Dear all,
Regarding the Commissioning Authority, if aiming to do Enhanced Commissioning, can the CxA be part of the LEED Consultant team, considering that the team has been involved in providing consultancy to the design team? Also, we understand that there can be a team involved in the commissioning process since we have one person that coordinates all commissioning work, but does this Cx coordinator needs to have all commissioning expertise or can it be split between the team? I mean: can the Cx coordinator be an expert in HVAC commissioning but not, for instance, have 10 month experience in commissioning in occupied buildings, in envelope commissioning or any other systems, considering that together the Cx team responds to all commissioning requirements?
Thank you in advance.
All the best
Marcus Sheffer
LEED Fellow7group / Energy Opportunities
LEEDuser Expert
5909 thumbs up
August 25, 2016 - 2:10 pm
Yes they can be part of the LEED consulting team.
Yes it can be a team. They do not need to have all the expertise but one person does need to oversee the Cx work.
The envelop Cx can be another party and the Cx coordinator does not need to have that expertise.
These issues are thoroughly spelled out in the Reference Guide.
Isabel Santos
ECOCHOICE SA2 thumbs up
August 26, 2016 - 7:29 am
Thank you Marcus, that was what we thought.
Scott Bowman
LEED FellowIntegrated Design + Energy Advisors, LLC
LEEDuser Expert
519 thumbs up
August 29, 2016 - 6:16 pm
It is the CxA who is the one to manage the expertise needed for each aspect of the project. When we had a larger team, we used the term Commissioning Authority to designate what in design would be a Project Manager. Then we had several Commissioning Agents assigned for various aspects of the technical work. Much like in the design world, we had younger engineers acting as Agents until they gained enough experience to become Authorities!
We also used sub-consultants as needed if expertise was not in-house. There are times when very specialized knowledge is needed to do the right job, such as envelope or other unique systems. This should all be spelled out in the commissioning plan.