In the April 2007 issue of AutomatedBuildings.com, our entire staff of contributing editors provided their thoughts on the radical changes needed in the building automation industry. They did what AutomatedBuildings.com does best: think out loud. It is this process, while using the power of the Internet, that enables us to inform, educate, change minds, and connect industry leaders to take this industry to the next level.
For several years now, I have had this vision for the building industry to combine the ATC sequence of operation with the FPT narrative because it just made good sense. After all, why should a client pay for the design engineer to write a sequence of operation and then pay a second time for a commissioning engineer to write it over again but in far more detail? At the same time, the commissioning business has grown with more and more people saying, “Yes, I can do that too” when it comes to writing these FPT’s. The problem with ATC and FPT’s is that there are no industry standards when it comes to writing either of these narratives, so how can we combine them into one format?
In 2006, a few very special people left us, and I think it
was that last person, a sales engineer in his eighties, whose obituary got me
thinking of all the people who have helped me over these past 42 years in the
building industry. Within that group of mentors, there were a select few that
really, really made a big difference and he was one that did so from a sales
engineer’s point of view.
The Automated Buildings
Industry is ready, willing, and able to bring real GridWise solutions to
GridWeek in Washington DC. “Many of the solutions to the shortfall in
electricity will come down to reducing demand especially at peak load times,
and much of this will happen in buildings through building automation.”
Last month, I talked
specifically about ASHRAE Guideline 0-2005, The Commissioning
Process and its owner’s project requirements document. As
quoted from the Guideline, the ASHRAE document “is
not definitive, but encompasses areas where there may be a variety of
approaches, none of which must be precisely correct.” I’d like to explore that
a bit more this month. How much latitude is there in the term “commissioning”
for new construction? If there are no approaches that are “precisely correct,”
are there any approaches that should be considered incorrect?