Rebecca T. Ellis, P.E.

In many buildings, there are isolated spaces with a continuous cooling load even when the buildings are unoccupied.

This month, I am continuing my series on commissioning “simple” HVAC equipment with hydronic unit heaters.

This month, I begin a few columns about technical commissioning issues.

If someone is special enough to spend millions of dollars to have a building custom-designed and constructed for their use, it is un-derstandable that they would expect perfection.

Most people in the major design and construction business understand that commissioning is a process by which a building’s systems are verified to function properly prior to acceptance by the owner.

Full-scale commissioning always starts in the design phase and includes at least one design review cycle.

Commissioning professionals, myself included, have always advocated the delay of systems acceptance by and turnover to the owner until the commissioning process is complete. In this sense, “complete” means the systems pass their functional performance tests and the owner’s operations staff has been properly trained.

Continuing last month’s topic of commissioning action lists (a.k.a. master issues logs, a.k.a. corrective action lists), I would like to focus on the items in those documents that deal with construction phase or acceptance testing “deficiencies.” 

Whether one calls it a commissioning action list, a master issues log, a deficiency list, a corrective action list, etc., every commissioning project includes a matrix of items needing attention by someone on the project team. This table is the responsibility of the commissioning professional to create, maintain, and share with the team.