If anyone has commissioned anything, it is very likely they have commissioned at least one VAV hot water reheat terminal unit.

I recently commissioned a project that involved replacing eighty 2-pipe, dual-temperature fan-coil units in a nearly 40-year-old high-rise condominium.