-
Commissioning: it's an investment
You may think of commissioning, including hiring a commissioning agent, as an added cost—and it is. It’s likely to reduce your operational costs, however, by yielding 5%–10% improvements in energy efficiency and ensuring that facilities personnel know how to operate key building systems. It’s also a great way to catch mistakes like missing or incorrectly installed equipment, avoiding occupant complaints and callbacks, indoor air quality and thermal comfort problems, premature equipment failure, and litigation.
Commissioning (Cx1. Commissioning (Cx) is the process of verifying and documenting that a building and all of its systems and assemblies are planned,...
Step-by-step credit help
Got the gist of the LEED credit but not sure how to actually achieve it? LEEDuser gives step-by-step help. Members get:
- Checklists covering all the key action steps you'll need to earn the credit.
- Hot tips to give you shortcuts and avoid pitfalls.
- Cost tips to assess what a credit will actually cost, and how to make it affordable.
- Ideas for going beyond LEED with best practices.
- All checklists organized by project phase.
- On-the-fly suggestions on useful items from the Documentation Toolkit, Resources, and Credit Language.
-
Credit language straight from USGBC
Need to check up on the exact LEED credit language from the LEED Rating System on the fly? LEEDuser includes the verbatim language. Members get:
- Easy access to the official LEED credit language with just a couple of clicks.
- On the jobsite without your bulky LEED Reference Guide? Check up on the credit language details here.
- Credit language content is used by permission of the U.S. Green Building Council.
Your credit-by-credit reference library
Why waste time chasing down referenced standards and supporting resources when LEEDuser links you directly to the ones you need? LEEDuser has gathered all the best tools out there and organized them by credit for easy reference. Members get links to:
- Organizations that can give information or help on a credit.
- Standards or studies that are key reference points for credits and prerequisites.
- Articles that help explain important topics.
- Key documents or references for credit inputs.
- Software tools you can use to run calculations or simulations.
Documentation Toolkit
In the end, LEED is all about documentation. LEEDuser’s Documentation Toolkit saves you time and helps you avoid mistakes with:
- Calculators to help assess credit compliance.
- Tracking spreadsheets for materials purchases.
- Spreadsheets and forms to give to subs and other team members.
- Guidance documents on arcane LEED issues.
- Sample templates to help guide your narratives and LEED Online submissions.
- Examples of actual submissions from certified LEED projects.
8 Comments
Enhanced Commissioning Action Steps
We are afraid we will get denied out submittal for enhanced commissioning because we didn't follow the process step-by-step as defined above in the "Action Steps". The project was very straight forward and small (10,000 SF) and we decided to bring the CxAThe commissioning authority (CxA) is the individual designated to organize, lead, and review the completion of commissioning process activities. The CxA facilitates communication among the owner, designer, and contractor to ensure that complex systems are installed and function in accordance with the owner's project requirements. on board after the 50% CD point. We essentially completed all the requirements for the enhanced commissioning credit, it just so happens that they are a little out of order when compared to the "Action Steps" above. Do you see us getting denied this credit?
How far after the 50% CDs did the CxAThe commissioning authority (CxA) is the individual designated to organize, lead, and review the completion of commissioning process activities. The CxA facilitates communication among the owner, designer, and contractor to ensure that complex systems are installed and function in accordance with the owner's project requirements. come on board? As long as s/he reviewed your docs before 100% completion, so you had the opp to benefit from that review, I expect you should be OK.
Anyone else care to hazard a prediction? Let us know what happens!
We have also had instances like this, and the clients worked with us to address any comments we had in the review, unfortunately they are still working their way through the system. We were very careful to manage our clients expectation, that we could not ensure acceptance by GBCI, but that there was still value in the process above just points.
We will let this forum know as they get submitted.
Garrett,
Did you already submit this credit to GBCI? It is often helpful, when approaching a credit not exactly as perscribed, to include a short narrative stating your reasons for deviations. Though this will not gaurentee you a positive outcome, and as Scott said, you should manage expectations just in case.
Nadav - We submitted Mech drawings (permit set) to the City, but they weren't 100%. A week or two after the submittal the LL, cxaThe commissioning authority (CxA) is the individual designated to organize, lead, and review the completion of commissioning process activities. The CxA facilitates communication among the owner, designer, and contractor to ensure that complex systems are installed and function in accordance with the owner's project requirements. and client completed their review. So, technically the cxa did review before 100%. Our fear is that the GBCI will consider the permit set 100%, but it seems like that might not be an issue if we probide a good narrative. Thanks for the feedback.
Scott - We will work with the client to manage the expectation, I'm interested to hear how your submittal goes. Good luck.
Emily - We haven't submitted yet, but I agree with your suggestion to craft a short narrative explaining the our situation. Thanks for the feedback.
When was your bid set issued? It is pretty common to submit a permit set before the project drawings (and even decisions) are complete. It is common for our projects to have separate bid and permit sets and we tie the LEED deadlines to the bid set without problems.
applying for the Certification before or after the 10 months
My doubt is if it´s possible to Certificate a building with the Operation and Maintenance Manual made by the CxAThe commissioning authority (CxA) is the individual designated to organize, lead, and review the completion of commissioning process activities. The CxA facilitates communication among the owner, designer, and contractor to ensure that complex systems are installed and function in accordance with the owner's project requirements., or if it´s needed to wait the 10 months required for the Enhanced Commissioning.
Would someone help me with this?
Thank you.
You don't have to wait till the review after 8-10 months. You can even submit for certification with the commissioning report still in progress. However you will have to provide a contract showing that you have contracted the CxAThe commissioning authority (CxA) is the individual designated to organize, lead, and review the completion of commissioning process activities. The CxA facilitates communication among the owner, designer, and contractor to ensure that complex systems are installed and function in accordance with the owner's project requirements. to do the work and the reviewer might asked for the completed commissioning report in between the reviews.
Please register to use the forum.