PBH Weatherization Project

Back in 2010 I lead a project to work with Harvard students to weatherize the Philips Brooks House. It was a great project with over 50 students attending (including the woman who is now my wife, a post-doc at HSPH at the time) and lots of energy saved. The case study won AASHE's first Campus and Student Sustainability Award for “Best Campus Case Study”. Before the big day, I reached out to Jim Merchant of Pirates Lane (http://pirateslane.com/) who agreed to attend and prepare a video. While looking for something else today I ran across the video and was saddened to see that it had far fewer views than my last cat video (our cat Magilla Glub Glub has a Facebook page). Anyway, with that in mind, I'm sharing the case study and link to the video here. Special thanks to the Green Building Services team for all of their work before, during and after the event. Enjoy.

Case Study on AASHE site:
http://www.aashe.org/resources/case-studies/phillips-brooks-house-student-weatherization-project

Video (about 10 minutes long):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YftpU-fkahU

Phillips Brooks House Student Weatherization Project

Institution(s)

Harvard University

Author(s)

Nathan Gauthier, Assistant Director, Office for Sustainability, Harvard University
       

Project Overview

On May 2nd, more than 50 Harvard students took a break from studying for finals and picked up caulk guns to help improve the energy efficiency of the Phillips Brooks House in Harvard Yard. The project was a collaboration between the Office for Sustainability, the Phillips Brooks House Association, the student Environmental Action Committee, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Green Program. Student labor was used to implement 23 weatherization projects in the building. The project is estimated to save more than 9 tons of CO2 equivalent and nearly $4,000 in utility costs annually.

Background

The project was initiated when students from the Environmental Action Committee (EAC) approached the Office for Sustainability and Faculty of Arts and Sciences Green Program asking if there was a way to involve students in a weatherization project similar to what is done by Cambridge Home Energy Efficiency Team (http://heetma.com/). The OFS team toured the building and identified nearly 40 practical energy conservation measures for the Phillips Brooks House, which is a 12,800 square foot, 100 year old, brick building. OFS then designed a program to work with students and issued a proposal to the FAS Office of Planning and Physical Resources to work with EAC students to plan and execute a student-lead weatherization event that would significantly improve the building's performance while engaging students in the process.

Project Goals

The primary goal of the project was to engage students and help them feel empowered to make a positive change on their campus. OFS and FAS wanted students to feel vested in the University's greenhouse gas reduction goal and to encourage them to do their part. The students wanted to have their contributions acknowledged and be exposed to the nuances of building operations and the details around how buildings operate and what opportunities exist to improve building performance. Additional goals included reducing the greenhouse gas emissions and operations costs of the Phillips Brooks House. An added benefit was receiving positive press highlighting student and administrative collaboration.

Project Implementation

Of the nearly 40 energy conservation measures identified for the building, more than 20 were selected on the basis that they could be safely and effectively implemented with student labor. The OFS and student planning team began weekly meetings to organize the project. OFS coordinated with Environmental Health and Safety on student safety issues, the Office of General Council on liability issues, Human Resources on labor relation issues and negotiating with the trade unions, and Facilities Maintenance Operations to identify technical resources that would be beneficial to project success. Cambridge HEET, a local non-profit that specializes in home weatherizations, was consulted to share lessons learned and to provide pre- and post-project blower door testing.



On the day of the event, participants were organized into 7 teams, each led by an OFS staff member and a student leader who had been trained on their tasks ahead of time. The 50 plus student volunteers were trained on safety protocols, tool use, and how to implement the ECMs and then supervised as they performed the work. Projects included caulking storm windows, installing low-flow plumbing fixtures, replacing lamps with compact fluorescents or low-mercury super T8 linear fluorescents, sealing a chimney, installing door sweeps and door jambs, insulating steam pipes, adding smart power strips on computers and timers on water coolers, installing educational signage, and many others. OFS staff was on hand to take photographs and a local videographer responded to a Craigslist ad asking for a volunteer to make a short film. Two full-time interns from Wentworth Institute of Technology worked with OFS throughout this project including helping lead weatherization groups on the day of the event.

