Commissioning arrangement check

Unmet conditions, which fail independently of the tier

• Designated after design development. The v5 prerequisite requires the owner to designate the commissioning provider by the end of design development, and the provider is to assist with the owner’s project requirements from predesign or as early as possible.
• Experience not evidenced. The v5 requirement is experience completing commissioning on at least two projects of equal or larger scope and complexity; the v4 clause about 10 months of occupancy is no longer in the text.

What it costs on this project, by two routes

Both figures below are the same published median applied to your own project. They disagree unless your project costs what the median project cost per unit area, and the size of the disagreement is the part worth looking at.

The two routes land 38% apart. A wide gap is not an error in either figure. It says this project costs more or less per unit area than the buildings in the sample, which is worth knowing before either number is quoted at anybody.

Basis: 643 buildings, new construction, LBNL 2009, costs as reported in the 2009 study. The medians are in US dollars per square foot and are applied here to whatever currency you entered, so treat the result as an order of magnitude rather than a quotation. Every figure is a floor: the dataset measures energy, and the deficiencies commissioning finds in fire systems, controls and access do not appear in a kilowatt figure. These medians are from the 2009 study, whose sample the 2020 update more than doubled, halving the savings estimate for existing-building work. In both studies the projects that report data at all tend to be the better-run ones, so neither sample represents the building stock.

What the prerequisite requires, and what each one is for

Eight additions, in the order the v5 prerequisite states them, on top of ASHRAE 90.1’s own commissioning requirements, which are not listed here. This is a reference list and not a questionnaire: you already know which of them your project does, and a tool that asked you and then told you back would not have worked anything out. What is here instead is what each one is for, which is the part that is hard to find.

• The provider assists in developing the owner’s project requirements from predesign, and reviews and updates them through design and construction

  v4 asked whether the requirements existed; v5 puts the provider inside their authorship from the start. The requirements must cover HVAC, service water heating, power, lighting, other equipment including on-site renewables, and the envelope, which is the first time the envelope is named in the prerequisite.

• During design, the provider reviews the basis of design against the requirements

  The cheapest finding in the process, and the one lost when the provider is designated late, which is why v5 keeps the end-of-design-development deadline.

• The provider attends at least one design meeting on mechanical, electrical and plumbing and one on the envelope, to discuss review comments and commissioning

  A review comment that is filed is not a review comment that is resolved. v5 requires the conversation, not only the document.

• During construction, the provider reviews submittals and substitutions for deviations that affect the requirements

  Substitution is where a design intent quietly changes. Nothing in v4 put the provider on that path.

• The provider attends milestone meetings at 50% and 100% construction completion

  Two fixed points where the provider is in the room by rule rather than by invitation.

• The provider performs a sample review, at least 10%, of completed contractor documentation for quality assurance and quality control

  A stated sampling floor. It is the one place in the prerequisite where verification of the contractor’s own records is quantified.

• For the envelope, the provider includes testing in the commissioning documents and witnesses a sample of tests (not required for Core and Shell)

  Envelope testing moves from an optional credit in v4 to the prerequisite in v5, which is the single largest change in scope.

• In the occupancy and operations phase, the provider develops an ongoing commissioning plan

  Moved from the enhanced credit into the prerequisite. It replaces v4’s current facilities requirements and O&M plan, which v5 removed from the prerequisite; what operations inherits under v5 is a plan for continuing to test, not a document set.

What operations inherits, and what it has to contain

v5 removed the current facilities requirements and operations and maintenance plan from the prerequisite. What operations inherits under v5 is the ongoing commissioning plan, moved in from the enhanced credit: a plan for continuing to test rather than a document set. The ten-item plan v4 required is still what the readiness check asks the receiving organisation to hold, because the need did not go away when the rating system stopped requiring it.