Cx Energy 2022 - Staircase Pressurization Systems: How to Manage Risk, Commission, and Hand Over

so my name is Adam ogleton uh thank you for coming to hear me today I'm going to talk to you about staircase pressurization systems the systems that nobody really wants to own like or love commissioning the state tax pressurization system is a bit like except in your Microsoft Office license you just click yeah then read it don't do any due diligence right so I'm going to talk to you about commissioning from a systems point of view right so I've been lucky enough to work in 21 countries and one of the few constances staircase pressurization systems pretty much suck everywhere and no one owns them but to the best approach in my opinion to do this is is commissioning on a systems basis rather than an equipment basis so one of the cultural things I've noticed in the in the US and Canada there is a a tendency towards equipment based commissioning rather than systems so for me there's a chill water system but you know if you're a chiller guy that's just a chiller if you're on a phone call guy you're just a fan Corp right so this is really coming from a systems perspective and I'm going to talk to you about uh commissioning but from the design phase to construction phase to the actual commissioning phase and breaking commissioning down to functional performance testing on IST so before we get going can I just have a quick show of hands who in the room is a tab firm or a tab practitioner stick your hand up okay that's about 30 35 and who is commissioning everyone else okay good to know should be interesting right let's keep going so course description we've read that no objectives so what I want you to take away today is commissioning as a system and our systems approach and taking it from design phase so one of the things I talk about when I talk at other conferences commissioning begins in design anybody disagree with that all right how many people here have experienced starting commissioning from early design first stick your hand up that's not bad that's about 6 70 that's pretty good some conferences that number is a lot lower and I guess we can thank lead for that which is good so I want to go through design construction commissioning I'm going to talk about some of the codes and the authorities having jurisdiction how they play into it and talk about post occupancy testing as well so this is me I work for ASG we're an international commissioning firm we've got offices in London Singapore Dubai red and expanding I have a podcast called the edifice complex and I blog every week my normal diploma is building Whisperer so obviously didn't get much attention when I was young I need that attention so please hit that subscribe button right so let's get into it what is essential is invisible so in my experience now I'm I started work on the 1st of December 1980 I'm old great nobody really owns the staircase pressurization system right it's always sort of like oh he's doing it on a tab guys problem the control guys problem the fire guys problems never the main contractors problem right so main contractor is the general contractor in America so I put this thing out on LinkedIn a little while ago actually who owns it and this was a response so who owns responsibility let's do a quick poll here who thinks the commissioning firm owns responsibility for commissioning the staircase system to take your hand up only one you're braveless sir I hope your Pi insurances is well covered so in my opinion the engineer of record owns it and until that is signed off by The Authority having jurisdiction they own it who owns the delivery in my opinion that is the general contractor right because it's a system it involves the stairs the staircase the quality of the construction of the staircase the quality of installation the doors the gaskets around the doors the closers the whole thing right it's not just the air system the fact that when this I put this poll out on LinkedIn and it came back with this spread of answers so 40 think it's the design engineer 24 The Authority having jurisdiction 15 the main contractor and 14 commission fund the fact that that wasn't definitively for one thing tells you there's a lot of confusion out there right so why do build-ins not get handed over with zero defects so you buy a car do you have any expectation that there's a punch list with that card when you pick it up all right there's no commission Engineers for cars right why is that because they work right it doesn't go through your mind that it's not going to start when you turn it on right my laptop no commission Engineers for that why because it works but yet we've been building buildings for 5 000 years and we can't deliver a building with no defects I've never met a client who says here's a Construction contract I'm okay with 2000 defects I'll see you in three this time said no owner ever right but it happens so there's some there's some research on this and the bottom line is there's a little graph there you can see this was in the UK where I come from this accent is British in the UK there's a body it's a bit like the Lawrence Berkeley labs they did this whole research on the built environment and why why do buildings suck was basically the question What are problems and the answer was 50 of every problem you ever have on a building is in the design so when that goes out to Tender research has shown 50 of every problems in the design phase right which is why commissioning should begin in design and then 40 was in construction so what that means is if you walk around the building site and you see someone pulling something out that's been put in that is a screw-up being fixed but it's a double economic loss right while they're fixing that that costs time and money which means also the job's not being progressed so there's a double economic loss there so that is actually a disaster if you're a construction firm right you don't want that now when you get to Life Safety Systems there's an issue right so no one cares if the phone call unit doesn't really work you get hot you get cold no one dies right but we're talking about Life Safety Systems here so the problem is with staircase personalization as an example right when do you care about that when the building's on fire and you're running down the stairs right until that point no one really cares right but they are really important right insurance is tied up with it life safety is tied up with it it's a protection route for firefighters right it's a way of protecting the building and getting people out so it actually does matter now going back to the design Point here if you're a design team what is your job actually I'd argue you have one job no matter if you're an architecture as an engineer your job is to produce specifications and drawings that communicate clearly to the construction team what they need to build right it's not complicated