Timeline

The project was on a very aggressive timeline because it needed to be implemented before students left for the summer. Students approached OFS and FAS in the last week of February, 2010. OFS Green Building Services walked the building on March 8 and issued a proposal complete with nearly 40 potential ECM opportunities on March 17th. The proposal assumed almost 200 hours of OFS staff time to complete the project with all of the recommended components. FAS approved the proposal the next day (3/18/10) and the OFS team began planning for the event. On March 23, OFS sent the student organizers a detailed description of the proposed process going forward and asked for contact information for student team leaders for the day of the event, as well as for their recommended date for the event and times for weekly team meetings. On March 26 the student organizers provided much of the information requested, though a date for the event wasn't finalized as we tried to coordinate availability of the building with OFS staff availability and student breaks. Student organizers and OFS began weekly breakfast meetings to go over project details, with FAS Office of Physical Planning and Cambridge HEET attending one meeting each to lend their assistance and get updates. By the first week of April, OFS staff and student leaders began visiting the building to put together detailed lists of materials needed to implement their projects and perform practice runs to ensure everybody knew how to perform the tasks for which they were responsible. On March 24th, OFS lead a larger group of students around the building to review all projects identified, including those identified but not being implemented as part of the student project such as demand control ventilation in the lounge area or variable frequency drives on the heating hot water loop. OFS had completed energy calculations for all projects and costed out the materials needed in order to share this information with the students and help them understand the utility cost and greenhouse gas reduction potential of each measure as well as their cost effectiveness. In the middle of April, May 2nd was selected as the day of the event. This was a Sunday during the reading period prior to exams. Invitations to attend were sent to the environmentally themed students groups on April 15th with an online sign up sheet using Google Docs. Materials were purchased during the last two weeks of April. The project took place on May 2, from 11:00 to 3:00, with OFS arriving at 9:00 to start setting up and staying to 4:00 to clean up. Coffee, juice and pastries were awaiting students at sign in and Veggie Planet rice dishes during the lunch break.

Financing

All funding was provided by the FAS Office of Planning and Physical Resources, paid out of their operating budget.

Annual savings are estimated at $3,750 in annual utility costs. We did not quantify the additional maintenance savings from re-lamping all 250 lamps in the building. None of our projects were expected to have an increased maintenance cost. We also did not try to quantify the improved productivity from staff being more comfortable or the benefits of educating students and how this might influence their behaviors going forward.

The total materials cost for the project was $3,300, of which $2,800 was billed to the FAS with the idea that remaining cost went towards tools that could be reused for future projects and would be paid for by OFS. This material value paid by FAS includes the cost of 7 new storm windows, which was not a project performed by the students but was critical to ensure the students caulking the storm window frames knew that their efforts were not in vain. This value also includes the $500 for lunch and $50 for breakfast. Most materials were purchased through Grainger, with additional materials purchased through Energy Federation Incorporated, Home Trends, Watertown Plumbing Supply, Home Depot, Staples, and Conservation Technology.

OFS staff put in 202 hours of time into the project, 192 of which were billed to FAS because of our not to exceed contract agreement. Facilities Maintenance Operations charged for 6 hours of work to have their plumber and pipe wrapper on-site on the day of the event.
Total project costs were $24,043, most of which was from labor.

Project Results

More than 50 students attended the May 2nd event, in addition to the more than a dozen student group leaders, OFS staff, and the Wentworth Interns. The initial, conservative estimates expected a reduction of 9 metric tons of CO2 equivalent of greenhouse gas emissions and $3,750 in utility costs per year. While full verification of the energy reduction may take a year to assess, the building was given a pre- and post-project blower door test to quantify air leakage. The test showed nearly 1,800 fewer cubic feet of air coming into the building when under pressure after the project, which translates to nearly 180 square inches of gaps in the building envelope that were filled… truly excellent results. The bulk of the benefit will be in the winter, when the significant reduction in infiltration will result in steam savings. Everybody responding to the lessons learned survey indicated that they thought the project was very valuable to students and that they hope it is replicated again next year.

Lessons Learned

After the project, a lessons learned survey was sent out to all of the OFS staff and student organizers. 73% of the respondents felt the project was good (4 / 5) and the remaining 27% felt it was excellent (5/5). All respondents indicated that it was a good project that they would like to see repeated.
There were multiple suggestions about broadening the outreach to include faculty and staff, as there were none at the event. The project would have also benefited from having the date confirmed earlier so the outreach could have been done over a longer period of time. Even with very little notice, more than 50 students attended on a Sunday when studying for finals, which seems to indicate there is a lot of interest in this type of event.

Additional time all around would have made the project go more smoothly and would have also likely reduced the cost to FAS as we had to invest significant and possibly redundant resources in order to get everything done on time. While we were able to successfully execute all 23 projects, we had multiple people working on the same or similar tasks for different projects when some of this could have been streamlined if time allowed.

