Choosing your BEMS

April 24, 2013 by Leave a comment

Wireless vs. wired – which is best?

Chris Monson, Strategic Marketing Manager of Trend

Chris Monson, Strategic Marketing Manager of Trend Controls

When installing a building controls system or building energy management system (BEMS), businesses want the most efficient, economical and environmentally friendly solution available to suit their requirements. But how should you choose between applying a wired or wireless connected control system? What’s the difference? And what are the benefits of each? Guest blogger Chris Monson of Trend Controls gives his opinion:

The cost difference

When it comes to making building control decisions, the major  factor for selection and installation apart from appropriate usage is usually cost.

The cost for installing wired or wireless systems is largely determined by two things: parts and labour. These are in turn influenced by the scale of the installation project. The larger the project, the more parts, time and budget you’re likely to need.

Whilst the parts for wired systems may be less than for wireless, wired system installation costs for time and labour are much higher when you factor in the additional costs for wiring and cabling. Because of this, wired solutions are best suited to smaller scale projects.

Conversely, a wireless system has only one fixed overhead – the main receiver module – no cabling or lengthy installation required. Numerous sensors can operate with one receiver module, making wireless the most cost efficient solution for large projects with four or more sensors. A typical example of savings:

  • 4 wireless sensors plus 1 receiver will cost 30% less than fitting 4 wired controllers and wiring them back to the receiver
  • 12 wireless sensors cost approximately 50% less than a wired system
  • Installing 32 wireless sensors would save over 60% of the cost of a wired system

The technical advantages

“Never mind the cost – which one will actually work better?”

If the cost is not a hindrance, the prime considerations for any project are basic funtionality and use. So what are the techinical advantages and disadvantages of wired and wireless?

Wireless temperature sensors contain a thermistor sensing element and transmitter. Both are encased in a standard wall mounting/plant type enclosure, and up to 50 sensors can interact with a single receiver unit. Remembering the advantages of wireless for large scale projects, a single receiver unit can be positioned up to 100m away from the sensors, so technically wirless can offer a very flexible solution. If correctly specified and configured, wired is a technical equal, and is not as susceptible to signal disruption. If disruption is a concern, most BEMS can be set to give and alert in the event of such a problem. ZigBee style networks are especially designed to avoid frequency disturbances and clashes with other devices, and were creared in the late 90′s when installers realised that WiFi and Bluetooth were not sustainable wireless solutions. As such, the mesh system uses 2.4GHZ radio frequency, making it flexible and reilient – if one node breaks, others in the circuit can still communicate.

Alongside cost advantages and ease of installation, using wireless systems offer another obvious, technological edge – wireless is wireless, instantaneous and also ‘plug and play’. This makes upgrading systems and introducing new technologies much simpler. Though regular maintenance such as battery changes need to be factored into the time/cost equation.

Deciding between the two

Before any decisions are reached, building should first be audited to determine the most suitable solution – it is advisable to test how well wireless signals can be received and how likely distrubances are. If this is an issue wired may be your only option. After this, choosing the correct BEMS system depends on the size and usage of the building, the scale of the project and company budget. As a general rule larger more extensive projects are typically best suited to wireless solutions.

This article was written by BSRIA member Chris Monson, Strategic Marketing Manager at Trend Controls in the UK.

Filed under BEMS, Cost efficiency, Customer Satisfaction, Energy, Intelligent Buildings, Technology, Wireless Tagged with , , , , , , ,

There is more to BIM than a model

February 26, 2013 by Leave a comment

By mandating the use of Building Information Management (BIM) on all its construction projects by 2016, the UK Government has taken the world lead in driving forward the BIM agenda.  Many blue chip construction organisations, in all parts of the supply chain, are investing heavily to help maximise the potential benefits that the adoption of such an initiative can bring to them.  This may take the form of eligibility to work on Government projects, or just increasing their own efficiency through improved working methods.

 However, whilst there is undoubtedly enormous momentum to the uptake of BIM in the UK, some areas of the BIM process are progressing faster than others.  New uses and applications for the software model seem to be found daily, with links to design software and facilities management programs now coming on line.  But more focus is needed on the other parts of the process – the organising and ‘naming’ of data and the methodology for issuing the data in a form that can be used both during and after the construction phase.

