{"id":26115,"date":"2023-08-10T16:16:01","date_gmt":"2023-08-10T16:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baumann-us.com\/2023\/08\/10\/commissioning-the-unconventional\/"},"modified":"2023-10-18T16:02:02","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T16:02:02","slug":"commissioning-the-unconventional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baumann-de.com\/2023\/08\/10\/commissioning-the-unconventional\/","title":{"rendered":"Commissioning the Unconventional"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/span> 4<\/span> min read<\/span><\/span>\t\t
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Last year, a property management client reached out to Baumann Consulting, after the construction phase had been completed on a new addition and renovation of their office building. The end users had been complaining for months about the sewer gas smell, emanating throughout their space. The MEP engineers and plumbing contractors conducted multiple inspections and fixes which did reduce the frequency and strength, but there was still a noticeable smell, reminiscent of a construction site porta potty, remaining. Needless to say, the office employees were not happy and instead, were choosing to work remotely as much as possible thus staying away from the office. The Owner reached out to Baumann Consulting (Baumann) to see if we could apply commissioning testing procedures to help them resolve the issue.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t[Commissioning is] a quality-focused process for enhancing the delivery of a project. The process focuses upon verifying and documenting that the facility and all of its systems and assemblies are planned, designed, installed, tested, operated, and maintained to meet the Owner's Project Requirements. (ASHRAE Guideline 0-2005)\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Generally, the commissioning process is applied to major mechanical and electrical systems and begins during the design phase of a project. However, sometimes as Commissioning Agents, we are called on to commission more unconventional systems. Some of the systems we’ve tested include nurse call stations, exterior loading dock doors, roof access ladders, and access control\/security systems to just name a few. Essentially, the commissioning process can be applied to any building system operation which is important to the owner\/operator. In this project, the building system was the sanitary lines and vent risers.<\/p>

The first step in commissioning is to identify what the owner’s project requirements (OPR) are for the system to be commissioned. In this project’s case, the OPR was, in short: the office smell was unpleasant and needed to be mitigated.<\/p>

So, Baumann set out on this commissioning adventure as is typical of any project by requesting as-builts and reports from the MEP engineers\u2019 inspections and the plumbing contractors\u2019 previous fixes. With this documentation, a commissioning agent can begin asking questions on how to meet the OPR and identify potential issues with the construction process. Much like how a scientist develops a hypothesis and then determines the appropriate test to prove that hypothesis, a commissioning agent identifies ways that a system could fail and develops checks and functional tests to prove a system’s operation.<\/p>

After receiving the initial documentation, we began developing our initial hypothesis as to why the sanitary system could be failing. Some initial thoughts we had were:<\/p>