How hard can opening a new office be?

September 11, 2017 by Leave a comment

As some of you may or may not be aware, the new BSRIA North site is now open for business.

For organisations opening a new office or site, it should be a time of great anticipation and excitement as the company sets out a new path, but for many they approach this process with fear and trepidation and for those tasked with the job of making it happen, it can potentially be an extremely stressful period of time.  As Project Manager for the setting up of BSRIA North, I thought I would share with you my experiences – the very good, the sometimes bad and the occasional ugly!

This blog was written by June Davis, Business manager of BSRIA North

I will be sharing my experiences and tips on:

  • Identifying and interpreting the business requirements
  • How to determine the must have’s versus the nice to haves
  • The importance of establishing an internal project team – you can’t do this alone!

BUSINESS NEEDS

When establishing the business needs, spend time with colleagues from across the organisation to listen and understand what they would like to see from a new base – what is it about the current environment that works, what doesn’t work so well and what would improve their working environment if only it were possible!

Everyone one I spoke to was really keen to give me their wish lists and as I started to jot their ideas down, some similarities started to emerge, but for some their thoughts varied significantly.    Prioritise the must haves and rationalise the nice to haves and a vision of your new building will start to emerge.

TIP:   don’t lose those more obscure requests. Whilst on this occasion I couldn’t deliver a building that had an on-site wind turbine, I was able to deliver on the overhead gantry crane!

TIP:  to fulfil everyone’s requirements you would most likely need to commission a bespoke building, so make sure to manage expectations!

Internal Project Team

You can’t succeed on your own so it is imperative that you establish an internal project team.  Working with business managers from across the organisation proved a valuable source of knowledge and support.  Individual managers were allocated areas of responsibility spanning right across the project and each were tasked with identifying what needed to be done , this formed the basis of a project plan.

Example project areas:

·         Property

·         Fit out

·         Process/Systems

·         Health & Safety

 ·         Quality

·         Marketing

·         People

 

Ensuring the team communicated regularly weekly meetings were held and if on occasion some colleagues were unable to attend it ensured that we kept abreast of developments – or on occasion the lack of!

Select a property

It seems obvious, but finding the right property in the right location and that meets the detailed specification your colleagues have challenged you with can at times feel like finding a needle in a haystack. This is where the word compromise well and truly comes in to play!  Give yourself a sizeable geography in which to search for property – like you, everyone wants it all, so make sure you keep an open mind and research those properties that at first glance you would dismiss as not meeting your criteria.   What you think you need and what you finally agree is ‘the one’ may well prove to be completely different – it did for us!

TIP:   The more sites I visited the more ideas I collected as to what could work and might be achieved!

 TIP:  Draw up a short list of buildings and compare them to your must have list – is there a property that is starting to lead the way?

TIP:  Engage one of your project team to come with you to revisit your top properties – they will bring a new perspective to things.

TIP:  If possible, establish a good relationship with the previous tenant, in our experience they were really helpful in providing information about the building, how it operated and its history!

The legal process can take quite some time, it was certainly longer than we had anticipated; but don’t underestimate this vital element of the journey. It is critically important that your future building has the correct legal foundations in place, so ensure you seek good advice.

With the legal aspects complete we gained possession of the building and we all got a much-needed motivation boost! The project team visited the site to design the layout and agree what renovations needed to be made.  The vision was taking shape!

Renovations and installations!

Be ready – This is an extremely busy period.  Obtaining quotes, liaising with contractors, arranging building services are just a handful of the tasks at hand. I found that having someone local to the site with good local knowledge is hugely helpful.  Access can be required at various times of the day and sometimes night but with the building not yet fully functional requires a lot of coming and goings to site.   Ensure the alarm systems are serviced and activated and site security implemented.

TIP:  Take your readings!  Ensure you capture the utility readings on day one and contact the associated providers to inform them you are the new tenants submitting the readings.  This should be a straightforward exercise I can assure you it isn’t, so be warned!

 

For those who may be undertaking a similar process either now or in the future, I wish you every success.  My recommendation is to ensure you appoint the right person to lead the project, a person who loves to do detail, enjoys multi-taking, doesn’t mind getting their hands (very) dirty, and has the patience of a saint and most importantly a good sense of humour!

BSRIA North is proud of what has been achieved and we forward to welcoming you through our doors – please visit us any time!

TRANSFORMATION OF THE OFFICE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed under Architecture, budget, Building Management, Building Performance Evaluation, Building Regulations, Building services, buildings, Business, Construction, Design, documentation, domestic, Engineering, financial budget, Instrument Solutions, Intelligent Buildings, Lighting, market research, Workforce

BSRIA relaunches Topic Guides

August 24, 2015 by Leave a comment

Construction compliance 3BSRIA is pleased to announce the relaunch of our information topic guides with the first release of this ‘At a Glance’ series TG07/2015 At a Glance – Airtightness available to download from the BSRIA website now.

The BSRIA Topic Guides are designed to be an at a glance publication introducing readers to key industry topics and suggesting further reading. BSRIA’s Information Centre is relaunching them with the aim of providing an introduction to key topics in the industry providing readers with an understanding of the area and how they can learn more. A new addition to the topic guides will be a feature by a BSRIA expert on the subject, offering a fresh insight. The airtightness topic guide features an insight into the legislation by our expert David Bleicher.

BSRIA’s Information and Knowledge Manager Jayne Sunley said ‘The topic guides are a great way of providing members and non-members alike with good information that will hopefully clarify some of the questions they have about topics they are new to, they’re not designed to be an all-encompassing guide but rather a starting point for anyone looking to learn more. The addition of the expert insight is just a way of showing readers that there is more to the topic than they might have first thought’.