 Whereas the use of a software model may not present obvious advantages for those in house-building, looking at the wider BIM process may be of more benefit.  Considering how they arrange and control their flow of data may help house builders to realise savings through increased efficiency, which in turn may enable them to invest in relevant software tools.

 The introduction of a simple document management system (another key part of the BIM process), arranged in accordance with BS 1192:2007 Collaborative production of architectural, engineering and construction information – Code of practice, for example, enables the controlled naming and flow of data between parties.  This allows data to be easily found rather than having to create it time and again. This assists current work activities procedures and can be ofBIM blog benefit on all projects, not just those employing BIM. Similarly, presenting construction and operational data for occupiers and end users in a readily understandable form will greatly increase their understanding of the facility and its systems.

 The message to house builders should be to look at the whole BIM process and carefully consider how it can be applied to what they do.  Adopt the simple measures in the short term and develop a strategy to achieve ‘full BIM’ in the context of the type of work they do as they gain experience.  A BIM project of social housing may look very different to that of a high-tech commercial building, but there are elements of BIM which can add real value to both. 

 BSRIA has worked with the NHBC Foundation to produce  NF49 Building Information Modelling – an introduction for house builders.  Reading NF49 could be their first BIM step.

Filed under BIM, Building Management, Building services, Government, Strategy, Sustainability Tagged with , , , , ,

Soft Landings – it’s not all about the cake!

February 21, 2013 by Leave a comment

A guest post by Stuart Thompson of Morgan Sindall

Soft Landings Workshop

Soft Landings Workshop

Following on from my previous post regarding the UEA low carbon project I’d like to share our progress with the inclusion of Soft Landings.

Last week our soft landings champions met for our fifth workshop, habitually in the cafe over some cake. Rod Bunn from BSRIA joined us this time to check that we were still on track, almost a year after he helped me to introduce the soft landings framework to our UEA project stakeholders. We are in Stage 2 of the framework and we are really getting a grasp of what it’s all about, Stage 2 focuses on design development, reviews similar projects and details how the building will work. Over the last two months we held some ‘reality checking’ workshops on various topics and have gathered some great feedback on our RIBA Stage D design. This will be used to shape the detail as we move into RIBA Stage E design.

During our soft landing gatherings, the champions are challenging ourselves with thoughts like:

  • are the BREEAM Outstanding & PHPP figures really relevant to our building users? How do we demonstrate their great value to the users?
  •  ensure that our soft landings champions are empowered, to ensure that they are accommodated by the wider project team
  • can we recognise and utilise people’s talents and abilities and identify the environment in which they function most effectively?
  • has the soft landings process captured all of the creative ideas from the wider project team? 

We are also looking to create a back-casting report on Post Occupancy Evaluation and occupancy satisfaction by the

Soft landings delivery plan

Soft landings delivery plan

next meeting. We glanced through a few examples of what the client would like to see. Thinking about this report now (that will be needed in say 2 years time), is an example of how the  progressive, forward-thinking approach of soft landings will provide benefit to the client at no additional cost.

Our soft landings meetings are productive, I look forward to these, and it’s not simply about the cake!

Have you included Soft Landings in any of your projects? What are the challenges and achievements you’ve faced?

Filed under BREEAM, Building services, Design, Occupant Satisfaction, Performance, Post Occupancy Evaluation, Reality Checking, Soft Landings Tagged with , , , , ,

Getting life cycle costing right

January 30, 2013 by 1 Comment

Stuart Thompson

Stuart Thompson,
Senior Design Manager,
Morgan Sindall

A guest post by Stuart Thompson of Morgan Sindall 

The NRP (Norwich Research Park) Enterprise Centre project is an Exemplar Low Carbon Building, which is targeting BREEAM Outstanding and Passivhaus Certification.

The project for the University of East Anglia (UEA) is being delivered using a collaborative single point of delivery system by main contractor Morgan Sindall and its team, which includes architects Architype, civil, structural and environmental engineers BDP and Churchman Landscape Architects.