There were a few minor issues during the event with ECMs that didn't go exactly as expected (pipe insulation not quite fitting, dual flush handles not working with all of the toilets, etc.). If we repeat this project, we'll make sure the dry runs in the weeks leading up to the project are more in-depth and can actually confirm the feasibility and the correct parts for all projects. We'll also make sure to order the parts further in advance. One of the packs of lamps we ordered for the chandeliers didn't have the fixture adapter and we didn't have the extra lamps on hand we were expecting.

Another lesson learned was about the door weather seals and students using the drills. It was hard to drill through the steel kick plate without using the more aggressive drill bits, but it was also really hard for students to stop the drill at the right depth. In the future, we'd like some sort of depth guide on the drill to reduce this over-drilling.

Because the blower door test was a bit of an after-thought, we couldn't get Cambridge HEET out on the day of our event. While they were able to come beforehand and afterwards, in the future we would like students to be able to see the actual test and witness the improvements.

 

The film that was made for us by Pirates Lane Video turned out really nicely and putting an ad on Craigslist for a volunteer videographer worked well. We had more than a dozen people volunteer their services. In the future, we'd like to have an OFS staff walk around with the videographer to make sure he's able to film all of the projects. We would have also liked filming of the predatory planning meetings if possible.

We created educational signage and a poster summarizing all of the projects for the students. These sorts of occupant engagement efforts partnered very well with the more typical energy conservation measures and helped make for a more complete event.

We were able to get reusable cups and glasses from Harvard University Hospitality and Dining Services and used all compostable plates and silverware (with composting bins that the OFS staff took home afterwards and brought back to work on Monday). All of the dishes from Veggie Planet for lunch were vegetarian. A number of students commented on appreciating that we made sure to use sustainable dining practices and this is of course something we'd like to do again in the future. A number of people also mentioned that it might be easier to eat pizza instead of rice dishes while outside working.

There were also comments about the project being more for awareness than energy savings, and it may have been nice to have contractors there actually implementing some of the more significant energy saving opportunities at the same time. We identified another 15 to 20 projects that had good payback and would save significant energy, but would require a professional contractor to implement. It might be worth combining the installation wtih the student work in the future. It is also worth noting that the vast majority of the project costs came from planning the weatherization event and not from the actual materials. Using student labor to thoroughly weatherize a building in this manner does not seem to be the most cost effective way to get the job done assuming you have to pay for the staff time needed for planning. The benefits, of course, go well beyond the immediate energy savings from the ECM projects.

There were a few ECMs that really only allowed a couple of people to work on them at a time. In order to engage more students, we would have needed more team leaders and possibly more tools (such as drills). This was only true for a couple of projects like the plumbing projects or door sweeps, but something to keep in mind. Trying to keep 50 or more students engaged simultaneously requires a lot of advanced planning and a lot of knowledgeable leaders.

A critical lesson to share is that early coordination with all stakeholders is critical and that doing so allowed the project to happen without any last minute concerns or hang ups. It requires motivated student leaders, knowledgeable sustainability staff, and facilities leader willing to invest in this kind of project (thank you Jay Phillips). If coordinated with all parties early, potential obstacles can be identified and solutions suggested.

Everybody involved felt this project was a success and that future projects would be even better. It is difficult to succinctly share all of the lessons learned, but the OFS team is very optimistic that if we were able to do a similar event in the future they'll be even more successful than the first.

Commissioning Data Center

Last week we walked around the new data center for the management company to perform pre-functional and functional testing (depending on the equipment). The UPS still couldn't be tested because there were still issues with a transfer switch. We looked at the 4 CRAC units, one of which was still hooked up to the vacuum to remove moisture before being re-charged with refrigerant. The two larger CRACs had to have their refrigerant removed, be cut in half to get in the elevator, and then re-assembled. There were a couple of problems with the wiring of one of these, the result of a wiring harness being re-installed improperly. Both of the large units needed to have insulation added since it was removed when it was cut (photo to the right). There was also a very small domestic water copper pipe used for humidification that should be insulated and secured to the frame so that it didn't vibrate against the frame and eventually wear through (photo on the left - the larger diameter pipe was secured with a vibration dapening clamp). One of the large CRAC units was moving 16% less air than it should and the motor was going to be re-shived to fix.

Another of the issues we looked for were un-sealed penetrations in the floor and ceiling since both were being used as a plenum for supply (floor) and return (celing) air. The floor was sealed pretty good with only a couple of penetrations that were missed (photo on the left), but the ceiling had lots of unsealed penetrations (photo on the right). Kevin Sheehan (on the ladder) and Kevin Bright (in the floor) are using a flashlight to look for these issues in the photos below.





