anyone had a set of experience to set drawings with zero errors and omissions stick your hand up zero hands up yeah of course so I've been working 40 years never seen that it's like the Unicorn you know it's coming but it ain't coming really so you know why is there commissioning because buildings don't work out the box right why should commissioning begin in design because 50 I'd argue is higher than that but 50 of every problem you have is baked in the cake there but if you can intervene during design with a commissionability design review and find a problem and fix it that's a pretty low-cost solution right spending on ripping something out so design phase actually matters now the other thing you'll never see you're never going to see I don't know the ashrae mag and there's not going to be a person on the front doing a grip and Grim photograph saying I've just won an award for best life safety staircase pressurization system never going to happen right who designs these systems is it the partner in the office or the super senior engineer no it's the intermediate person who was not paying attention when they asked for someone to put their hand up right so this is a problem but this is a problem because when you do a life safety system right you look at this slide these are all the codes that are relevant if you're so if you're a North American you're an American these are the codes you have to read analyze synthesize the information pull out what matters because codes are prescriptive right so you know if you're designing the most environmentally friendly carbon low carbon I know Viv system in the world there is some prescription in that but a lot of it is engineering license right whereas when you'll design a life safety system it's really about prescription and that prescription is in 20 different codes 20 different standards then you've got the authority having jurisdiction have their say as well right so you know so let's recap we've given this design task to an intermediate engineer who's probably not being supervised by a senior engineer then we're asking them to make sure they've absorbed all this information synthesized out what they need to do and then made sure their design meets the prescribed requirements to save somebody's life right so my point there is you know it is serious it matters so design steps I'm not so just like by the way the slides are all in your app and if you want to copy the slides and you need them I can send them to you so don't worry about taking notes and I don't I'm not going to read all this out to you but this is the design procedure we're asking this intermediate person to do right we're asking to synthesize all that information from the codes then we're asking them to follow this design procedure right so they've got to calculate leakage rates through shafts that they don't know the quality of construction on they could race through doors they're taking it that the gaskets are working and then leakage rate for adult work but when you see something that says add 50 factor for unknown leakage in shaft add 15 factor for ductwork leakage that is not a precise science right when you have to have those fiddle factors in that tells you a few things one it's not a precise science two that means your design has to be robust enough to deal with that right it has to deal with all the variables of people running up downstairs this thing might come and I might not come on but also it has to deal with variables in design quality leakage rates right and it still has to meet the prescribed performance so the point here is even if you are the best designer in the world there are still a lot of variables in so your design has to be robust enough it cannot be fragile it has to be anti-fragile if you're a Brit so there are design objectives right so for as a commissioning person I'm always looking beginning with the end in mind right I want to know okay well if one day I'm going to test this system I need to know how many doors I need open what flow rate I'm trying to achieve what pressure I'm trying to achieve what door Force I'm trying to do right so designers it's on them to know that right that's one of the first questions I would ask a designer in a design review you know are you aware of how I'm going to test this 50 of the time the answer is no actually but the point is you've got to know right and if you're the Commission in person and the tap person in many cases you've got to know these requirements now every jurisdiction has some different twits on it and internationally there's different twists so a lot of jurisdictions are working follow a British standard which is different but either way you've got to know right so risk mitigation again not gonna read this out but from a design point of view right if I'm the intermediate designer designing this I don't want my firm to get sued I don't want to get fired right so I've got to meet the prescribed requirements then I've got a design for robustness right then I've got to make sure it's going to get through the authority having jurisdiction which is normally a cfd type analysis right and then I've got to consider all the other disciplines in it so the point is on a design review basis or a commissioning design review basis you've got to look at those things as if you designed it you've got to put yourself in the mind of the designer and you've got to ask yourself these questions does this meet prescribe requirements is it robust is it going to fail is it going to come on is it going to meet that requirement on a door closes correct on a door undercuts correct right all these things have to be taken into consideration so from a design point of view put yourself into my own designer from a construction point of view so this is where we really get into the Microsoft license analogy right so a lot of general contractors I've worked with do not really accept that this is their job I've pushed that down to the fire engineer I've pushed that down to the fire alarm person I've pushed it down to the tab person on a commissioning guys can come in he's going to sprinkle magic dust on it it's all going to work right no so as commissioning providers I think you should really be in conversation as early as possible with a main contractor and try and get them to own a responsibility so we're talking about the different here between responsibility and accountability right so respond if I'm accountable for something and I'm the main contractor a general contractor I can still delegate responsibility for certain things right but I've still got to own the accountability of that and this is where I think the disconnect exists in a lot of Contracting places it's not an American thing it's a worldwide thing so a lot of contractors go well I've given that order to the type guy that is his problem yes it's his responsibility to do it but it's the general contractor's responsibility to make sure