The centre has been created to achieve a 100-year design life and aspects of the development will be constructed using traditional methods. Locally sourced materials including Thetford timber, Norfolk straw and heather, chalk, lime, hemp and flint will be used and the lecture theatre will be constructed of rammed chalk while various buildings will be thatched. The development is expected to be completed in early 2014.

A key aspect of delivering the Exemplar Low Carbon Building at UEA is ensuring that the project has the lowest life cycle cost possible. The life cycle cost of a project is often discussed in construction but not usually followed through therefore it’s been fantastic to work with a client team which is happy to dedicate time and resources to evaluating this aspect of the development in such detail.

As part of the life cycle costing process, the design team met with consultants from BSRIA to consider how the building’s Passivhaus specification might affect its life cycle output. It was reassuring to know that the early analysis proved that the Passivhaus specification has life cycle benefits. You can watch a film about our workshop below:

 

Following the initial life cycle study, we followed up with a workshop that included a mixed group of various representatives from the client team. We learnt more about which issues were of particular interest to the various client representatives, such as predicted energy costs, climate change considerations, maintenance, robustness of filters and the type of finishes used. The debate did not simply focus on the initial capital costs, but also about legacy issues, robustness and replacement. We covered a full range of topics, including energy source, landscape materials, PV and roofing, lighting and floor finishes. The client maintenance team fed back to the group about their current issues and concerns too.

BSRIA's Peter Tse at the workshop

BSRIA’s Peter Tse at the workshop

What was interesting following such detailed debate was we were able to address the long term issues and this changed our initial concepts within the life cycle analysis. Our changes have made our project report totally specific and the real use and maintenance scenarios follow the life of the building. For example, how often timber windows will be re-painted, how often timber floors will be sanded and sealed and whether the LED light fittings will be able to handle the lamp life and transformer life claims. The workshop allowed the group to ensure that the life cycle analysis is extremely relevant and targeted to this specific project and we will now be able to use the information garnered during the process to shape the scheme over the next few months when detailed design commences.

This landmark project is part-funded by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (the largest single ERDF project in the region in the 2007-2015 funding round) in addition to funding from UEA, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and BRE.

Filed under BREEAM, Carbon, Design, Life cycle costing, Passivhaus, Zero Carbon Tagged with , , , , , ,

An intelligent building is one that doesn’t make its occupants look like idiots

January 3, 2013 by 2 Comments

Air conditioning controls in an office in Adelaide

I’ve spent about nearly 20 years in the post-occupancy evaluation (POE) of buildings, many of which were designed to be sustainable and low energy. Some even claimed to be intelligent buildings. If only they were. Sadly, as many working in POE will despairingly concur, unmanageable complexity is the enemy of good performance.

It’s important to remember that the term intelligent building is very much the lingua franca of the controls and building automation community. It’s not a natural phrase in architectural and engineering lexicons. You won’t find many clients using it either. It’s also a very ‘nineties’ term, like its not-so-distant relation, sick building syndrome (which, somewhat ironically, seems to have died a death). Most of the design community is now working to the ‘keep-it-simple, fabric-first’ definition of intelligence. Why? Because the high-tech approach has proved to be a mirage.

Time and time again, almost without exception, systems and technologies that rely on complex automation in order to achieve energy savings usually fail because practice doesn’t mirror design theory. Practice is a heady mix of:

  • Over-complicated design with little understanding or appreciation of what occupants really want
  • Design that is difficult to apply in the real world, leading to poor detailing, poor installation quality, inadequate commissioning, and the unwitting introduction of technical risks by contractual and product interfaces that go unnoticed until it’s too late
  • Incompatibility of components that require constant adjustment or re-work
  • Over-sensitive and/or hard to adjust controls and settings
  • Excessive need for management vigilance over systems that were assumed by designers and the supply chain to be fit-and-forget, but which become fit-and-manage in practice,
  • General lack of usability, compounded by false assumptions that occupants will take an interest in controlling and optimising the operation of building systems, where frankly they don’t want the responsibility
  • Unexpected consequences and revenge effects: systems modulating automatically annoying occupants, systems that don’t allow enough occupant override, or which people don’t understand because the controls are not intuitive to use,
  • Systems that default to an energy-saving condition rather than putting occupant expectations first (in severe cases causing a breakdown in relations between facilities managers motivated to maintain set-points come what may, exacerbated by a professional belief that things are best controlled centrally)
  • The creation of a maintenance and aftercare dependency culture, where the building owner is dependent on expensive call-outs to maintain or modify the settings of digital systems for which they do not have the expertise to maintain, nor the access rights (and software) to modify themselves.

