Cx and contractors

Jean-Baptiste Noel

ESD Operations Manager

Green & Global Consulting Pte. Ltd.

LEEDuser Basic Member

4 thumbs up

March 26, 2013

Hi all, Our current project is a Design & Build, for which the MEP contractors are required to hire a third party to commission their systems (so each MEP will probably have a different company responsible for their Cx). As this is a current practice locally, is this acceptable for EAp1 and EAc3? If not, is it possible for the Owner to hire a third party CxA to coordinate the other commissioning results? Thanks.

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Scott Bowman

LEED Fellow

Integrated Design + Energy Advisors, LLC

LEEDuser Expert

377 thumbs up

Tue, 04/02/2013 - 14:24

There is a very good table in the BD+C Reference Guide that answers these kinds of questions. Look at Table 2 on page 221 of the guide. Good practice would not have the CxA be contracted through the mechanical or electrical contractors, the connection is just too close. There are ways for EAp1 to be completed by disinterested employees of the construction team to do the commissioning, but that is clear for projects under 50,000 sf. On projects larger than 50,000 sf, they add the phrase “Disinterested employee of subcontractor of general contractor or construction manager”, so I would interpret that for larger projects, it could not be the MEP contractor, but the GC or CM could provide that work…again for fundamental only. The best option is to have the owner or architect contract with a third party CxA for the total project. That will bring the best value, the best results, and at a lower cost than having several CxAs involved.