There are 50 units in a new rental apartment building for which the owner is seeking to achieve the credit for Enhanced Commissioning. Common areas do not pose a problem, but access to residential units might, especially 8-10 months after completion. Questions:
1. How many units should be subjected to commissioning tests, etc.
2. Should it be the exact same units that are tested just before the end of construction and post-construction?
3. May the units be occupied during the post-construction testing?
4. How many days are required to do post-construction testing in a unit?
You rely on LEEDuser. Can we rely on you?
LEEDuser is supported by our premium members, not by advertisers.
Go premium for
Dave Hubka
Practice Leader - SustainabilityEUA
LEEDuser Expert
540 thumbs up
February 10, 2014 - 5:27 pm
Sampling is based upon the owner's requirements but we tend to see 10-20% sampling rates as typical. This percentage increases as the number of deficiencies increase.
For our 8-10 month post occupancy visit we check all deficiencies identified during the intitial functional testing.
I'd suggest working with the owner to educate the residential occupants the benifits from your site work post-occupancy.
Scott Bowman
LEED FellowIntegrated Design + Energy Advisors, LLC
LEEDuser Expert
520 thumbs up
February 11, 2014 - 3:41 pm
John, I agree with David on the percentage. The range of 10% to 20% is a good one. The other criteria would be random (at least to the contractors, you can certainly have a plan, but you do not need to let them know it) and unique properties. Perhaps in your case there are units that have two exposures that might be more of an issue, or other systems that some units have that others do not.
To your second question, you are not thinking of the post occupancy visit correctly. We do not assume that more testing is required. The intent is to gather information from the operators on what has been happening and what issues there have been. David has a good suggestion, we also quickly discuss some of the major action items found during the commissioning, just to make sure that something has not reoccurred. This is also a great way to show how the action log can be used as a management tool. Often when something happens, it has happened before and the resolution during commissioning can be a great hint to what is going on at that time.
Normally the visit has a set duration agreed during the scope definition stage. Often we can do some testing on the day if an issue has risen, but more often than not we are going to help the owner and the contractor come up with a plan on how to address the issue and come to resolution. In general, on the projects we have been involved with, there were minor, easily fixed issues that came up during the warranty period, but they had more to do with device or equipment failure than operational problems (programing). Your results may be different!