Is all this intelligent or just stupid?

The essential question a building designer needs to answer is simply this:  what problem are you trying to solve? The solution needs to be the simplest, the most appropriate, the least costly, and the most robust and reliable.  

Designers need to understand more about what end-users actually like and dislike about buildings and their systems. Although making things simple may not be the top of every designer’s list, they need to remember that buildings are intended for people – they are a means to an end not an end in themselves. Automation, in itself, should not be a goal. Building intelligence should therefore, above all else, lead to intelligible and sensible systems. Those systems shouldn’t challenge, they shouldn’t alienate, and they shouldn’t lock building owners into an expensive maintenance dependency.

Most of all, automation mustn’t disenfranchise occupants from making decisions about their working conditions, and prevent them acting upon them. It’s important to give occupants what they actually want, not what they don’t want but what designers think they ought to have.

As the author Guy Browning said: Most problems are people problems, and most people problems are communication problems. If you want to solve a communication problem, go and give someone a damn good listening to…

Filed under Building Handover, Construction, Customer Satisfaction, Design, Intelligent Buildings, Occupant Satisfaction, Sustainability Tagged with , , , ,

How will you invest in Soft Landings?

November 20, 2012 by Leave a comment

Budgeting for better building handover

Soft Landings is an open source process designed to overcome problems after handover. It is arguably an increasingly important part of procurement philosophy. Three year periods of aftercare are regularly being considered a core element of project plans; however, with Soft Landings comes great responsibility. The question is whose responsibility is it to include Soft Landings and ensure it gets done?

All clients want high performing buildings but are not always willing to pay additional costs for the aftercare process. On the other hand the building industry has a right to demand additional fees if they are taking on more responsibilities and higher risks. This standoff won’t resolve itself without some easing of tensions.

As an advocate of better building handover, I believe that both clients and contractors need to change their expectations. More fundamentally, both sides of the contractual fence need to recognise that although they may share an ambition for a high-performing building, it does not become such until it is proved to be. This means troubleshooting the building and fine-tuning it way beyond resolving snags and defects.

Once a client acknowledges that it wants its project to adopt Soft Landings, it needs to ensure that the methodology is expressed throughout the entire process. The client should not assume that the contractor will take responsibility for it all; BSRIA has seen a number of documents that puts the responsibility of Soft Landings completely with the contractors when it should definitely be a result of negotiations between all parties involved. A client also needs to be specific in what they expect from their consultants and sub-contractors. Therefore such a project should unquestionably be a collaborative effort with equal responsibility and realistic expectations shared by all.

However, this commitment can’t come for free, which begs a question of where the costs lie, and what they amount to.

Setting aside a budget

It is essential that clients acknowledge that a budget needs to be set aside for Soft Landings, especially if they want a three year period of aftercare. A reasonable place to start is by feeling a nominal budget and then to discuss how it can be best invested, all projects are different but BSRIA believes that 0.1% of the total contract value is a good place to start. Then comes the hardest part, how do you distribute such a budget?

The budget needs to include the three year aftercare period but also other additional Soft Landings activities required during the design and construction process, such as periodic reality-checking. It is also important for clients to note that they will have additional costs at later points if they take into consideration the need for independent building performance monitoring. So, overall, does the 0.1 per cent rule hold true? By and large it’s a good place to start.

If the budget proves inadequate for the client’s ambitions, then those ambitions either need to be scaled back, or the budget increased. Undoubtedly, all parties to the aftercare process stand to gain from the lessons learned, so it is absolutely in their professional interest to meet each other halfway. 

If an agreement and a clear plan can be put into place early then it is entirely possible for such a project to be successful.