he does it right make sure he coordinates with all the other players involved and make sure you're already having jurisdiction get the demonstration they need to sign it off right that's the accountability so you know if you're if you're below that level of accountability you've always got to push the GC to own it because you need cooperation from the GC right you need them to be on board with this so the other problem with construction is staircases are probably one of the best ways to move Mana materials through a building right so you know very I can't think I've ever seen one construction schedule where they've actually planned to test the staircase properly on a high rise because they always want the staircases over to bring people through so you wind up doing it out of hours for extra money sometimes right maybe so the point is here if you're involved early hopefully you're involved from design then you're involved in early construction the key there I think as a commissioned professional is to advise the main contractor try and get them on board and give them advice on how to schedule try and get them to carve out schedule time or or accept early that they're going to do this out of hours right so get that scheduling programmed out and get them to understand it is a system it's not just a bit of ductwork blown to mirror in the staircase is a system that interlinks so that diagram you see on this slide here is my attempt at a systems diagram all the components in this diagram are part of the staircase pressurization system right so we're talking about the staircase the fire alarm the emergency lighting the door furniture the construction of the staircase the interface with the PA system the interface with the elevators these are all things that matter they are all designed to work in concert on that day that there's a fire and everyone's running down the stairs right they all interact with each other this is an IST thing which we'll come on to so let's talk about commissioning there are three definitions all of which I dislike to various degrees so I'm in America right ashrae this is the generally accepted definition of commissioning so it's a quality focused processor it's way too long this definition I hate it I do I hate it because it it uses the word process right so the problem with the word process is it implies if you just follow these steps everything's going to be great and good and all Dandy so I would argue you can follow a process and still get nowhere what matters is the rigor brought to that process the technical ability and expertise brought that process the evidence that things have been done so when you go to a job you get these really thick binders for the tick list beware that is like an inverse correlation to actual work that's been done right what matters is testing so the UK I had to get the Brit thing in there right I'm a Brit so the UK definition commission is this advancement of a system from a state of static completion I.E just before power Zone to full Dynamic operation in accordance with specified requirements it's a one-time event I like that it's cut it's concise it's systems based it doesn't imply process but the best definition ever is Ronald the Reagan trust but verify very cleverly used a Russian proverb against the Russians which I thought was cheers right but this is it right commissioning answers the how question how is this building green how is it low carbon how does it meet spec how does it perform right the The Authority having jurisdiction they come and want the how question answered if your Authority having jurisdiction coming to inspect and have something demonstrates you your question is how does this meet the spec right how can I sign this off does it meet spec so commissioning answers the how question but you answer that through verification through testing it's not sitting in your trailer ticking boxes I hate the word checklist right so checklists have a place Pilots use them right to make sure they don't miss anything before takeoff which I'm very happy about because I fly a lot so there are some places for it but tick lists checklists be so users in the checklist and a checklist the problem with the checklist is if you see a checklist all ticked it's implied that all the work has been done on that right yeah it's super easy to sit in that trailer and just took that thing during that coffee right well so beware the big heavy checklist report right you want the how question answered every time and that's your job as a commissioning person and as a tad person how does this system meet spec how does it perform right that's what we're about here so this is the other thing I put out on LinkedIn staircase pressurization who commissions it and of course everybody had a different answer to that so this is an industry that's been putting up buildings for how long and fire matters Life Safety matters and yet there's no real clear agreement about who commissioned it right so I would say my answer to that question is the commissioning engineer Authority or agent whatever part of the board you're in does it right but that person does it as an independent third party and reports objectively on that performance but it is the commissioning engineer's responsibility to test it but it is the general contractor's accountability to make sure it's all done properly and handed over in accordance with prescribed requirements right so this shouldn't be confusing but again it is confusing now the good news is NFPA have been around a long time it's driven by Assurance which basically is Latin for money and they're all in the US there's a very well documented requirements and there's very well documented procedures that have to be done so NFPA three and four who is aware by showing hands who is aware and uses these documents one two so there's about five ten percent of people in a room now I'm shocked always at how few Engineers specify these documents or even know they exist so I'd encourage you as commissioning providers to bring these documents to your clients and use them because it's legitus legitimacy in it right NFPA super legit right Insurance super legit so my point here is on top of all the standards we had on one of them earlier slides if you're a designer if you're the cons Commission in person there are standards that are out there ABC actually from a tad point of view ABC even addressed this and ABC have standards for balancing right nspf standards for functional performance testing and ist so we should be using them right so it's not just I walk through the job do some tick lists wave an anemometer around it's no it's not that it's what's in these documents and they do call out the requirement for qualified independent testing that's what they call out's for so good on them I like that so America's wild a few jurisdictions that have documents dedicated at a really sort of important level to functional performance