TG07/2015 At a Glance – Airtightness offers readers a view of why airtightness is important for our building stock and how a building can be tested. It is now free to download from the BSRIA website for members and non-members alike.

Future 2015 titles in the At a Glance series will include Legionella, Data Centres and Smart Technology.

Filed under Airtightness, best practice, BSRIA, BSRIA publication, Building Regulations, Building services, buildings, Compliance, Topic Guides Tagged with , , , , , ,

BSRIA Residential Network launch

September 22, 2014 by Leave a comment

saryu2

This blog was written by Saryu Vatal, Senior Consultant and Researcher for BSRIA Sustainable Construction Group

The BSRIA Residential Network was launched on the 11th of September, kindly hosted by the Wellcome Trust and well attended by over 50 delegates, comprising of both members and invited guests.  Ian Orme Business Manager for the Sustainable Construction Group welcomed the delegates and introduced briefly the intention of the network and how BSRIA would like to engage with all stakeholders to help make residential development better.

The event was chaired by Richard Partington of Richards Partington Architects, architect advisor for the Zero Carbon Hub and co-chair of the steering group for their Performance Gap project.

The day started with a summary of the current policy context for energy efficiency standards in new homes and challenges and opportunities for low energy retrofits.

The recently concluded Performance Gap project for the DCLG provided a starting point for discussing issues that impacted new build residential developments. For this project, an extensive evidence gathering and review exercise was carried and over 60 issues were identified as contributing to the gap between the designed and measured energy use in homes.  Of these the ones prioritised for action and further research, along with the shortcomings in skills and knowledge highlighted through the end-to-end process review of over 20 new developments,  formed the core of the Hub’s recommendations to the Government.

Rick Holland was present to give an update on the Government’s continued support for funding research into construction processes via Innovate UK (previously Technology Strategy Board), both for domestic and non-domestic buildings.

A major programme from this funding stream looking at Building Performance Evaluation is coming to a close at the end of September and early stage findings from meta-data analysis were presented by Ian Mawditt of Fourwalls.  This focused on the common issues found with the design, installation and operation of MVHR systems and data from whole house co-heating tests. The final findings will be disseminated via Innovate UK and will include information from all projects across the seven funding tranches.

The analysis of key design specifications that would impact the performance of the mechanical ventilation systems raised some interesting observations about common assumptions made at early design stages.  Common themes from the commissioned air flow rates were also discussed.  The performance of homes built to Passivhaus standard was notably better, which emphasised the importance of process control on site, but also highlighted the fact that, when needed, the industry was able to deliver a high quality product (homes).

The presentations of the day concluded with a summary of how BSRIA would like to engage with its members to try and address various shortcomings identified through research.  Members are invited to put forward areas where there is a need for additional support, in the form of training, guidance and impartial technical expertise.

Calculator leaned on a little house with red roofA panel discussion was facilitated by the event chair in which a range of topics were discussed.  These included issues around the effective design, installation and modelling of district heating in residential and mixed use schemes and variations in standards and assumptions between the EU and the UK.  Ashley Bateson was able to provide an update on standards being developed by CIBSE.

The conflict between supporting innovative technology and the confidence in product and performance data to allow these to be accepted into mainstream and within compliance tools was also highlighted as an area of concern.

The impact of users on the actual energy performance in homes has not been included in some key research projects although in reality this has significant impact.  While this lies beyond the scope of a developer’s influence, key decisions about the complexity of services, controls interface and handover procedures all contribute towards the usability of homes.  Instances of how internet based tools and were successfully employed in some projects to engage with occupants to develop a feedback and learning mechanism were highlighted.

There were concerns voiced about the problem of overheating in new and newly refurbished homes, especially when dealing with vulnerable occupant groups like the elderly.  The Zero Carbon Hub are working on a project looking at the evidence and aim to help develop the assessment standards and methods for evaluating and mitigating risks in new homes.

BSRIA sees itself well-placed to engage with its members and the wider industry to help address the various shortcomings and areas of concern highlighted.  Subsequent network events have been planned to focus on specific topics in detail and we are seeking feedback from members to help structure our efforts in the most effective and useful manner.

Presentations from all speakers can be found on the networks page of the BSRIA website.

Filed under BPE, BSRIA, Building Performance Evaluation, Building Regulations, Building services, Compliance, dwellings, housing, maintenance, Performance, performance gap, residential network Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The selection criteria of refrigerants

July 18, 2014 by Leave a comment

Salim Deramchi, Senior Building Services Engineer at BSRIA

Salim Deramchi, Senior Building Services Engineer at BSRIA

This is part two of a three part series from Salim. You can read part 1 here

There is no general rule governing the selection of refrigerants, however there are of course the five classic criteria and those are:

  • thermophysical properties
  • technological
  • economic aspects
  • safety
  • environmental factors

However, in addition to these criteria, others have to be considered such as local regulations and standards as well as maintainability and ‘cultural’ criteria associated with skills to support the units, application, and user training requirements.

The best approach when presenting evolution and trends is certainly the per-application approach. The desirable characteristics of “ideal” refrigerants are considered to be:

  1. Normal boiling point below 0°C
  2. Non-flammable
  3. Non-toxic
  4. Easily detectable in case of leakage
  5. Stable under operating conditions
  6. Easy to recycle after use
  7. Relatively large area for heat evaporation
  8. Relatively inexpensive to produce
  9. Low environmental impacts in case of accidental venting
  10. Low gas flow rate per unit of cooling at compressor

The choice of alternative refrigerants should involve a review of recycling or disposal of refrigerants. You must decide which criteria for the ideal refrigerant is of most importance to your organisation. It must be considered that the operation phase is the key factor when determining the environmental impact of the various refrigerants as there is less impact to the environment in the production and disposal stages. As an example, supermarket retailers are steadily moving away from long-established HFC refrigeration systems.