To gain a better understanding Soft Landings procurement and budgets read the full article here:

 http://www.bsria.co.uk/news/soft-landings-budgets/

Filed under Building Handover, Building Performance Evaluation, Building services, Customer Satisfaction, Occupant Satisfaction, Performance, Soft Landings, Sustainability Tagged with , , , , ,

How much light do we need?

August 6, 2012 by 2 Comments

Olympic ring sunglasses with flashing LED lights

Olympic ring sunglasses with flashing LED lights

As electric lighting developed, recommended light levels were raised. This was due to; in part, increased luminous efficacy of lamps, overall national prosperity and the availability of relatively cheap electricity. However, with the oil crisis in the 1970s energy costs suddenly rose steeply and lighting levels became static and are basically the same today.

More recently, many common visual tasks have been made easier by the introduction of electronic visual displays replacing printing and handwriting and many office occupants are satisfied with lighting levels less than the recommended 500 lux.

In future should lighting levels be based, not simply on visual efficiency, but on requirements of good health? Electric lighting originally supplemented daylight but now we are totally dependent upon it and people are rarely reliant on daylight alone whilst indoors. Deep plan offices and shopping malls are illuminated all the time regardless of the amount of daylight available. Traditional outdoor sports are now played in enclosed stadia and at night. Even our cars have tinted windows to reduce the amount of daylight. Lifestyles today spend less time outdoors. A lunchtime kick-about outdoors in the car park is more likely to be a sandwich at your desk these days.

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) was identified in the 1980s and is considered to be because of the lesser amount of daylight during the winter months (for northern hemisphere). Treatments suggested include exposure to 10,000 lux of white light for at least one hour a day, although more recently 300 lux of green light is considered to be equally effective.

I can remember my grandfather suggesting that time should be found to view the distant green hills, and he offered two reasons. To focus at ‘infinity’ relaxed the eye muscles, and green was a restful colour in the middle of the visual spectrum. He was a countryman at heart and I suspect it also gave him a chance to dream.

Introducing more daylight in our lives must be a benefit. We just don’t know how to quantify its value.

Filed under Building Management, Building services, Electricity, Energy, Lighting, Sustainability Tagged with , ,

Launching BSRIA Business

July 13, 2012 by Leave a comment

BSRIA open day, 1970

BSRIA membership open day, 1970

A resurgence of popular interest in the ’70s comes as no great surprise if you consider the ways in which the last double-dip recession resonates today. For example, deregulation and the boom in mortgage lending in the 1970s played no small part in the current volatile housing market.  

The BSRIA Statistics Bulletin has its roots in the 1970s, as we recognised at that time a need for better market intelligence to help businesses get the competitive edge. It’s still a tough market and members tell us that our data to inform future business strategy is valuable – but we’ve subsequently made many improvements to the publication. I’m pleased to say that this month we’re launching a new suite of business services for our members including the new Business Bulletin: 

Total consultants workload during last three months compared with the same period last year.

Total consultants workload during last three months compared with the same period last year.

New services:

  •  Business Bulletin (replacing the Statistics Bulletin) offering quarterly analysis and data on the economic outlook, construction market, M&E contracting and more. We also provide unique data from BSRIA’s Consultants’ Workload Survey. If you work for a consulting engineering  company and would like to contribute to our quarterly survey, please get in touch.
  • Business Network - register  for the launch of the first of a series of business networking opportunities on 11th September.
  • Monthly e-newsletter with the latest business information and technical resources – sign up here.
  • Online business resources on our members-only web pages www.bsria.co.uk/business.

The July issue of the Business Bulletin will be included in our quarterly members mailing (also look out for more information in the next issue of Delta T).

Do let me know if you have any further suggestions…and I’d like to hear a few stories about what it was like for your business in the ’70s…and some pictures please!

Filed under Business, Market intelligence, Recession, Strategy Tagged with , , , , , , ,

COBie – it’s all about the fields

June 8, 2012 by 1 Comment

We are all becoming familiar with the 3D BIM model and the benefits it can bring to the construction process, but the challenge is to get the data it contains to the right people at the right time.  The Government has decided that COBie is going to enable us all to do this in a friendly Excel format, and as engineers, contractors and FMs are used to seeing plant performance data in schedules it should be easy to replace those with the COBie spreadsheets, right?  Well, not yet.