tests in IST I'm working on a commissioning code in the UK to try and get that in there anyway let's let's move on so let's talk about the commissioning process right from design all the way through to Handover so these are the documents you've got to get involved because our job is a game of documents right it's not a game of thrones so documents matter but the content manner right so as a commissioning provider your job is not to take the design responsibility of the engineer your job is to review all the design documents out there and check them for commissionability right so these are the documents we need and I'll go read them out because you can read but really what is really matters here is the owner's project requirements I love that that's a good americanism that's spreading around the world nicely you know why going back to the design thing you know why are design documents horrible one of the reasons is because owners are not great at asking for what they want so Winona just says oh give me a lead gold building I want to leave gold building actually that's not really helpful if you're a design engineer or an architect right there's a thousand ways to do a League goal building probably A Million Ways right so you've got to be specific so the owner's project requirements actually I think is a really important document but what needs to be included in that is the low safety aspects and the testing that's going to be handled because if you start documenting that early you can start getting that expectation into the tender documents and the bid documents right and then the fire strategy that's a really important one obviously because the authority having jurisdiction need to be on board with that but these are the documents that are on this list you've got to review as part of your commissionability review and this really I'm a big fan of network diagrams and planning so if you hire me on your job one I'm expensive congratulations but two I like to plan out using logic diagrams right so the reason I use logic diagrams this is like a dimensional schedule there's no resources and no time on these diagrams but you can get people to agree to the basic logic which is we're going to do this before this and this is the order and we'll do that and then you can say okay we've all agreed that good it was not in right now you can put resources on it so these are the steps for design face commissioning I'm going to review the opr the fire strategy the drawings and specs any calculations any cause and effects Matrix do you use that terminology here causing effects Matrix all right I'll explain that later it's a really important document and then I'm going to produce a commissionability report right so if you're a commissioning agent you've got to show proof of work we need some footprints in the snow you can't just go yeah I look today it looks all right to me Bob's here you've got to write a report I reviewed these documents this is what I found these are the commissioning issues this is what I suggest and recommend you address and you've got to do all this without adopting responsibility for design and having your assurance trigger so the outcome the output from the design phase commission is a commissionability report and also a design phase commissioning plan so why am I doing a design phase commissioning plan because if you map out early before you go out to bid to the main contractor and subcontractors the commissioning process who's who in the zoo who does what when and that is adopted into the bid documents then there's no argument later on that you didn't know you're doing commissioning you didn't know what your part in it was so I recommend to all my clients we have a design phase commission implant so let's talk about Dr fauci now the good news is before he came along I was always talking about flattening the curve and no one understood what I was talking about so again thank you Dr fauci red if you take the premise that 50 to 80 of every problem you're going to have in a job is bakes in the design cake and you can if you're doing a commissionability design review the game is how many problems can I find and address cheaply before they become expensive and they become expensive immediately after the contractor is on board right so if I find a problem during design I'll give you an example I did a hospital job in Canada did a design review and someone to put a multi-leaf vcd in front of every Viv box on the primary side it was just a junior engineer it was a mistake you don't need that so we got them all taken out so I charged five thousand dollars for that review and we saved sixty thousand dollars in cost and all it took was someone opened a car drawing guy and delete delete delete literally took 15 minutes now if I'd have found that in construction one them dampers will be in there for the next 30 Years fully open never being used and it would have been too embarrassing and too expensive to take them out right so that is a value a clear example of value from design review right the problem with finding examples of value they're normally retrospective right it's really hard to go in and forward that so the point is if you can find Things Early you flatten the curve you have a choice on a job you eat your problems late and expensive or you eat them early right when you're playing the hard contractual game and pushing things down you wind up eating all your problems late and expensive and then the game becomes who owns the money kpis to have a quick talk about kpis so if you're a project manager the kpi is a cost time quality right the whole triangle all good I would argue the best kpi on any job is how many rfis have been written right so what is the job of a design document to communicate clearly what to build and how to build it and what standards to build it to right so there's two types of RFI in the world there's the ones where contractors can't be bothered to read the spec all the documents so you just answer them please with respect but there's genuine rfis where they open the drawings and the drawings are not coordinated properly there's mistakes on them there's errors or no missions and those rfis lead to change orders right because if it's a legitimate question and they found a problem that means there has to be a cost based solution to that right so the the rfis in my opinion are a referendum on the quality of the design documents you go on a job and there's a gazillion gazillion being a technical term rfis that tells me the design was incomplete or uncoordinated or just plain not good and then the contractors have legitimate way but way to get extra money good for them but the problem with that is you wind up never knowing how many you're going to find as you go along right so what the disaster is you're like a month before Handover and then all of a sudden a massive problem erupts out of nowhere so rfis are a referendum on your