Decision making for new refrigeration plant using refrigerant alternatives such as ammonia, CO2 or hydrocarbons, which have comparatively little or no impact on global warming and zero impact on ozone layer, should consider not only the impact on the environment but the additional required skills to maintain (Ko Matsunaga).

You can  find out more information in BSRIA’s library. 

Filed under air conditioning, Building Management, Building Regulations, Building services, Environment, global warming, operation and maintenance, ozone layer, refrigerants, refrigeration, safety, Technology, thermophysical Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Indoor Air Quality a health and wealth issue for us all

January 22, 2014 by 2 Comments

Peter Dyment, Camfil

Peter Dyment, Air Quality and Energy Consultant – Camfil Ltd.

Indoor Air Quality is a slightly vague concept to most people. When asked they tend to adopt the Goldilocks principle. Not too hot, not too cold, not too damp, not too dry. This reflects the fact that for many generations now we have had the means to control our home and work environment with comparatively little discomfort and little attention being required.

However the golden age of low cost energy and apparently limitless resources seems to be coming to an end. Sustainability is the order of the day. We are all waking up to the real value of energy and the environmental cost involved when linked to our population growth. One cost is the realisation that in cities and near busy roads in the UK there is no longer such a thing as clean fresh air.

We all breathe air to live and if it is polluted or carries airborne diseases we can fall ill as a result. Airborne hazards such as Carbon monoxide or longer term indoor threats like Radon release are sometimes a problem but the toxic fine combustion particles mainly from traffic emissions and some power stations are the major health risk to the public at large.

Technology to the rescue, if we can’t control the weather and have trouble on a national level controlling air pollution then the solution is we can at least try is to control Indoor Air Quality. Ventilation is needed into buildings to replenish used Oxygen from the air and displace the Carbon Dioxide we all exhale.

The British and European standard that gives us the Indoor Air design parameters is the rather long titled ‘ BS EN 15251:2007 Indoor environmental input parameters for design and assessment of energy performance of buildings addressing indoor air quality, thermal environment, lighting and acoustics’. This also adds the parameters of light and sound levels which can enhance or blight an inside environment.

There has been concern expressed that in the urgent quest for energy savings in large building HVAC systems engineers have been turning off or turning down plant to save energy at the expense of poor building Indoor Air Quality.

A useful European study called Healthvent has recently produced a report that attributes the levels of Burden of Disease for Indoor Air on indoor sourced pollutants and outdoor sourced pollutants respectively. The ratio shows that approximately twice as much BOD can be shown to come from outdoor sourced pollution.

To save building energy losses it has been usual practice to make building envelopes as well sealed as possible as shown by BSRIA testing. This also has the added benefit of helping stop ingress of outside sourced air pollution into the building. Healthvent identified three strategies to reduce outdoor sourced air pollution coming into the building.
1. Optimal dilution using ventilation
2. Effective Air Filtration to reduce PM2.5 by 50%
3. Source control of pollution

Effective Air Filtration was shown to be the easiest measure to implement and give the best reduction of incoming pollution with minimum effort.

Anybody can now access through the internet information on air pollution levels in their locality. There is a national monitoring network run by DEFRA and the local authorities. The Kings College website even allows Londoners to enter their post code and directly get a map of historic readings on their doorstep(example below)

pm2 5 map bsria

The recent study by Rob Beelen and his team on PM2.5, published in The Lancet, estimates that for every increase of 5 microgrammes per cubic metre (5 µg/m3) in annual exposure to fine-particle air pollution (PM2·5), the risk of dying from natural causes rises by 7%. A simple calculation indicates a routine increase in the mortality rate in central London of over 20% as a result of high levels of PM2.5 mainly from traffic emissions.

Natural causes of death in this instance can be respiratory and cardio vascular disease and recent analysis of data by the Campaign for clean air in London has highlighted that air pollution is one of the exposure categories causing all the top four male death categories and four of the top five female death categories in London i.e. Ischaemic heart diseases; Malignant neoplasm of trachea, bronchus and lung; Chronic lower respiratory diseases; and Cerebrovascular diseases.

It can be seen that the evidence is now compelling and action is now required both at a national level and on a personal level to ensure the air we all breathe is clean and healthy.  Some measures such as effective air filtration and air sealed buildings can mitigate exposure to this air pollution in the short term.

Peter Dyment is Air Quality and Energy Consultant at Camfil Ltd (BSRIA Member). Camfil Ltd also has two other excellent sites for readers: 

BSRIA is running an event looking at living with the problems of Indoor Air Quality.  To find out more and to book onto the event got the BSRIA website.

Filed under Airtightness, Building Regulations, Building services, Carbon, Compliance, Construction, Government, IAQ, Indoor air quality Tagged with , , , ,

Proving the future – how to keep up with Building Regulations

January 9, 2014 by Leave a comment

"From a standing start in 2006 to today, the builders have grasped the importance of air tightness testing as a proxy for quality of construction and the contribution good airtightness makes to energy efficiency" Mike Smith, Engineering Director

“From a standing start in 2006 to today, the builders have grasped the importance of air tightness testing as a proxy for quality of construction and the contribution good airtightness makes to energy efficiency” Mike Smith, Engineering Director

The rapid adoption of airtightness testing and the ability of the industry to achieve the right result first time in 89% of tests is one of the success stories of the UK construction industry over the past decade. The BSRIA Compliance team tested over 10,000 dwellings and 720 non-dwellings in 2012 and found the average dwelling airtightness value was 4.89 m3/(hr.m2) envelope area at 50 Pa (against a maximum regulatory value of 10 m3/(hr.m2)).