Another issue we identified during this trip was the chilled water pressure gauges, which were supposed to be 6" diameter and instead were 4" diameter. Obviously this isn't a huge deal, but they were pretty clearly called for in the spec and we've asked the contractor to replace.

Meselson Lab Commissioning

On Friday, we visited the Meselson Lab in the Biological Labs Building at Harvard University as part of the commissioning process. The space's renovation is nearing completion and the Office for Sustainability team was there to functionally test some of the equipment. We verified that the fan coil units (FCUs) and baseboard heating responded according to changes in the thermostat. OFS staff would adjust the thermostats to call for heating or cooling, Talli from Siemens would verify that the the BAS indicated that the system would react accordingly (picture above on the right), and OFS staff would watch the control valves turn and verify the temperature of the coils with a temperature gun (picture below on the right). While the systems reacting appropriately was generally the case, we did find one control valve for the baseboard heating that was unable to open or close because the metal baseboard cover prevented it from turning. This resulted in the perimeter heating being always on regardless of what the thermostat called for or what the FCU was doing. A simple change in control valve location will fix this.

Another potential issue was a discrepancy between the mechanical drawings and the actual HVAC system in one small room. The drawings called for a transfer grille between the small room with an unducted biosafety cabinet and a larger adjacent lab. Since there were insufficient existing wall penetrations, the contractor had used the location of the transfer grille to run the supply air duct. As a result, the room was very positively pressurized with the only path for air to leave being under the door into the hallway. You can see Kevin and Jay from OFS looking over the drawings with Talli from Siemens in the picture below.

We also looked at whether or not the fan coil units reacted to the manual fan speed switches (picture below on the right). Most did, though one seemed to only have an on / off reaction instead of the off / hi / med / low that was called for. We'll come back with a balometer or the testing adjusting balancing (TAB) contractor to confirm. The TAB contractor was supposed to be there on Friday (the reason we selected that date) but he didn't show up, so we'll have to come back to witness test some of the balancing, especially when it is done for the fume hoods. We also confirmed the occupancy sensors (Kevin is covering the sensor with masking tape in the picture below in the center) that control the lighting and the lighting levels at the bench level (Andrea is confirming the light levels in the picture below on the left). This space is not equipped with photo-sensors or dimming ballasts, so we weren't adjusting the light settings, just comparing the actual light levels to the Owner's Project Requirements and Basis of Design.

Francis Lab Commissioning

On Friday, March 5th, Kevin Bright, Kevin Sheehan, Philip Kreycik, and I met with representatives from the electrician, controls contractor, balancer, and construction manager as part of the commissioning process for the Francis Lab in the Harvard Biolabs building. We checked every occupancy sensor in the space, including those that control the overhead lights and thermostats as well as those that control the task lighting at all of the lab benches. Many of the overhead occupancy sensors were located too close to air diffuser vents and would never shut off, so we had to re-set the sensitivity (in most cases electing to switch them to infrared only rather than using the ultrasonic / infrared dual technology). We also put each fan coil unit into heating and cooling modes and checked schedules and worked with Siemens to fix anything we found such as opportunities for simultaneous heating and cooling or non-responsive thermostats. While there, we compared what was installed to the drawings to see if the as-built drawings needed to be updated. We found a couple of concrete penetrations without sleeves, but determined this was outside the scope of work for this project. We also found a hole in a compressed air line that would need to be repaired. Finally, we checked the face velocity for the fume hoods, making sure that they stayed at 100 fpm at all sash heights. Unfortunately, some peculiarities with the building's HVAC system didn't allow us to run the face velocity any lower. The first fume hood we tested wasn't programmed properly and wasn't responding to the sash height. Kevin Bright continued the functional testing process for the remaining building systems after the rest of the Harvard Office for Sustainability team left and we've since shared our list of issues with the project manager. This is one of multiple visits to the site as construction winds down, which is part of the functional testing component of commissioning. At OFS, we always try to conduct full ASHRAE Guideline 0 commissioning and include plumbing systems in addition to energy systems and include user training in addition to occupant training. We've found the process to be extremely beneficial and cost effective for the interior fit-out projects that we're targeting.