design team so if you're doing a design if you're a design and build contractor judge Your Design Team on the rfis that come out of that work when I get on a job if I get on a job late and I've not been engaged during design phase I always write my RFI right I always get it in there early and I write what's basically on this slide okay I'm not going to read it out to you but you know please tell me what standard you've designed this to you know what I'm testing it to what's a leakage design leakage rate of the shaft what's the dynamic Edge rate of the ductwork and get an answer some answers sometimes they're just plain down answer them right and then a method statement do you guys work with method statements here you don't really do that in America okay so in other jurisdictions a method statement is where you have to describe before you do the work you have to describe how you're going to do it in a safe way and then if someone does you go to jail they pull the myth statement oh yeah right didn't do that boom It's a UK thing but hey yeah so it's Dave Manor and again they've got to reflect what's going on particularly with Life Safety Systems right so this is the normal reaction I get when I tell a design engineer I'm going to review do a commissionability review Gotta Love Mel Gibson right it's an Australian American Scotsman love that I just wanna you can't emphasize this enough I see a lot of tab engineers and a lot of commission Engineers adopting design responsibility without knowing it you have to be careful how you write these reports you have to clarify what you are not doing and what you're not doing is a first principles design review right that's a design engineer a records job you are checking that 80 of this work is commissionability is everything here I need to commission this is there anything missing is it it's all in the right order right but there are also the other 20 is you're looking at the drawings in detail you're going to find errors and omissions that some people have missed there's nothing wrong with that you just say it I was looking at drawings I saw this this and this letting you know or you see good practice issues I don't think there's any code in the world that says you can't have 20 foot of flexible duct but if I see that I get a little bit triggered right because it's just not a good idea but there's nothing says you can't do that so that is a good practice observation right it's good practice to do X Y and Z you can say that as long as you caveat it that you're not this isn't a design intervention this is oh I see this do you engineer record want to take that on board and it is the engineering records job to take your commissionability review and answer it yes I see what you're doing there no I'm okay with that right boom and that's on the record right so do not adopt design responsibility and try does anyone here do design face commissioning plans anyone done that got one yes that's good there's a few right that's good you're doing it anyway right you're right in that plan anyway whether you're doing it late or early do it early and get it into the job early and then people can't say they didn't know right that's the point so construction phase these are the documents I want to review and this is a construction phase process so the big thing for me at Stark construction is having a kickoff meeting so anyone here know that guys I'm box therapy YouTube no am I just like a 58 year old teenager who watches YouTube looks that way okay right so this guy is bigger than Joe Rogan right he does unbox therapy he just unbox his stuff and he's pretty funny so for me the project kickoff meeting is like the unboxing meeting for the project I like to get everyone in the room and then just go through that commissioning plan this is what we're doing this is what we're not doing this is who's responsible for what this is when we're doing it are there any questions and I have like uh almost like a political rally where you just have everyone ask every question until there's no questions so that way you've got this some good things come out of that one everyone's had it explained to him who the Commission in person and it's not a magic person it's not a wizard they're not going to fix design problems right and also there's like this okay we're officially in play now we're going forward and you can't say you weren't there and you make yourself accessible and you make yourself I treat it like almost like a kickoff meeting and Seminole assuming most people don't understand commissioning which is pretty much most people so again I'd recommend you doing that it's a really good tool and it's a way of sort of reducing conflict early because some people come and go oh it's like a North commissioning guy I want to get this dude now right don't want that so the idea is to keep the conflict low through just answering any question that comes up and this network diagram here this is the construction phase commissioning process set out in logical order I can't read it here because it's too small on my screen so it's carry on so let's get into commissioning phase so I break commissioning phase as a Brit we we talk about static completion what that means is the installation 100 complete before startup and Power on right so all the grills there all the devices fitted you know on a doors on and then Dynamic commissioning is once power is on and things are started up right and that's when we start doing functional performance testing so I break down commissioning from like power-ons or like functional performance testing and then IST as a separate phase and these is what I'm doing here God I wish I could read this slide anyway these are the things so what we're emphasizing here if you look at the first block right so there's emergency lighting and commissioning now functional performance testing for me and I think this is correct and I'll fight anyone to the death who said otherwise is about the system right so I am functionally performance testing the emergency lighting system the backup power system the air system fire alarm system right so this phase I'm not interested in how they interconnect I'm just making sure that they're started up they're tested and they work individually as a standalone system and they can be done in parallel right you know the tab guy can work in parallel with the fire alarm person right there's no problem with that right then the test and balancing person is going to wrap up and hopefully that's when we start getting into the you know is this really working or not because it's the test and balancing person it's the first person that works out if there's problems with pressure airflow door closers right these are the people that really start getting into the what's really going on so is anyone type people is anyone here tested a staircase pressurization system how do you go through no problem first time anyone okay that's consistent