From a standing start in 2006 to today, the builders have grasped the importance of airtightness testing as a proxy for quality of construction and the contribution good airtightness makes to energy efficiency. The testing itself is rigorous, robust and, arguably, now at a very low economic price. It has respectability provided by UKAS accreditation for non-dwellings testing, the training of testers and, in the case of dwelling testing, registered testers through the Airtightness Testing and Measurement Association (part of the British Institute for Non-Destructive Testing).

The mantra should be “Build tight, ventilate right”. As fabric standards improve, driven on further by the 2013 Building Regulations, the role of passive and mechanical ventilation systems increases in importance. Unfortunately in the world of unintended consequences, we are seeing dwellings achieving better airtightness values than the designer intended which of course means less air leakage (and associated energy waste), but this is only useful if the designed-in ventilation systems can cope with these outcomes. In a nutshell the infrastructure supporting domestic ventilation engineering has not developed at the same pace as the improvement in building airtightness.

There is of course significant current activity to help remedy this problem but, as is so often the case, we are now on the back foot with increasing numbers of examples of poor installations and the inevitable questioning of the value of mechanical ventilation solutions.

The systems we are talking about are not complex but they are sensitive to errors. What is missing is not so much the technology or science but the widespread creation and adoption of proper codes of practice. Mechanical ventilation (MV) systems and the more complex MV heat recovery (MVHR) systems have to be site tested to ensure they are extracting and supplying appropriate amounts of ventilation. In the course of its compliance testing BSRIA is seeing two main kinds of problems.

The first is the performance of the specified equipment in a given situation, i.e. that the fan is correctly selected to match both the actual application and the inherent system losses that the system components will introduce. In simple terms this comes down to understanding the resistance characteristics of ductwork and its routing and the resistance of terminal units both inside and out. There is a widespread misunderstanding that ventilation fan outputs are usually quoted with outputs measured in “free air”. In reality they have to overcome backpressures from fittings. Even where kits are bought we see alternative terminal units used, usually to meet architects demands for aesthetics.

The second is the actual installation of the associated ductwork where there is a very poor understanding of the dramatic effect on performance that can arise from bad workmanship.

In a recent case BSRIA found approximately one metre of flexible ductwork that had been stuffed into the cavity wall for a straight through the wall installation that is approximately 300 mm thick. An additional 100 mm dogleg had been introduced on site to match the actual positioning of a porch structure. The result was a lot of fan noise with almost zero movement. The fan, when bench tested with zero back pressure, had a performance of 22 l/s, the designed performance including the ducting was 20 l/s however the actual performance was 5 l/s.

As part of the “catch up” in dealing with the rapid rise in the use of domestic ventilation we have identified that the act of measuring MVHR performance using published guidelines will give false results if the correct equipment or correction factors are not used. There is an easy remedy but not widely used at present. The automatic volume flow meter with pressure compensation – more commonly known as a “powered diff” will provide an instantaneous and accurate value. A more common hooded anemometer will impose a back pressure on the terminal, ducting and fan under test and the readings must be corrected (post use) specifically for both the anemometer model and the actual fan under test. More detail on this can be found in BSRIA’s “Domestic Ventilation Systems – a guide to measuring airflow rates – BG46/2013”.

And all of this is compounded by a lack of thinking regarding operational needs, limited controls, and poor instructions to the user, especially on what maintenance is required to keep performance at its peak.

So, airtightness demands have led to unforeseen consequences and something of a reaction against the use of mechanical ventilation. What then can be done to avoid making the same mistakes on other systems and concepts?

With fabric issues now largely dealt with in the Building Regulations it is likely that new focus will fall on the efficiency and operation of the MEP services in dwellings. If modelling and measuring the thermodynamics of a brick wall is difficult imagine how complex a multivalent heating system is going to be! And before being put into use, these complex integrated systems will need commissioning and possibly proving as well.

The Zero Carbon Hub has recognised that we will need to devise new test methods and regimes that, for example, will evaluate how the solar thermal collector performance meets expectations when linked with the ground source heat pump system that serves hot water generation, underfloor heating and thermal storage, in concert with a biomass boiler or room heater. Before regulation stimulates the market we need to have good practice guidance and proven on-site commissioning and test processes in place. This work is urgent and needs significant central support. With the next revision of Part L expected for 2016 – this time aimed at achieving zero (or nearly) carbon homes, time is not available to embark on a protracted negotiation with innumerable and varied industrial interests. Certainly industry’s support will be available but only for a properly directed and centrally funded programme.

If we fail to put into place a mechanism to improve the on-site verification of performance of new systems we will only have ourselves to blame for the next set of well publicised “failures to launch” and the consequent set back of achieving national aims.

BSRIA provides a range of Compliance Testing services for stress-free compliance to Building Regulations including airtightness (Part L), sound insulation (Part E) and ventilation testing (Part F).

Filed under Airtightness, BSRIA, Building Regs, Building Regulations, Building services, Compliance, Construction, Design, domestic ventilation, ductwork, dwellings, Mechanical Ventilation, MVHR, Zero Carbon Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Smart Response to Managing Buildings’ Energy Problems

December 11, 2013 by Leave a comment

This blog was written by BSRIA's Henry Lawson

This blog was written by BSRIA’s Henry Lawson

Issues around energy continue to dominate many of the news headlines in the UK, and are seldom far from the forefront in other developed countries. While much of the focus has been on rising domestic energy price- tariffs, the way that buildings use, and all too often waste, energy remains a huge concern. This is hardly surprising given that in both Europe and North America, buildings account for a whopping 40% of all energy consumed.

One thorny problem is the high cost of improving building energy performance, especially in a country like the UK where the building stock, especially  the residential building stock, tends to date back to an era when the principles of energy conservation were much less well understood, let alone acted on, and where the cost of improvements and renovation can be high, and the ROI correspondingly long – a daunting prospect when governments, companies and consumers are all still hurting from the financial hangover following the worst recession in decades.