The idea is to complete the COBie spreadsheets and give them to the client at predetermined information exchange points, or data drops, throughout the procurement process at points where the client is required to make key decisions.  In most cases the spreadsheets can be populated by certain basic building data directly from the model.  However, the COBie UK 2012 spreadsheets do not include any fields for the performance of M&E plant or equipment – a fundamental flaw in the strategy and a serious obstacle to their widespread adoption.  Therefore, as things stand this information must be added manually at each information exchange stage, a considerable task on most projects where BIM will be used and will add significantly to the amount of effort required to deliver all the relevant data in the COBie format, as required by UKHMG.  Also, the headings used are in ‘model’ speak and not readily understood by the intended users.

Whilst the idea of producing information in a form which is readily accessible to all parties is simple, it is key that the COBie spreadsheets are easy to follow, and can be quickly understood.  To achieve this they must use a language which is familiar to construction professionals, and the right type of data needs to be included.  Unfortunately, this is not the case at present but it is hoped that feedback from the Government’s Ministry of Justice pilot projects, due to report later this year, may change this.  The key to making the construction information available ultimately to the FMs is accurate, clear, comprehensive COBie data files. A little work remains to be done to achieve this, but it should be possible.

BIM Task Group / COBIE UK 2012

COBie UK 2012 example. Building Information Modelling (BIM) Task Group

 

BSRIA Events 

Engaging with BIM http://www.bsria.co.uk/training-and-events/details/engaging-with-bim-event/ 

An introduction to BIM http://www.bsria.co.uk/training-and-events/details/an-introduction-to-bim/

Filed under Assessment, BIM, Building Management, Building services, COBie, Communication Technology, Construction, Design, Government, Performance, Spreadsheets, Technology Tagged with , , ,

Book Review: Death of a lightbulb, John Otten (2012)

May 16, 2012 by Leave a comment

Otten, John. (2012) Death of a light bulb. Blue Ocean Publishing. (ISBN 978-1-907527-08-1)

This book examines electric light, not simply as a technological invention but as the creation of a worldwide industry which has transformed the quality of life for millions of people. The humble domestic light bulb has long been an icon for inventiveness and inspiration. It well deserved this recognition when its impact on civilization in the last century is considered. Much has been written about the early struggles to find suitable materials for filaments and machinery capable of creating a high quality vacuum. Electric light was highly desirable and a great improvement over the flickering and odorous alternatives. It directly led to public electricity generation and distribution. It is difficult for those living in the Western World today to imagine life without electricity.

To meet the demand required investment and speculation on an amazing scale together with mass production of the lamps. It is this story about creating industrial empires and the lengths then taken to protect their profits and assets. Competition and co-operation existed side by side with all the weapons of modern business. These included controlling ownership by shareholders, webs of intermediary companies, and legal contests. The application of patents provided protection and the opportunity to control market penetration. Global transport and distribution had not been fully developed so to reach distant markets could mean agreements with companies considered as direct competito rs nearer to home. Cartels could influence supply and retail pricing. Many of these actions would be considered dubious today with calls for greater transparency and level playing fields.

This story has not been documented for many years and John Otten has provided an insight into the complex web of a modern, highly successful industry. His extensive research into areas not always well documented is to be commended and is augmented by his long career within the lamp making industry. Previous work was written around the first half of twentieth century and information regarding the second half of twentieth century makes a valuable addition to lighting history.

The title makes reference to the final twist in the story. Most products follow a conventional life cycle with sales rising to a peak and slowly going into decline. With many modern devices this life cycle can be a very short period of just a few years, but the light bulb appeared to be almost everlasting. It did not fade away but has been virtually executed by European legislation banning its production and sale. This policy has also been accepted by other countries around the world but is not yet universal with the United States, New Zealand and Canada still fighting in some quarters for its survival. This final phase is still being acted out and the full story behind it may not appear for some time but in the meanwhile the life of the lamp making industry is a worthy model to study of how to turn a simple idea into a life changing experience for millions of people.

Filed under Electricity, Energy, Lighting, Performance, Technology Tagged with ,

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