with everywhere else I've worked as well I was I was frightened you guys might be super good so the point is the test and balance in person starts to become very important in this process right and this is the problems I find have to be addressed and then we've got to get them resolved and then this is where you've got to have this whole team thing going on right the system the test imbalance in person cannot solve a controls issue a leaky shaft issue on their own this has to be driven by the commissioning Authority as part of the commissioning team and it has to be include the general contractor and the subcontractors right then we're going to get into the functional performance scripts so again this is nfpa3 oh no right nfpa3 so they have some um it's all like generic scripts at the back the problem with generic scripts is they're generic so in my view everything generic is like 80 you still got to put on the 20 that makes it like real and job specific so the functional performance testing again this is where the commissioning people come in so the individual Specialists have done their work the tab guys found the problems and they've been fixed and now we're doing the functional performance testing of the system right and the various systems within it so we're functionally going to performance test the lighting system the power system um you're testing that power you know with with the standby fuel as well um we're testing the air system we're testing the control system the fire alarm system right all the PA system the interlock with the elevator and the fire alarm system that one 40 years in I've never seen that work first time everyone goes uh who's wiring that up turns out nobody um that's always a change order so you're making sure that's done right so at the end of this process individually you'll be able to put your hand on your heart and say individually these systems will work right and this is a really important Point here right there are a hundred variations on the staircase pressurization system I'm looking at a job in Dubai at the moment where some genius value engineered the sheet metal duct work out and decided they were going to do it in sheetrock awesome obviously not working yeah I've worked on a job in Dubai where they value engineered out the pressure relief dampers money right who cares because this is the problem with value engineering everyone who makes that decision is long gone when the building's on fire and everyone's running down the stairs right so the problem with value engineering is there's no consequences to a bad work which is the story of our whole industry but the other thing that really matters here is I've been talking about systems and quality of staircase and quality of everything this performance of this system the fragility or not in the system comes down to a static pressure sensor somewhere in that staircase right so talking about imagine your mum running down them steps and our life depends on the 250 dollar sensor that you're hoping has been calibrated set up properly and it's working properly as part of that whole system feeling comfortable with it I know I'm not now on high rises and multiple um super high rises there's multiple sensors hopefully if these but there are single points of failure here right and as a commissioning Authority agent engineer you've got to focus on these you've got to test these to description there is an Optimum set point for that so it's a single point of failure but it's also a single point of Effectiveness right there's never I've never had a controls engineer come to me and say Adam give me the set point for that so that pressure sensor I really need it so I finished my job they just go yeah I've just set that 50 I'm out of here boom all right so it's on the commissioning person to bring that together and make sure that set point is in it's an empirical set point so it's not like a well I think it's 250 PA or or an inch you know it's I've tested it and based on the various factors and leakage rates that needs to be this right and it's an empirical set point and it's recorded in multiple places in that commission report ideally there's a schematic and there's a number on there so that if the FM team need to reset it or change it out they can test in the pressure relief damper but that as a single point of failure a single point fragility has to be investigated very very intensely during the commissioning process again this is if you get a PDF of this this is all high res so you can blow it up there are lots of I love the word kpi right because I've got a degree in project management so NFPA have requirements for how fast should the damper open how fast should a damper open and then a fan stop how fast should the standby power come on right there are for so this this this is just for a North American audience this is just a series of requirements that need to be tested and verified that are called out in all them documents I had in that earlier slide so there are standards for fire alarm levels the lighting levels to stand by power right how fast everything happens what sequence it all happens and these are all called out in NFPA and in theory the commissioning agent is supposed to know them put them into their functional testing and record them right as a record so again that's what this is so if you want that you can get it and you can just hope now but this goes down to like you know the damper should openness so many seconds on the fan just starting 70 seconds all right IST this is really what it's all about this is the culmination of everything and this is what matters so IST Integrated Systems testing what this is is how does this system interface with this system right so if you go back to the systems diagram we've got staircase we've got ductwork we've got fire alarm Pia elevators lighting blah blah blah blah blah right these all have to work in conjunction with each other and they're designed to work in conjunction with each other right and there are interfaces some Hardware some software interfaces between them these have to be tested during Integrated Systems testing so this is the this is the network logic Network for that so what are the inputs to this you need a cause and effect Matrix so what's the cause and effect Matrix let's use this right so this is our explaining when there's a fire event or an event right fire alarm gets pulled a series of things happen right the certain air handy units go off the elevators ground certain things come on certain things go off and this all happens in a certain order that is the cause is the fire alarm port and the effects are this this and this so that that's normally presented in a matrix format and that has to be tested that's the IST test and when you demonstrate the staircase pressurization system you're supposed to demonstrate it on standby power because that's its it's normal sort of like working mode right that's