ASHRAE Journal - August 2008 - (Page 22)

electrical consultant ﬁrst received drawings. The size of the a much better set of owner project requirements and a much equipment rooms would also have been decided, subject to better understanding of the long term energy implications of some small amount of negotiation. alternatives. A collaborative or integrated design process is essential if a We need to take our message to organizations that serve the building is to be designed and operated as a high-performing needs of owners, such as BOMA, IFMA and APPA. These building. We can simply no longer afford to decide building ori- messages need to be delivered at the global level, but need entation, fenestrations, shading and overhangs without feedback to reinforced by our local chapter members meeting with the from the mechanical consultant documenting the energy impact local chapters of these organizations. Our chapters are ideally of those decisions. Neither can we accept a cramped equipment suited to carry our message, and our chapter members must room that prevents effective maintenance and causes inefﬁcient play the leading role in establishing ASHRAE as the owners’ duct design, both of which plague a building for its entire life. trusted advisor on building energy issues. Our message must go Collaborative, integrated design processes are essential if we far deeper in the owners’ organization than the executives and are to truly reach our sustainability goals. These processes must facility managers. While business leaders set policy, operating go beyond the initial energy performance of the building and personnel implement those policies. All too often, the policies consider the effect the building design will have on energy over are interpreted through an obsolete set of personal prejudices. the entire life of the building. EquipI don’t know any operators who drive ment rooms and duct spaces must be to work in the morning thinking large enough to allow efﬁcient duct about “how can I waste more energy designs and good maintenance actoday?” However, many go to work We can’t blame operators who cess for equipment. without the technical knowledge were trained on systems in the The same bar riers that have required to conserve energy every plagued our design and construcday. We can’t blame operators who 1980s when they operate today’s tion processes for generations, time were trained on systems in the 1980s systems to produce 1980 results. and money, now stand in the way when they operate today’s systems of a collaborative integrated design to produce 1980 results. Our chapprocess. In the years of rapid ecoters must accept the challenge of nomic growth during the second half of the twentieth century, delivering educational programs to a broad base of operating command and control management was mandatory as business personnel to equip them to be effective in a sustainable world. opportunities were almost unlimited. Businesses struggled to We are introducing new and innovative sustainable products control their growth to a level that did not outstrip capital re- and systems every week. We must accept the task of educatsources. We evolved into an industry dominated by a ﬁrst-cost ing the people who operate these sophisticated systems in the mentality. Energy was cheap, appeared to be unlimited, and technical fundamentals that will enable them to make good the ﬁrst cost, appearance and functionality of buildings over- decisions. ruled energy considerations. In many cases, engineers could As I travel and present programs to ASHRAE members be considered to be evil enablers as we designed overpowering around the world, I frequently advocate early and comprehensive HVAC systems that made some really bad buildings habitable, energy modeling during a collaborative design process. An ideal but at a terrible energy cost. case would be for a design team to establish an energy budget Achieving sustainability for ASHRAE members today means early in the project and then to model the energy performance that we must deliver our message to building owners. Owners of the building as the design evolves. After one of these presenmust be educated so that they can evaluate building decisions tations it is not unusual for someone in the audience to point based on life-cycle costing. Investors know how to evaluate the out that many business arrangements used by our consulting cost of the ﬂoor plate lost to a larger equipment room. Our job engineers do not provide compensation for doing that work. I is to show them how to evaluate the cost of not having acces- also advocate that design engineers develop a comprehensive sible equipment with efﬁcient duct transitions. Owners look narrative describing how building systems function and how to someone to be their energy advisor. Too often, engineers they should be operated for maximum efﬁciency. This narrative delegate the transmission of energy information to others in the will form the basis for a training program that is part of the design chain, and the message becomes garbled or is delivered permanent record for the building. in an ineffective manner. Energy decisions need to be made by The narrative is important because operating personnel move owners in a collaborative process with full participation by the around, and this document will allow the new operators to gain project mechanical and electrical engineers. understanding to maintain building energy performance. It is One primary path for effective communication to owners likely that many practitioners’ reaction to this recommendation is through commissioning agents. When ASHRAE commis- will be the same as for energy modeling: there is no design sioning guidelines are used, owners working collaboratively budget for that work. We need to recognize that owners must with a design team and a commissioning agent will develop be educated to the reality that designing high-performance 22 ASHRAE Journal ashrae.org August 2008 http://ashrae.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of ASHRAE Journal - August 2008

ASHRAE Journal - August 2008 Contents Commentary Industry News Letters Meetings and Shows Maintain to Sustain—Delivering ASHRAE’s Sustainability Promise Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation: Current Best Practices Improving Humidity Control With Energy Recovery Ventilation Single- or Two-Stage Compression Data Center Cooling: Using Wet-Bulb Economizers Building Sciences InfoCenter Practical Pointers Products Emerging Technologies Washington Report People Special Products Classified Advertising Advertising Index

ASHRAE Journal - August 2008

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