Commissioning: Understanding the Benefits and Making a Case

If you’re like many other facilities professionals listening to the arguments for and against building commissioning, more information may help you determine if the process is a worthy pursuit. The Building Commissioning Association (BCA), an Edmonds, WA-based consortium of professionals dedicated to developing a common, industry-wide understanding of what constitutes effective building commissioning, can help. In late April, the association released the white paper Commissioning for Great Buildings. A report written for BetterBricks.com by Nadine Lihach titled, Meticulous Study Makes the Case for Cost-Effective Commercial-Building Commissioning, was also released on the association’s website (www.bcxa.org) that same month.

These two releases detail building owners’ hesitancies toward commissioning and identify ways the process can be cost-effective - resulting in improved equipment lifetimes, reduced maintenance, fewer contractor call-backs, and other non-energy benefits. Lihach’s report shares the results from The Cost-Effectiveness of Commercial-Buildings Commissioning: A Meta-Analysis of Energy and Non-Energy Impacts in Existing Buildings and New Construction in the United States, a recently completed study undertaken by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The benefits of building commissioning are highlighted in the white paper, however, the BCA warns against believing in a one-size-fits-all approach. “What’s needed is a quality assurance process custom-made for each building and its problems. Commissioning does just that,” the paper explains.

To view the Commissioning for Great Buildings white paper, visit (www.bcxa.org/download/BCA_White_Paper_Cx.pdf). To read Nadine Lihach’s report titled Meticulous Study Makes the Case for Cost-Effective Commercial-Building Commissioning, visit (www.bcxa.org/download/CxCost-Effectiveness.pdf).

The full report, The Cost-Effectiveness of Commercial-Buildings Commissioning: A Meta-Analysis of Energy and Non-Energy Impacts in Existing Buildings and New Construction in the United States (Report No. 56637), based on results from a study conducted by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, is available at (http://eetd.lbl.gov/emills/PUBS/Cx-Costs-Benefits.html).