All of this means that institutions, companies and households need to look at smarter ways of coping with high-cost energy in buildings that are often not ‘designed’ to be energy- efficient.  Here at BSRIA we have just completed a regular update of our report into Building Energy Management in Europe and North America, which has given us the chance to review some of the key current developments. As part of this, we looked at 17 of the leading suppliers to this market.

One immediately striking conclusion is that all of the leaders incorporate a level of analytics, in some cases as part of a wider portfolio, in others as their central specialised offering.  In one sense this is not surprising. If you want to improve a building’s performance then you can either take a direct physical approach– for example more energy-efficient construction or insulation, or cheaper or more environmentally friendly energy sources – or you can take steps to change the way the building uses that energy, which means interacting with its occupants and their requirements in an intelligent way, which in turn requires that you have all relevant information to hand. We can expect these analytics to become increasingly sophisticated, with buildings “learning” based on usage and performance over time.

This also helps to explain another striking finding:  that most of the suppliers in this sector now offer some level of on-going commissioning. Improving building energy performance is a continuous undertaking – reflecting the fact that buildings’ usage patterns and the behaviour of their occupants will themselves change over time, as processes and equipment become more, or less, efficient. In providing or supporting an on-going service, companies become less like suppliers in the “traditional” sense, and more like partners, providing consultancy as well as software or hardware. In some cases the service supports the actual procurement of energy and management of energy suppliers.

Another capability which is fast becoming a “must have” is the ability to offer a Software as a Service (SaaS) model, with all of the advantages in terms of cost model, maintenance, accessibility and flexibility.

wmi-thermostatAs buildings become increasingly integrated into the wider “smart world”, Demand Response, already well-established in parts of the USA is being taken up more seriously in Europe as well, with an increasing number of BEMS suppliers supporting  the move to automated demand response.

While the problems faced by large commercial buildings clearly differ in important ways from the light commercial sector and from residential buildings, there are likely here as elsewhere, to be important elements of crossover. Some suppliers are also providing differently scaled BEMS solutions and energy management is already one of the central elements of most “smart home” solutions.

Barring a sudden surge in cheap, readily available and environmentally friendly energy, which still sounds like a dream scenario, we can expect BEMS to continue its rapid advance in importance, increasingly integrated into related areas of Building Automation, and of Smart Grids.

To find out more about BSRIA’s updated study “BEMS Market 2013 Q4 : Developments in Europe and the USA”, please contact Steve Turner on +44 (0)1344 465610 (Steve.Turner@bsria.co.uk)

Filed under BACS, BEMS, Building Management, Building Regulations, Building services, Communication Technology, Design, Energy, Government, Market intelligence, Performance, Smart Grid, smart meters Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Recipe for Success

December 5, 2013 by 1 Comment

 

Ian Harman of Marflow Hydronics

Ian Harman, Technical Applications Enginner, Marflow Hydronics

Months are spent putting them together, and thousands of pounds are spent printing and promoting them, but it still seems that the wealth of documentation out in the industry, that could help users design, install and commission systems, is not always used.

No one could just pick up a pen one day and design a flawless system, whatever core skills they have.  It takes training and understanding; it takes skills that have to be developed over many years.  To support this, collected groups of people with the right knowledge and experience produce documentation that explains best practice and provide methods for success.  But in our busy industry, there isn’t always time to sit and follow best practice guidelines, sometimes you just have to use the best knowledge you have.

What if you were baking a cake, though, would you just use your best knowledge then?  You may have made a cake before, but are you really going to remember every single step, every single ingredient, every single amount to be used?  And if you did just use your memory, would you really expect the cake to turn out perfectly?  It’s highly unlikely.

So why not follow the ‘recipe’ when designing, installing and commissioning systems?

Designing Long Term

design-support-l1In my team, we’re always telling our customers to start with the end in mind.  The first step is always the design stage.  It’s vital that this is done with the complete picture in mind, keeping all the factors of how it’s going to work long term, in real life conditions, in mind.  For example, what are the best products to use?  How will seasonal commissioning take place?  How can you optimise efficiency?  It’s far easier for all contingencies to be considered up front, because if you realise you’re missing something further down the road it’s much harder to add it in later.  If we go back to the cake analogy, you wouldn’t start to bake a cake without considering what sort of cake it’s going to be.  If you later decided you wanted a chocolate sponge, it would be too late to add the cocoa after you’ve started to cook it.  Full consideration of every point needs to be done up front.

Ultimately, designers want to make sure that they design the most efficient systems possible using the simplest method.  No matter what the system, problems will always be inevitable, so designers also need to think about how systems can be troubleshooted when things do go awry that will cause limited disruption and can offer the quickest solution.

All this leads to one conclusion:  a system needs to be designed so it can work as well as it possibly can, with a few contingencies in mind.

CIBSE Commissioning Code W

CIBSE Commissioning Code W

Doing it Right

The documentation that’s been put together by collected groups of experts should provide anyone with all the information they need.  A Commissioning Code, for example, such as Code W, will provide guidance on what needs to be specified and included to make a system work; and then a BSRIA document will give all the important detail to achieve individual areas such as Pre-Commissioning.

The benefit of such guides is that they are not the opinion of just one author, they are made up of the knowledge of a group of experienced individuals who have to agree on what the best practice is, providing the greatest possible level of information.

My team at Marflow Hydronics actively encourages the use of such documentation, as getting the design, installation and commissioning of systems right, and right first time, is so important to the long term welfare of any system.

