we have a campus project where currently only the main building is undergoing certification. There are however some building services housed in the adjacent outbildings, which support the building functions. This raises the question whether these buildings need to be commissioned and subjected to other relevant prerequisites and credits, eg IEQ and EA credits.
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Gustavo De las Heras Izquierdo
LEED Expert185 thumbs up
April 18, 2016 - 2:13 pm
It is not mandatory to certify every building in your campus. Therefore I think it is also NOT mandatory to do perform commissioning activities in the non-certifying buildings.
Scott Bowman
LEED FellowIntegrated Design + Energy Advisors, LLC
LEEDuser Expert
519 thumbs up
April 25, 2016 - 12:29 pm
Jutta, it all depends on what you mean by "building services." If there is a boiler plant (for example) in another building that is feeding yours, that is fine. However, this then becomes a DES system. The energy model will need to follow the guide for DES, as will the commissioning. In this case, the commissioning would apply only to the equipment feeding the building being certified. The guide says that the system must have been commissioned in the last 2 years (I think). If you can tell me what services are in the adjacent buildings, I can give better guidance.
Jutta Berns
onwer and principalecocentric (pty) ltd.
130 thumbs up
April 26, 2016 - 5:06 am
Specifically the following buildings are being referred to;
1. Small guard house x3 (24 hour occupancy, for full campus)
2. Utility plant (with boiler but only for process load, not regularly occupied)
3. External warehouse (storing mainly pallets, not regularly occupied)
And for our further understanding if we can exclude them is it only because the project is registered as a campus?
Scott Bowman
LEED FellowIntegrated Design + Energy Advisors, LLC
LEEDuser Expert
519 thumbs up
April 27, 2016 - 2:54 pm
I am not as familiar with using the campus registration, so we may need someone else to chime in, but my understanding was that you work on campus wide credits, then you use them on individual projects for certification. Each project has a specified boundary and the boundaries are to join in a logical way.
However, if you are just doing NC for a single building on the campus, and not doing the campus certification process (confusing I know), you evaluate the scope based on the boundary. So, I doubt if the guard house would have to be commissioned. Same with the warehouse.
The utility plan BUILDING would not have to be commissioned, but if the plant develops hot water, steam, or chilled water for your building project, then those systems would need to have been commissioned per the DES guidelines. You also use the word "process", which can mean something used only for a manufacturing use, that would not be part of a LEED commissioning scope. Because language can mean a lot, I may not fully understand your situation.
Remember that you can always ask for a conference call with GBCI for a more in depth discussion.