ASHRAE proposes standard on commissioning process

Standard 202P, Commissioning Process for Buildings and Systems, would identify the minimum acceptable commissioning process for buildings and systems as described in ASHRAE’s Guideline 0-2005, The Commissioning Process. The proposed standard is open for public review until Oct. 1, 2012. To comment or more information, visit www.ashrae.org/publicreviews.

By taking the best practices from the guideline, first published in 1989, and writing a standard, the requirements can be adopted by code bodies and used by standards developers, according to Gerald Kettler, chair of the Standard 202P committee.

“The proposed standard will benefit the industry by ensuring that the built environment industry follows the owner’s quality-oriented process for achieving, verifying and documenting that the performance of buildings, systems and assemblies meets defined criteria,” he said. “Standard 202P will support the requirements in other ASHRAE standards and programs.”

The commission process assumes that owners, programmers, designers, contractors and operations and maintenance entities are fully accountable for the quality of their work. The process begins at project inception and continues for the life of a facility.

ASHRAE first began developing formal guidelines for commissioning in 1982, looking at documenting best practices to achieve facilities that perform according to an owner’s needs and requirements. Its original guideline on commissioning was published in 1989.

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