For Owners
The Process of Commissioning
Cobeal helps you take the necessary steps to optimize the efficiency of your building's systems, to implement water conservation measures, and to reduce environmental impacts.
There is a good chance your building systems are not operating at their peak efficiency. The reasons for this are many, including:
- Changes to the use of the building
- Different climate conditions than when the building was designed
- "Temporary" control overrides that were not reset back to normal
- Piecemeal replacement of equipment due to breakdowns over the years
Cobeal's commissioning services ensure that your systems are in proper working order
- Cobeal works with you to create a Commissioning Plan at the same time project performance requirements are determined.
- The focus of commissioning efforts are intended to be appropriate to a project's size, complexity, its mission, and an owner's risk management strategy.
- After determining the essential project performance requirements, goals for project quality, efficiency, and functionality can be established, and the commissioning plan can be developed.
Commissioning Costs
- Commissioning Costs are the first question every owner asks. These costs can range widely and are dependent upon many factors including a building's size, complexity, and whether the project consists of building renovation, modernization, or new construction and the scope for the commissioning services. In general, the cost of commissioning new buildings ranges from 0.5% (percent) of the total construction cost for relatively simple projects such as office buildings to 1.5% (percent) for complex laboratories and medical facilities. Contact Cobeal for additional information on Building Commissioning Costs.
- Key factors that can have a direct impact in developing a commissioning budget include:
- When the commissioning process starts (during design, construction, or post-construction)
- The number and complexity of systems to be commissioned
- The level of detail required during the commissioning process (equipment start-up, verification tests, spot checking the balancing report, etc.)
- Deliverables (design intent document, number of design reviews and revisions, commissioning plan, O&M manual review, final report)
- Type of project (design-bid-build, design-build, plan and spec, retrofit, etc.)
Establishing Commissioning Schedules for Your Building
- Cobeal works closely with the project team to integrate commissioning activities into the overall planning, design and construction schedule, to keep commissioning activities aligned with project scope and goals, and to carry out site inspections with a focus on systems performance, operations and maintenance.
- A commissioning schedule is developed as a section of (or appendix to) a commissioning plan and is updated throughout the project.
- The objective of scheduling commissioning activities is to integrate and coordinate them with other planning, design and construction phase activities.
- Detailed integration of commissioning activities and tasks with the overall project schedule is critical to maintaining project milestones.
- Download the ASHRAE GL-0 2013 Figure - Commissioning Process Flowchart - below for a visual understanding of how commissioning activities and tasks relate to typically occurring project activities.
RETURN TO PROJECT COMMISSIONING
Best Practices
