In his Presidential address at the 2013 Annual meeting, ASHRAE President Bill Bahnfleth announced that ASHRAE is distributing the entire guide contents at no charge via the ASHRAE website.  What is the scope and organization of the guide? What are the critical parts of a project that can jeopardize indoor air quality (IAQ) in your next building or building project?  What does every designer need to know?  What role does commissioning play in good indoor air quality? What contents are relevant to operations and maintenance of buildings?  What tools are available in the appendices?

Many ASHRAE Standards are design standards addressing the design of new buildings.  Recently ASHRAE published Standard 100-2015 Energy Efficiency in Existing Buildings.  Other standards such as Standard 62.1 and Standard 55 also can be applied to existing buildings and are referenced by various sustainability and energy certification programs.  What parts of these standards apply to existing buildings and how can facility managers use them to improve their operations?  What other ASHRAE Standards, Guidelines, and Publications are available to improve sustainability of our existing building stock?

Use of the multiple spaces equation is now a code requirement in many areas and is a requirement of LEED for any new building that uses multiple space ventilation systems. Why is the equation there? How do you use the equations? What are the two options? Does the system approach make a difference in the quantity of outdoor air required? This presentation presents answers and discussion points for these important questions.

Building commissioning has been around for more than a decade. Commissioning is required by certain sustainability rating programs, certain government entities, and some private sector owners. ASHRAE has published ANSI/ASHRAE/IES Standard 202-2013 as the first national standard for commissioning. How is commissioning perceived and accepted in the marketplace?

Standard 202 is a process standard. How is a process standard different from a prescriptive standard? What is the difference in commissioning to a standard versus other activities that are called “commissioning”? Will following the national standard change either the perception of acceptance of commissioning?

Commissioning is a quality assurance process for building design construction and operation. What can we learn from other quality assurance processes such as ISO 9000? How do lessons from case studies apply to commissioning practice?

ASHRAE has implemented a comprehensive building energy labeling program called Building Energy Quotient (Building EQ).  The objective of this labeling effort is to provide motivation for reducing energy use in commercial buildings by expressing the energy performance of buildings in a tangible way. The underlying belief is that public display and disclosure of the energy efficiency attributes of a building and its energy use intensity (EUI) will lead building owners to strongly consider cost effective energy efficiency improvements at the time of design and construction and in any subsequent renovations.  Public display and disclosure of energy efficiency attributes and EUI should be a relevant factor in the real estate transaction marketplace for commercial buildings.

Building EQ incorporates both an operational rating, based upon actual energy billing, and an asset rating that normalizes for operational variables.  The two rating systems will thus be able to communicate both the performance of he building as operated and the potential performance of the fixed assets of the building.

This session will present the major ideas behind the development of the labeling program and the process for implementation.

#1  How can building energy labels influence the energy efficiency of the overall building stock?

#2  How the new ASHRAE Building EQ is different from other labeling systems?

#3   What metrics are most important for conveying the energy efficiency of a building?

#4   What you need to do to get a Building EQ label for your building.

What is retro commissioning? Is it required by LEED? How can a process save energy? What are some of the aspects of an energy saving retro-commissioning application? What guidance is available from ASHRAE guidelines? What are the types of savings from the process and what are the critical components to assure that savings are realized?

ASHRAE standards 90.1 and 189P require demand control ventilation in some instances. ASHRAE standard 62.1 allows demand control ventilation but places restrictions on its application. Many existing installations do not comply with the requirements of ASHRAE Standard 62.1. What is required and what strategies and technologies can be used to meet the requirements of the all the standards?

How does one commission energy savings equipment such as air-to-air energy recovery? What are key performance factors that must be measured? When can you simulate and when must you measure? Devices addressed include air-to-air energy recovery plates and wheels, desiccants, run around loops, and water-side economizers.