This was a guest post by Ian Harman, Technical Applications Engineer at Marflow Hydronics, BSRIA Member

Filed under BSRIA, Building Management, Building Regulations, commissioning, Construction, Design, documentation, Marflow Hydronics Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Review of the BSRIA Briefing 2013 – Changing Markets, New Opportunities

November 20, 2013 by Leave a comment

“Construction is the last of the big industries to go digital”, John Tebbit, Construction Products Association

November 2013 saw another brilliant BSRIA Briefing held as always at the fantastic Brewery in London. The event was chaired by John Tebbit, Industry Affairs Director at the Construction Products Association with c400 industry professionals in attendance. The speakers this year were focusing on customer satisfaction, data centre trends, changes in building practice and design decisions, smart technology leading the industry forward and the internet of things.

Chairman John highlighted two key issues facing the industry, the Construction 2025 strategy and the move towards Low Carbon as well as the construction industry being the last industry to go digital despite a demand to do so.

Bukky Bird talked about Tesco as a continuously changing organisation by highlighting some of the company’s historical milestones. From Tesco’s founder Jack Cohen opening a market stall in 1919 to becoming a global company with just over half a million colleagues today.

Bukky also highlighted some current customer expectations and key drivers for this such as the current economic context. She emphasised the need for organisations to understand and respond to changing needs and environments.

“A green agenda is a prerequisite of what customers expect from a brand like Tesco”, Bukky Bird, Tesco

“A green agenda is a prerequisite of what customers expect from a brand like Tesco”, Bukky Bird, TescoToday’s customer is under pressure, struggling with rising costs and dealing with lifestyle changes. The focus is therefore on family and the home, with a real expectation that brands should reduce waste and save money. Responding quickly to these needs is critical for retailers like Tesco and this should therefore drive the focus through the industry supply chain.

A challenge facing our industry is how to develop true partnerships to tackle these problems. Bukky highlighted the need for flexibility, agility and the need for the industry to be willing to change. The customer is changing radically and the building industry needs to be ahead of this curve.

Historically we have been very slow to adapt, and this is an opportunity to buck that trend. Her final point was that the industry are not supplying Tesco, but Tesco’s customers – understanding the customer’s needs and developing innovative solutions to meet these is key to successful partnerships.

“Nobody ever did anything to be green, they did it to save money”, Nicola Hayes, DatacenterDynamics

 Nicola Hayes looked at a rather different sector focusing on data centre trends and energy. Datacentres Nicola argued are the buildings you do not see, the hidden side of the industry and yet becoming a central part of several industries as people relocate their data to the Cloud. Nicola discussed the fact that Datacentres may be hidden but they do suffer negative publicity mostly due to the energy usage of such buildings and the accusation from the Press that they are singlehandedly destroying the planet. When viewing the industry as a country, the industry uses a little less energy than the UK as a whole, marked at 332.9TWh which is an exceptional amount and understandably a worry for the industry and a target from the Press.

But it was the trends that Nicola was concentrating on, where the Datacentre industry has come from and the expectations of it for the future. In three years the industry has grown from $86bn to a staggering $120bn as well a doubling in space used for the buildings, growing from 15million sqm to 31million sqm. The growth of Datacentres is down to several other key industries, the rate of increase has risen for Professional Services, Energy & Utilities, Industrial & Process and Media & Telecoms. With this growth there has been a change in how Datacentres are being built and their operations. There has been a 15% increase in outsourcing for the industry since 2007 rising to nearly a quarter of the industry but IT Optimisation still remains a major investment.

For the built environment the biggest change Datacentres has had for them is the increase in energy monitoring and the storage of millions of data bits. People in the world, particularly the US, UK and Germany are starting to become more conscious of energy efficiency therefore more business is generated for the Datacentre industry through big data from energy monitoring. Nicola pointed out that this is not done for a purely ‘green’ reason but primarily to monitor costs which are why most universities do not monitoring as they are not responsible for the financial side of their energy use.

With there being such a focus on energy efficiency, the way Datacentres are being built has also been a changing trend with there being 25% increase in the number of retrofits of Datacentres while there was only a 2.1% increase in the number of new builds. Efficiency measures (to answer to the Press criticism) are also now determined from the outset. However despite Datacentre industry growing at a fast rate there are risks involved for the industry from the small scale of compliance to the large scale of terrorist attacks. With these risks comes an important debate that is happening within the industry, cost vs. risk.

“There is a market for MVHR but we need to get better at delivering it”, Nigel Ingram, Jospeh Rowntree Housing Trust

 Nigel Ingram continued with a discussion about social housing and the consideration of end users when designing buildings. The Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust currently looks after 2,500 homes in Yorkshire and Hartlepool. Nigel discussed one particular project the Housing Trust are involved in, the Derwenthorpe village which looks at the lessons learnt from past projects and how they can improve their buildings. The way the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust decided on best building practices was through experimentation over four years, they built two prototypes and used 17 different methods and as many M&E components as possible including grey water harvesting and block work systems. The aim of this experimentation was to see what worked to create the best possible building.

As well as all these design considerations Nigel also enforced the importance of the end user and their lifestyles with the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust looking at how people live in buildings and what changes in lifestyles are expected in the future and how best can the prepare buildings for that. There were three main points that made up the JRH’s strategic servicing infrastructure, the first being fibre optics. The Trust believes that with the use of technology ever increasing including internet, television packages etc. they needed to invest in a viable cabling network. However none of the big companies were prepared to discuss such a project therefore the Trust developed a joint venture with an investor to set up their own fibre optics for the estate, by doing so they satisfied the customers and set them up for any increase in connectivity in the future.

The second point the Trust considered was Communal Heating, they looked at a variety of different heating techniques for the estate such as low ground source heat pumps.  Communal Heating was decided on in 2007 from a carbon footprint point of view as at the time the Code of Sustainable Homes was announced with zero carbon targets by 2016. Communal Heating is notoriously difficult to get working efficiently, just like any heating system however after it was distilled down into the six components that worked for the Trust it was able to provide fuel security and prince control for the future residents which is what users wanted from their buildings. The system now works and is one of the only systems in the country that is successful and has been contracted for 25 yrs to a European Communal Heating group.