HRES Solar Thermal

On Friday, Andrea Ruedy Trimble, Jessica Parks, Carol Healy, Zhen Wu, Mitch Hunter, and Fady Ghattas of the Harvard Office for Sustainability took a tour of the solar thermal installations on 472-474 Broadway and 20-20a Prescott Streets in Cambridge. Bjorn Storz of Harvard Real Estate Services lead the tour. There are 14 flat plate collectors on the two roofs and they are expected to provide 30 to 40% of the domestic water demand. The solar planels collect heat through a glycol loop which is pumpted to plate frame heat exchangers in the basements. From there a water loop transfers heat to storage tanks. Finally, another set of plate fram heat exchangers transfers the heat to pre-heat the domestic water, which receives additioanl heating from natural gas boilers. The installation is expected to reduce GHG emissions by 13 MTCDE per year and save 2,300 therms of natural gas.

The systems performance is being tracked real time and available on the web. The public is invited to track the performance of the system by visiting http://harvard_prescott.heizwerk.at/ and logging in with username "frei" and password "frei". Solid Solar, the manufacturers, are continuing to monitor the system from Germany and making slight tweeks to the controls to optimize its performance.

Everybody on the Office for Sustainability staff enjoyed the tour and hopes to see more such installations on roofs around Harvard and elsewhere.

Read more.

Soldiers Field Park Wind Turbines

On September 22, Harvard Real Estate Services installed two 10-kilowatt Bergey Excel wind turbines on the top deck of the Soldiers Field Park Garage. We were on-hand to witness the installation and talked with the project manager (Chris Packard of JLL) and contractor (Tom Dowd of North Shore Solar and Wind Power). The turbines atop their 40 foot towers look great and are noticeable from a large part of Allston and Cambridge. The poles are mounted to steel supports that go through the top deck and down two more floors. The turbines automatically track the wind and are set to veer away from the wind if it is too high. The garage was recently retrofitted (project managed by our group - the Green Building Services of the Office for Sustainability) with all new vapor tight super T-8 fixtures and occupancy sensors and is testing some pole mounted LED fixtures on the top deck. The new lights are predicted to save about 40% in energy costs, greatly increasing the percentage of the building powered by the new turbines. The turbines are are expected to produce enough electricity to power six average American homes. A link to a Harvard Gazette article can be found here.

Calculating Energy Savings

On Friday, I presented a brown bag lunch presentation on Calculating Energy Savings to the OFS staff. The presentation started with a look at some spreadsheets I'd created to quickly calculate the savings from two easy energy retrofits... reduced pressure drop air filters and premium efficiency motors. The Excel file had pages started for calculating a number of other types of savings, but wasn't quite ready to share at this time. Next we went over part of the attached Power Point starting with how to calculate lighting fixture requirement using the Lumen Method (the agenda on the second page of the presentation was never changed to represent the actual presentation). We then went over the Fundamental Law of Illumination and how fixture distance affects illuminance. The presentation continued with an explanation of energy models and how they work. We then finished by looking at an eQUEST version 3.62 model for one of the undergraduate houses and quickly reviewing some of the inputs and summary reports. About 6 people attended.

Owner's Project Requirements Charette

On Wednesday we held a goal setting meeting for the Sherman Fairchild project (a laboratory building full gut renovation). Representatives from the Architect, MEP Engineer, Project Management, Operations and Maintenance, Occupants, Office for Sustainability (both the green building services and the occupant engagement groups), Engineering and Utilities, IT, and EH&S were present to decide what constituted a "successful" project. Establishing goals and measures of success up front is important to getting everybody on the same page and should help quicken the design process and minimize change orders as all stakeholders have had a chance to provide their feedback.

Project goals were collected in the areas of "Project Performance", "Environmental Performance", "Human Health and Comfort", "Operations and Maintenance", and "Training and Education". OFS staff lead the meeting using the Nominal Group Technique, which collects a list of ideas from all stakeholders, gives attendees time to ask clarifying questions, and then ranks the goals to identify the most important. We'll take the results and compile a ranked set of project goals and the Owner's Project Requirements (OPR). The design team will respond to these documents in each of their design submittals and the commissioning authority will use OPR during the commissioning process. The agenda for the four hour meeting is attached here.