the mode when your mum's running down the stairs the generators come on there's enough fuel in it it's kicked in everything's running and Mum gets out right so that's you have to test it in that mode and you have to test so there's there's a series of tests you do and they they're called out here but there's a service test like you start off with a condition that is normal right then you set the fire alarm off then you see the things come on then you test it then you see it go back onto normal Power all these sequences have to be tested now let's say we've done all that right anyone here seen this HBO show Chernobyl awesome right it's like car crash TV is so grim but you can't stop watching it it's so good right and at the end of this show because I'm a nerd and so the end of the show is the trial they're trying to work out who did what and obviously this is Russia someone's got to go against the war and get shot right so there's some poor guy who was put in charge of cleaning this all up and he gets up and makes a speech and he describes why this thing blew up right and what he describes as a Cascade failure this didn't get done unless didn't get done which led to this which literally to boom right so what you get something says is the problems on this job was no one could speak to power and he had a word no right that's generally a general contractors can be a bit like that and he said and because the job was late and no one could hear the word no we didn't do any IST and we didn't test a standby generator which meant I a valve that should have opened to bring cool and Indian open boom boom boom Cascade Cascade Bang so Chernobyl turns out blew up because it wasn't commissioned properly with ist testing true story if you believe HBO which I do because all the actors were Brits when I was watching that on my third beer because it's all a bit depressing you realize you've seen that movie right I've seen that movie on a big jobs where they're late and everyone's got reputations at stake and you know damages are going to kick in if you don't hand over so what happens don't tell me no son come in and get that done right oh you've got to test that do that out of hours if you can't do it don't worry we'll push it into later and later never comes right and with lifestyle with fan call units you know it doesn't matter you get hot you get cold no one dies low Safety Systems it really does matter and because there's this like who owns it is it the authority having jurisdiction is it the professional engineer engineer of record at the end and they're not normally there at the end right they've moved on to another job or Fred's not with this firm anymore you know it just gets shuffled under so the Chernobyl effect is actually real so we're at the end very closely and now you'll be glad to know commissioning is not about reports I know I've already had a kick on the head of checklists right it's about action there's two types of commissioning there's process-based commissioning which is why I don't like the asteroid definition which is all paperwork driven and it implies that if you fall this process is all good and it doesn't explicitly ask you to have domain expertise or technical knowledge right you can see is I followed this thing I filled his forms in I've met my requirements technically you have right is that good no Commissioners about results not reports all the commissioning report is is a way to memorialize for the record performance of that building when you hand it over right it is not a thing on and of itself it is just a record of all the work that's been done if it's an iceberg the tip is the report and all the work that's been done underneath is the mass of the iceberg right so you know it's about outcomes and as a commissioning Authority you have to answer the question how did this system perform how does it meet the prescribed requirements now in the UK there was a terrible fire a few years ago a lot of people died and britsby and Brits they want to put someone in prisons below Russia and they couldn't find anyone put in prison and it made them mad and they're redoing all the building regulations which is building code and they're doing a thing called the golden thread so next year within a year's time there's legislation coming out which means every design decision you make on a life safety feature is going to be recorded so it's going to be accountability via identity The Genius of Facebook was bringing identity to software right so what this means is if you make a design decision or any decision related to that system your names could be on it and heaven forbid someone dies they're going to go through that and work out who effed up and you're going to jail you can watch that come here things tend to get up the Atlantic about five or ten years later so you can enjoy that I'll be retired but this will come to commissioning people right because the design matters and then there's the proven the efficacy of that system at the end to hand it over right so that golden thread is what they're calling it is going to reach all the way down the Commission in my opinion so the report is a record and these are all the documents that should be appended to that record and run out of time here so one more thing post occupancy testing again NFPA are awesome at calling this out so we've all done our bit right we've gone we're on to the next job our LinkedIn profile has been updated I've got my new pitch I'm looking good right and we're gone then the FM team come in they have a requirement to test these systems every six months and every year in certain ways depending what type of systems they are and keep a record of it so if there was a fire in America an insurance company phoned me up and said Adam I do not want to pay this claim get me out of it I would just walk into that job goately FM team and say show me all these test reports ever since Jesus bill was handed over show me you've done it show me the records I want to see the results pretty sure I won't find that and my client would not be paying that claim but again we are moving to a world of evidence-based design based on identity and evidence-based results based on identity at some point it is not going to be possible to dodge these things so we should try and get our clients on board with this commissioning records are evidentiary records right they matter and if something goes wrong they will definitely manner because some lawyer is going to get hold of them right so make them right and be accountable for it but one of the things I do in the wrap-up meetings I try and have a meeting with the FM team and make them aware of their obligations to test these systems a lot of them will do the generator tests you know I tend to generate everyone do that but I don't know any of them I've never met anyone who does the actual testing and record it so these are these are called out on these slides so that's