The key to maintaining energy-efficient and sustainable buildings
Why do so many buildings very quickly stop working as intended — if, indeed, they ever worked as intended? It’s an issue that has vexed Mike Malina for years.
There are three key components, which in conjunction will ensure we can achieve and maintain energy-efficient, sustainable buildings. These are an integrated energy-management and controls system, a planned preventative maintenance regime and a programme of continuous commissioning.
So many buildings I survey have either not been commissioned properly or have been progressively decommissioned over time by the building users. People ‘fiddling’ with controls or making poor decisions as they rearrange their workspace are key issues. These can sometimes be accompanied by an absence of a well designed maintenance process and regime — including a lack of checks to periodically test the correct operation and function of the building services.
In fact, the whole activity of commissioning is often much misunderstood within the construction industry and by building operators, including facilities managers. Too many people in the industry think of commissioning as something that happens and finishes at the end of the construction process. This, in essence, is why things can go drastically wrong.
Many buildings are not performing as intended, simply because they were not commissioned properly in the first place. Therefore, unless they go through a process of recommissioning, they are never going to function properly. So why is this all too often the case?
What tends to happen is that the construction processes over-run due to other contracting pressures or delays and design changes. This can have a detrimental effect on commissioning. Even if the commissioning period was originally intended to run for several months, because the main contractor and/or the client wants the project finished in time, there will be an attempt to get the commissioning done in perhaps a third of the time originally allocated.
This leads to rushed or half-hearted attempts to get things working first time. Any process that is rushed will always lead to inaccuracies; with mechanical and electrical components, this leads to services that do not perform properly.
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| Correct air flow is a key element of delivering energy efficiency and comfort. |
In the operation of a building, every process is interlinked. The work of the contractor, controls and commissioning specialists all affect the ultimate efficiency and energy use of the building. Knowing this, why do facilities managers and organisations cut their maintenance budgets?
The short answer: it’s easy to do. An initial budget of, say, £200 000 could be reduced to £150 000 at the stroke of a pen. It’s all too tempting for people to do this, but is far too simplistic to be a robust solution to any issue.
The problem is that the decision makers often don’t have the knowledge to understand the consequences of their chosen course of action. Beyond what the facilities manager can influence, it can be a case of senior managers often making decisions with extremely damaging effects. In the short term no obvious or immediate impact may be seen. However, over the longer term there will inevitably be problems. The efficiency of the building’s operations will suffer, and utility bills will be elevated as the building becomes less energy efficient.
This is where commissioning and maintenance specialists need to up their game and lead a fightback to raise awareness and educate a wide range of people. In particular, those in charge of running the building or making the decisions, such as facilities managers, must be educated.
Commissioning should not be a one-off activity that occurs only when a new building is completed or an existing one refurbished. The way a building is used can have a dramatic effect on the performance of the various systems operating in it.
Now that more complex shared systems have evolved, these problems can be exacerbated by the natural churn that occurs in the average office environment. Internal office partitioning might be moved, which can lead to entire offices being without air conditioning or ventilation — or both!
I have over the course of years of surveys, audits and inspections, found air vents outside of an office space because of this redesign of internal partitioning. Successive office reorganisations can sometimes lead to chaos in the delivery of building services, with these systems often overlooked!
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Effective commissioning includes the on-site validation and measureme of flow rates. |
The individual systems throughout this process should be commissioned to ensure maximum energy efficiency. A key part of this process is to make sure that commissioning specialists are used. They can provide the proper testing and commissioning that is required to effectively put in place all the building engineering facilities.
It is vital to put a lot emphasis on getting all the systems working together. Good commissioning takes an holistic view and works for integrated and interdependent systems. This is the chance to get the building set up correctly first time, with appropriately skilled engineers and technicians. There is unlikely to be an opportunity again in the life of the building, where the correct people are able to put the building through its paces without it affecting the people in occupation.
The commissioning process sets up everything for the future with regard to the on-going maintenance regime.
Continuous commissioning and planned preventative maintenance run well together. To organise and record these processes, we need the building log book, which will be the single document with all references to operation and maintenance manuals (O&Ms), the original commissioning test sheets, the design and operation strategy for the building, and the continuous checks that need to be made.
The commissioning of fixed building services is covered in Regulations 40 and 44 of the Building Regulations and referred to in Approved Documents L2A and L2B Part L 2010, specifically stating: ‘Reasonable provision for commissioning is to prepare a commissioning plan based on the guidance in CIBSE Commissioning Code M. Commissioning should be checked against that plan. Commissioning and testing of building systems is to be signed-off by a suitably qualified person (e.g. a competent person) and a commissioning certificate supplied to the building control officer.’
There has been a systemic failure in joined-up thinking between sustainability and maintenance. In many buildings I have visited, I have found a well meaning facilities manager announcing a new green initiative, only to find that the campaign ignores the central elements of maintenance. We need to change this culture.
It is clear that a sustainable building must operate at best possible performance if it is to function correctly, be energy efficient, and create an optimally adjusted and beneficial indoor climate for its occupants. Any shortcuts or cutbacks to maintenance fly in the face of sustainability. The need for standards and legislation to underpin and raise the importance of continuous commissioning and maintenance has never been greater. Making the link between these tasks and energy efficiency is crucial in ensuring that we deliver a continuous programme of energy-efficient and sustainable buildings.
Mike Malina is director of Energy Solutions Associates and the author of ‘Delivering sustainable buildings’ published by Wiley-Blackwell. Readers of Modern Building Services can get a 20% discount using this code VBB09 at goo.gl/LEnYF
