Consulting-Specifying Engineer - May 2008 - (Page 34) On my bookshelf Here’s a short list of HVAC-related references that I have frequently used during my career. ASHRAE Handbooks, Standards, and Guidelines ASME B31 Series Piping Codes ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code Babcock and Wilcox, Steam Cameron Hydraulic Data, Ingersol Rand, Sixteenth Edition Carrier System Design Manual Chemical Engineer’s Handbook, Perry and Chilton, Fifth Edition Cleaver Brooks Boiler Book Cooling Tower Information Index, Marley The Dehumidification Handbook, Cargocaire Engineering Corp. Engineering Design Manual, Bell & Gossett Fan Engineering, Buffalo Forge Co., Eighth Edition Handbook of Energy Systems Engineering, Wilbur Handbook of Practical Electrical System Design, McPartland, McPartland, Third Edition Heat Transfer, JP Holman Hydronic System Design and Operation, Irwin Hansen Industrial Ventilation, ACGIH Instrument Engineer’s Handbook, Bela G. Liptak LEED NC 2.2, USGBC Mark’s Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers, Baumeister, Avallone, Baumeister, Eighth Edition Mechanical Engineer’s Handbook, Lionel S. Marks, First Edition The National Electrical Code Handbook National Fire Protection Agency, National Fire Codes The Passive Solar Energy Book Spirax Sarco Steam Utilization, Hook-ups Trane Air Conditioning Manual Water Treatment Handbook, Nalco Corp. during the design. (I sometimes think that it would be good for engineers to work in construction and maintenance for a year or two to drive home the importance of this. Commissioning experience is good for this, too. A system that is poorly conceived will show many of its flaws during commissioning.) • Prepare equipment schedules that clearly convey the required characteristics of the equipment. Equipment schedules should either convey the unique nomenclature for each item of equipment on the project, or they should provide a naming system to be used. • Avoid redundancy and ambiguity in contract documents (also called opportunities for error or unfavorable interpretation). A pet peeve of mine is the use of the phrase “capable of.” (I think this never belongs in a specification without clarification. I have seen specifications like “The system shall be capable of field calibration of analog inputs.” This is ambiguous and arguably could be complied by a system requiring a special hardware tool or a software package that has not been specified, or provided.) • Quality control: This includes each designer, draftsman, spec writer, etc., selfchecking his or her own work by proofing and red line/yellow out, plus peer review of drawings and specifications, documentation of quality control with checklists, and similar measures as the size and complexity of the work demands. • Get to the field: HVAC engineers need to be involved in the construction of the work that they have designed, even if they are intimidated by it. This means getting out in the field to see it, and answering the questions that come in from the field. Too many young engineers get stuck in the rut of producing drawings and specs while a more experienced field person does the construction administration, with only minimal input from the actual design engineer. While it is better to learn from another’s mistakes, there is no substitute for having to deal with one’s own. That doesn’t mean hang an inexperienced engineer out to dry, but keep them involved, and let them get used to the communication. Engineers who are properly experienced in the field learn that sometimes when a question comes in, there are 10 people, plus rental equipment, standing by waiting for an answer to the tune of hundreds or thousands of dollars an hour. In these cases, it is important to drop work on next week’s design deadline long enough to restore the construction project to productivity. • HVAC engineers must be trained to know what the computer results should be, and not to blindly take them as gospel or use them as a substitute for field investigation and testing. While today’s engineering tools including great modeling and simulation tools, they are only as good as the input. I have seen things like take-offs made at the wrong scale result in huge errors that are hard to detect from the computer output, but easy to detect if an experienced engineer knows the usual range of the result. • In doing renovation work involving replacing, modifying, or extending an existing system, the best model that available is the system that is already there. A few well-conceived measurements can be worth a truckload of computer runs. • The “M” words—marketing and management: Many technically inclined engineers hate these, but at some point in their careers these are essential skills. Engineers need to be exposed to and responsible for budgets on their projects, and as soon as practical, involved in marketing and sales. This means training and experience in verbal and written communication, labor and expense estimating, and presentation skills. Scruby performs all elements of design and construction phase commissioning for mechanical, electrical, controls, and process systems as well as managing and mentoring others at Facility Dynamics. 34 Consulting-Specifying Engineer • MAY 2008
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