However Nigel wanted to point out that the Derwenthorpe village has not been completely successful, the final point in their strategic servicing infrastructure was MVHR Systems. The project has not seen any success with these systems, it has been installed in 64 houses but customer feedback has been negative and there are many issues with it. As an alternative MEV is now being used. Nigel stresses that there is a market for MVHR systems but for it to work there needs to be massive improvements in the industry in terms of commissioning, installation and maintenance. There seems to be a technology focus rather than process and this needs to change if the industry is to satisfy clients and users of buildings.

Nigel’s main focus for the Derwenthorpe project was customer satisfaction, the importance of the end user. Fibre Optics and Communal Heating was installed for the benefit of the residents of that estate as they have certain expectations of the way they live including operational and financial. The Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust has focused on the end user for their design plans rather than what should work from the industry perspective. Rigorous testing and accepting systems aren’t right has gone into making sure buildings are built as best as they can be which is important for our industry, it’s taking into consideration the mistakes made on previous building stock and learning from them and also considering the occupants and their needs.

“The Cloud is as suited to small buildings as it is to big buildings or building portfolios”, Jeremy Towler, BSRIA

 Jeremy Towler reflected on the “smart” built environment and how we get there. Jeremy highlighted that there is a lot happening and changing in our industry emphasising that we are the last industry to go digital despite there being several opportunities for digital work particularly wirelessly. BEMS will become an increasing component of buildings, modules will be built off site and therefore digital technology needs to be an important investment. Mobility will also become a more important part of the built environment, currently everyone uses a mobile but with geo-location buildings will be able to recognise everyone in buildings and respond dynamically. With this the collective voice of the occupants starts to influence the building which could be quite revolutionary.

Building Analytics are also an important step towards a “smart” built environment, increasingly buildings have sophisticated software that permits building operation and how best to optimise them. With Building Analytics becoming a more common part of our industry there has been a move towards the Cloud which has allowed data mining to reveal relationships and trends we never could have imagined. With these advances also comes the development of Smart Cities, particularly in China where there is a commitment to build at least 30. Jeremy defines smart cities as an incorporation of intelligent buildings, broadband connectivity, innovation, digital inclusion and a knowledge workforce.

But Jeremy states it’s not just smart cities we have to consider, its smart grids and smart buildings. Smart grids is an advanced power grid for the 21st century, essentially it is a decentralised multi directional model where energy and information can flow from supplier to consumer and vice versa which enables a variety of new applications for homes and businesses. Smart homes on the other hand have reached a critical mass and are due to break into the standard housing market but with this there has been an opportunity seized by the utilities who are now offering connectivity.

With smart homes becomes the internet of things and the ‘ubiquitous homes’ where sophisticated systems learn behaviour and respond accordingly, like our mobile phones that can tell us where we want to go and how we need to get there, such software will be used in our own buildings to provide our homes with the settings that we need. However the current built environment is a long way from becoming a smart industry, currently more than 75% of the building stock has no intelligent controls which is primarily to do with the age of the buildings with over 40% of total stock being built before 1960. With this in mind there is an opportunity for the industry to consider a great deal of retrofit projects but for smart technology to work to its best potential for the built environment the industry needs new skills developed through training in software and hardware analysis.

“We are now accountable for how our buildings perform “, Michael Beaven, Arup Associates

 Michael Beaven continued on this theme of the industry needing to change but instead focused on workflows. Arup has learnt that change is beneficial to the industry, adaption is necessary to meet the needs of the client. Arup have changed what they do and how they do it, learning that doing things the same way over and over again is to no benefit. However despite the need to adapt there are constants within the industry, carbon being the main issue for energy costs and emissions for companies in reputational aspects as well as the bottom line an example being Sky who are very forward looking including reducing the carbon of their set top boxes from 10 to 4 watts saving 20megawatts to the grid.

Importance of energy and efficiency is paramount but so is what we build it with. Embodied carbon is a key player in how we build our buildings now; decisions are being made on where products come from and their whole life cycle rather than primarily cost efficiency. Buildings are also being tested now, everything is monitored in our buildings so we can learn how to improve them, we are accountable for how buildings perform. From this we can learn how to design buildings that are successful for end users.

Michael also emphasised Jeremy’s point of the internet of things, how the integration of IP controls are making building betters and even the advancement of BMW considering smart transport for smart cities. Building on the interaction between traffic signals and mobile data to develop relationships between them to better control traffic, even where you park will be managed in a smart way. Another important development in terms of smart technology is that people are now connecting and sharing information on what works for a building and how best practices can be established.

One of Michael’s most important arguments was the importance of BIM and the matter that we as an industry really need to get up to speed with it. It’s client driven so we need to be on board as it is not only changing our workflows but also our business, without a grasp we lose projects. There also needs to be an acceptance that BIM is not just about 3D drawings and design but rather it should be a changing of our work streams to digital.

BSRIA Briefing panel answers questions from the audience

Michael’s final point tied in one of the key themes of the morning, customer satisfaction or rather the importance of the end user. Arup are moving towards an end user focus, designing buildings for people rather than the client or the architect. He used Sky as an example of a company championing a place for people, designing a building that understands what the user wants rather than what is considered the best design. Michael emphasised the feedback loop, empowering people to vocalise what they want in a building, what controls work for them, with that Soft Landings is critical for discovering what works and what doesn’t and resolving these issues before a project is completed.