Kovac Lab Commissioning

Jesse Foote, Kevin Sheehan, and I visited the Kovac Lab on Thursday to do some of the functional testing / witness testing. The lighting controls weren't ready yet, but we confirmed the air balancing for supply and exhaust, went over the heat pump and condensate pump checklist, verified fire dampers and access panels, checked as-built drawings, looked for pipe insulation and labels, and reviewed the thermostat settings. The project looked really good and the gentleman from Comfort Air Solutions out of Framingham was really helpful. We found a large wall penetration above the ACT for cables that should be filled in (the lab calls for negative pressure and deck-to-deck partitions). We also found one fire damper that was covered up and made inaccessible as well as some un-labeled piping. The biggest concern was a lack of control dampers on the two outside air ducts. We drilled holes for a traverse in one and found the outside air to be over 37% higher than called for by the design engineer, which would result in a lot of extra heating and cooling energy. We didn't bother testing the second intake because of the lack of a control damper made making changes impossible at this time. A couple of issues were outside of the scope of work of the current project team, like no air being exhausted from the restrooms (despite supply air being delivered and an exhaust air grill) and existing air diffusers in one room directing supply air directly at the exterior wall and windows (we suggested rotating the diffuser 180 degrees). Our final recommendation was to review the thermostat schedule with the occupants and include occupant training as part of building turnover, as it seemed like the current occupied hours setting of 6:00 AM to 7:00 PM for weekdays and 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM for weekends might be unnecessarily long. We'll return soon to confirm the lighting controls.

After Dark Interview

My first (and only) TV interview is now available on the web. Holly Hurley of After Dark conducted an interview this winter for a segment titled "Conservation in Brookline." The entire interview, which is hopefully edited to make me look smarter in the actual TV show, is posted on the BASEnet website.

DDC Training

Andrea and I attended the first of two Direct Digital Controls Systems classes this morning to learn more about optimizing building management systems. Greg Kousidis of Harvard's Facilities Management Operations group taught the four hour class using the BMS simulator he helped create. The simulator has a working model of two air handling units complete with fans, heating and cooling coils, temperature and humidity sensors, and much more. FMO and OFS (HGCI at the time) modified the Introduction to DDC and the System 600 APOGEE training materials to create the class. Today's class covered an Introduction to DDC, DDC Hardware, and the first part of Communicating with your Field Panel. Next week's class will finish Communicating with your Field Panel and end with Insight Basics. Greg will teach the rest of the OFS Building Service group later this month.

Holyoke 4th Floor Commissioning

This morning we conducted functional testing as part of our commissioning of the Holyoke Center 4th Floor fit-out. During the electrical portion of the commissioning, we confirmed all occupancy sensors were working correctly and set to the proper timing (the first project we've looked at with all occupancy sensors working correctly before commissioning). However, we noticed that the light fixtures were not dimming up and down based on the presence of daylight as they were supposed to. It turns out they needed to be set up with the photosensor tool before they'll dim, but this had not been done. We were able to work with the lighting installer and have them set the minimum (nearly off) and maximum (set to provide just over 50 foot candles at the work surfaces rather than fully on) levels for each fixture. We also made sure operating the daylight responsive dimming feature was added to the operator training planned for the next day.

Hip Hop Archive Cx part II

In a previous post we showed some photos of the commissioning process from the Hip Hop Archive. One of the items we added to our issues list was the lack of a fresh air duct that was supposed to be connected to one of the heat pumps. Though the duct was shown on the construction documents and as-built drawings, we couldn't find it in the field. After a lot of back-and-forth with the contractor, it turns out the duct never made it from the fresh air intake and no fresh air was being provided to the spaces served by this heat pump. The two pictures attached show the same access panel before commissioning (no duct) and after (with duct). The team also found that the filter could not be accessed in one of the other heat pumps, another item that the contractor has since fixed. This is our first attempt at self-commissioning a small fit-out project and the experience proved very valuable.

Larsen & Longfellow Commissioning

On April 28, the Office for Sustainability commissioning team, along with Bob Phillos, Assistant Director of Operations from the Graduate School of Education, and Kevin the HVAC technician from Facilities Maintenance Operations, commissioned recently renovated spaces in Larsen and Longfellow Halls. They checked the lighting, lighting controls, programmable thermostats, and split system air conditioners that were associated with the renovation projects. Everything looked good with the AC condensing unit (as verified by the two Kevins and Andrea). We found three meeting rooms with ceiling mounted occupancy sensors that weren't connected correctly (these have since been fixed). We were told by the occupants of Longfellow that they'd like to be trained on how to use the thermostats (training is being arranged). We also noticed that the lighting levels varied drastically from one office to the next even with the lights on (from 15 FC on the desk of some unrenovated offices to between 30 and 50 FC in the renovated spaces). The commissioning was part of the LEED for Commercial Interiors program and included reviewing balancing reports for a new air handler, which was separatley commissioned by a third party.