it oh five minutes q a okay go what percentage of uh so we have to issue the whole team produces a small control permit where we're at yeah and so essentially it's like you have to have a testing plan you have to have the design it all goes in during construction of the construction team identifies who's going to do what do you see it anywhere else no so again different jurisdictions have different requirements and America is like 50 jurisdictions are now together with paper clips everywhere you go there's a different requirement so the permitting system is very strong in the US my experience with that is yes that permit's in place and there's a plan there right it's the follow through that's normally missing the execution of that plan and the test and the evidence and the report and so there's a it's a bit of a like a collective well I've got the permit we're all good right and then the thinking just stops at that point right it's a bit like um design engineer record designed to staircase pressurization system right he's a professional engineer stamp set drawing well good four years of college paid off right Authority having jurisdiction comes along and he's seen the cfd he's seen that stamped design because it's been to college for four years you must know what he's doing his standard report I can just say yes to this right and then there's no there's this gap of like evidence and testing and verification which historically we've all got away with to some degree and the more permits and the more officials involved them strangely the more you get away of it because everyone thinks well I've got this permit I'm good I've got this this guy's coming had a meeting with me I'm good right but I think we're going to be moving away from that to evidence so you know it's unfortunately the way it will manifest itself is the way it did in the UK with this horrible fire where people died it takes an event to create a change right and what it would be in our business it will create someone you know getting sued and put out a business to create that accountability going forward so where we live you have to produce a smoke control permit yeah we write a testing plan at a very agency the designer of record has to come out and witness after we're all set and done that the building operates as design and then you wish you a 72-hour letter to the authority having jurisdiction and then you come out and essentially perform an Integrated Systems test for the authority editors does that include all the other systems or the lighting the power yeah so it does include emergency generator yeah em lighting is starting to make its way more into that requirement but as far as just like the smoke Control Systems stairwell organization that is not part of it right now yeah it's just I mean that sounds like quite a formal process actually and that's unusual what you've just described I don't see that in many places um America is a bit more so the projects I've worked in America a lot of my career and it's interesting here because there's this quite a litigious place and there's consequences sometimes if you really and there's a lot of formality on permit in here and that makes sometimes that can lead to a more sort of like rigid better outcome but it's a bit Hit or Miss depending what jurisdiction you're in within the states right well yeah I mean yeah it's even worse here like we are from a home real estate so yeah city has its own set of building code so this is just one yeah so there's layers and layers and layers and layers so in in Australia they went down the um free market self-certification route uh fast forward five years there are several Towers there's one in particular in Sydney that is literally falling down because everyone's self-certified it to death and value-ended it to death and it's literally just cracks there's high rise it's literally in danger of being condemned at the moment so you know that's the opposite end of what you just described right you've got self-certification at one end and you've got sort of bureaucracy at the other and I think the way you square all of that is with independent verification that stands as a record and then if there's something going wrong you can go right with it we we verified it on that day what's happened since or did did that was that verification correct yeah was that performance actually meant but I just think accountability evidence is just going to become more and more and more part of our daily work right the days of winging it and tick listing it oh coming to an end as long with my career so that's good news for me sorry Adam yes you're talking about is the owner of this but do you have your personal preference um see if there's multiple or do you like that single point I like to see them all in one Center I like to see more than one sensor even in a like a low rise or mid-rise building was it one is none and two is one you know you need to if this is someone's life might be on the line here you need to right um but if you're the cost engineer value engineering that out is easy right it's only five stories let's just have one see yeah where we are that we get rid of the sensors and just do that when the fan When the Smoke control system is enabled it just goes Ben just runs at each set speed because those doors in a dynamic situation are opening and closing and if you're testing with a pressure sensor it has under static conditions that's not realistic for you know giving people five minutes so I like those designs where it's just it goes flat out and there's pressure relief damper to make sure the doors all can open because that that for me is robust because it's simple so this is the other sort of conundrum right it's got to be sustainable it's got to be and everyone reads that as complexity the most sustainability is born in um Simplicity and resilience and robustness is born in Simplicity right so I love those systems because they at work I'd feel more comfortable with that signing that often just about anything quite frankly because the minute you've got like this 250 dollar static pressure sensor and that's a point of failure someone might knock it off someone might not calibrate it or could wise could come you know there's so many things that go wrong with that right am I on time amount of time or okay anyone okay all right so if you need a copy of anything or let us know if you want to contact me please contact me I'm all over the Internet like a crazy person so you know and I don't get much attention thank you [Applause]

Channel: Building Whisperer

Views: 7,788

Keywords: Edificecomplexpodcast, ProjectManagement, makingbuildingswork, podcast, CxM, drawings, property, Bluerithm, Cx, Cxnomad, RICS, netzero, greenbuilding, Leed, Breeam, lowcarbon, building, construction, london, india, BIM, digitalconstruciton

Id: 0MP5IWToku0

Length: 58min 5sec (3485 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 28 2022