There were a variety of thoughtful questions throughout the morning ranging from what the industry is doing to combat the UK’s power supply reducing to 2% by 2016, John Tebbit argued that the UK needs to stop investing in the UK and instead build industry abroad and import into the UK. There was also discussion on why there are so many installations problems within the industry, Nigel Ingram suggested there was too much blame placed on the end user, that there needs to be more ownership of mistakes and to learn from them if the industry is to move forward. This was the key theme throughout the morning, for the industry to move forward in any pursuit especially digitally we need to focus on trends and accept change as a good thing. But when accepting change we also need to learn from our past mistakes rather than continue to avoid them.

“Change comes from doing 100 things 1% better”, Sir Clive Woodward

Following lunch guests were treated to an afternoon speech from Sir Clive Woodward who continued the theme of change being necessary to move forward and how that worked for the England rugby team and the British Olympic team. Sir Clive’s talk looked at the 3F’s or 6F’s argument and interestingly the importance of an Australian dentist and his impact on working habits. He emphasised the effort of a whole team being behind any win and argued that talent is not enough but learning, calmness and hard work are needed to leverage it.

A special mention also goes to Chris Monson, of main sponsor Trend, who was awarded an Honorary Membership of BSRIA, becoming only the 8th person honoured. Chris accepted the award from BSRIA Chairman Leslie Smith and thanked the company as well as the industry.

A big thank you to all delegates that attended and the speakers who gave their time to the event. Also thanks to Sir Clive Woodward for being our afternoon speaker and rounding up a fantastic Briefing.

To download the presentations from the event go to BSRIA’s website.

Filed under BIM, Briefing, BSRIA, Building Performance Evaluation, Building Regulations, Building services, Communication Technology, Construction, Cost efficiency, Customer Satisfaction, Energy, Environment, Government, Intelligent Buildings, Occupant Satisfaction, Performance, Post Occupancy Evaluation, Power Grid, Soft Landings, Sustainability Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Smart metering makes BPE easy…or does it?

November 1, 2013 by Leave a comment

BSRIA's Alan Gilbert

Head of BSRIA Instrument Solutions Alan Gilbert

Building Performance Evaluation (BPE) is here to stay. With government driving towards 20% reduction in costs for its built estate and increasing unwillingness to accept design predictions as sufficient to prove outcomes, objective measurement will be key. Government Soft Landings (GSL) and the implied BPE activities attest to this. In the housing sector regulation is increasingly looking to proof of performance (airtightness for example) with a growing European focus on providing owners with objective labeling of homes. The recent announcements of the 2013 revisions of Part L have largely focused on fabric issues but it seems likely that attention will now turn to the performance of installed HVAC plant and associated controls which themselves will present a challenge in proving that combinations of low carbon technologies are indeed working properly.

All this is happening at the same time as measures to introduce smart metering are coming on-stream. With a commitment to have full implementation by 2020, smart meters should provide a powerful means to assist with BPE of both commercial and non-commercial buildings but will they really realise this objective?

Just how “smart” is smart in the context of metering? At its lowest level the smart meter simply offers a remote display of energy use (often expressed in £) so that users are sensitised to consumption. Rarely are both gas and electricity monitored and I know of no instance where water is included as well. This is a shame: water (especially hot water) is an increasing proportion of dwelling energy use and is largely ignored by householders. There is increasing evidence that this kind of visible display can have good initial impact but that users rapidly de-sensitise. Really, these meters are not smart but simply remote display devices.

More commonly “smart” means that meter readings can be transmitted to the supply company on a scheduled basis. This is the type currently planned to be used in the present roll-out. Again it is unlikely that all three services are monitored and the data is often collected at no more than half hour intervals. As an alternative to self-read or estimated billing they are undoubtedly an improvement and will help electricity companies come to terms with balancing home generation and network loading but the thorny problem of access to data remains to be overcome.

Finally there is the possibility of the “really smart” meter which will permit full two way communication between utility and user thus bringing into reality the possibility of sophisticated demand management options for the power companies. Potentially this could be a rich source of data for BPE but ownership of the protocols and access rights are likely to be a serious hurdle to potential third party users of this resource.

Even if full access to a multi-service, duplex remote metering scheme is possible it cannot provide the additional data that a proper BPE service demands. In order to interpret energy use data additional sensors are needed to enable forensic analysis. Internal temperatures, occupancy rates, casual gains from white goods and local weather, all are needed to understand and normalise energy use back to some design criteria. Even when all this is achieved there is often no substitute for “feet on the ground” to interview occupants or spot unusual behaviours.

Access to large volumes of user data is one key requirement to understanding just how the various interventions in existing dwellings or

British Gas Smart Meter

British Gas Smart Meter

the application of new regulations in the built environment sector are working. The Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) has developed a restricted access National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework (NEED) and this has proven invaluable in understanding the real impact of certain measures such as cavity fill retrofits. Unfortunately this kind of data is not readily available to the wider research community at present nor is it fed from real-time or near real-time sources. This makes it unsuitable for analysis of individual properties.

We want to really deliver truly low energy (an carbon) buildings that are also healthy, productive and comfortable to use but,until the tangle of issues associated with privacy and smart metering are resolved then there is little alternative or more of this kind of work that will not only resolve issues in individual dwellings but also create a new generation of people able to interpret complex building physics and behavioural data. Surely a good thing in itself. If however we really want to look at effects in the wider population of buildings then DECC should be encouraged to invest in NEED and roll it out to wider research community so that academics, business and industry can better identify opportunity for action in bringing UK nearer to its legal carbon commitments.

For more information about BSRIA’s involvement in BPE including a presentation defining BPE as well as information on how Soft Landings fits in click here.

Filed under Building Management, Building Performance Evaluation, Building Regulations, Building services, Electricity, Energy, Environment, Intelligent Buildings, Power continuity, Smart Grid, smart meters Tagged with , , , , , ,

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