ASHRAE Journal- September 2008 - 12

In the August issue, ASHRAE President Bill Harrison’s theme “maintain to sustain” is very much on topic. Technology transfer using commissioning systems manuals and other training vehicles will be essential to success. Shifting this paradigm will take leadership, energy and impetus at many levels. It is interesting where the challenges lie. Bill touched on many of them in his address. I will echo his remarks with additional examples. • O&M manuals consist of vendor data, and construction documents consist of fabrication data. However, systems manuals or similar documents are needed to foster operating knowledge. We are one of the few, if not only, industries where vendor and fabrication data are used to manage complex systems. A buyer receives an operating manual when purchasing a car. Servicing is done with real maintenance and repair manuals, not vendor data on the battery or fabrication data on the steering column. • Education and training are different functions. Although learning to navigate a controls systems or gaining an understanding of superheat is educational and important, it is much different from learning how specific systems are configured or how they operate within a facility. We need to communicate and demonstrate how facility-specific systems operate. We need to show where the valves are hidden. Maybe the glorious 3-D model that won the project can be updated to show the project as it was built. • Financial segmentation is a serious challenge. Utility budgets with a Chinese wall separating them from operations and maintenance budgets yield significant legitimate resistance to change or improvement. For example, if you implement a $100 energy savings project that has a $20 O&M cost (yielding a net savings of $80), it would be a no-brainer to do the project. However, if the utility budget captures the entire $100 while O&M experiences a $20 budget penalty, smart O&M people will be quick to show you the door. • “The Hard Facts about Soft Costs” is what I have long called the deterioration of professional time invested in our industry. A business model that invests a percent of capital cost for professional services will ignore technology and construction productivity gains that are juxtaposed to legitimate increases in professional salaries. The result is reduced professional time. Commissioning can reintroduce professional time to a project, but to yield significant gains we need to listen to Bill and invest in all of our profes12 ASHRAE Journal Comments on ‘Maintain to Sustain’ sionals. On a fixed price, percent-based contract, where is the incentive to reduce HVAC or electrical infrastructure, increase complexity and capture the sustainability gains offered to us by technology? In such an environment, the costs and risks are significant. Revenues could be reduced (smaller chiller, smaller percent, smaller fee). Costs could be increased (more complex, more options, more time, more cost). Liability could be increased (fewer hours, less oversight, new technology, low bid contract, undereducated installer and operator). Why would any entrepreneur even get into this business? Bill touched on each of these items in his article. He is right. Wayne A. Dunn P.E., Member ASHRAE, Jacksonville, Fla. I read with interest the August 2008 issue of the ASHRAE Journal, including Mr. Harrison’s Presidential Address, and notice some disconnects in this issue. Mr. Harrison’s address offered some good ideas and related some all too common problems with poor design, poor construction, poor maintenance, and how this costs real money in the long run. He concluded his article with a call to stop wasting energy. Then, on Page 14 there was a short announcement that McQuay International was awarded a contract to supply cooling equipment for a large complex in Barawa City, Qatar, with a total capacity of 38,000 tons of cooling. I’m in favor of good design, good construction, and good maintenance for any project, but one problem that plagues all engineers is that we only get paid for designing solutions to problems (like supplying 38,000 tons of cooling to a planned development in the desert), but we do not get paid for advising potential clients that their plans are not well thought out, wasteful of scarce resources, or will not solve their perceived problem. Mr. Harrison touches on this truth when he notes that some companies that offer retrocommissioning services do not share their proprietary information with others (presumably at no cost to others), and when he notes later in the article that clients do not budget and pay for energy modeling of new designs. Few businesses that give away their product stay viable for long. Even ASHRAE sells its various publications, instead of simply publishing them on the Internet for all to use at no charge. ASHRAE apparently needs the income to support its ongoing missions, just as other businesses need income to support their owners and employees. Put simply, engineers are not valued for their expertise, September 2008 ashrae.org

ASHRAE Journal- September 2008

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ASHRAE Journal- September 2008