Recommissioning (RCx) Guide for Building Owners and Managers

Chapter 3 - Project Basis

Determining Roles

While Table 4 recommends general roles and responsibilities for team members, specific roles may shift as a result of budget limitations, unique building requirements, and facility staff expertise and availability. Finding the right balance between responsibilities for facility staff and the outside recommissioning provider can be tricky and requires a good understanding of the capabilities of the individuals involved.

A third-party recommissioning consultant²⁷ is usually hired to lead the recommissioning effort. A building or facility manager, however, can manage the project and bring in a commissioning expert to assist with certain tasks. While it may be advantageous for the building staff to play a central role in a recommissioning project, having a recommissioning expert provide consultation is recommended, especially for large or complex projects and buildings with highly-integrated, sophisticated systems.  

Four approaches for using a third-party recommissioning provider include:

1. Recommissioning provider oversees and implements the recommissioning process through all phases. This "turn-key" approach works well for owners who have one or more buildings with no on-site staff, or minimal staff with little time or training. The provider leads the project, manages any necessary subcontracts, and is solely responsible for ensuring that the owner's goals and expectations are being met through each phase of the process. This process is recommended for first-time projects even when the owner has a skilled team.
2. Recommissioning provider leads the process, but divides assessment work with facility staff. This arrangement works particularly well when facility staff has previous experience in recommissioning, or has expert-level knowledge of building systems. Arrangements such as these should be considered an active partnership between the facility staff and the recommissioning provider, leveraging in-house expertise as much as possible through all phases of the process to reduce consulting costs.
3. Recommissioning provider works closely with facility staff on initial projects, and in-house staff proceed independently with future projects. Owners with multiple buildings and well-trained and available staff may want to hire a recommissioning provider to work with the building staff for the first one or two buildings that undergo recommissioning. After the building staff is trained in the process, they can proceed with recommissioning the rest of the buildings.
4. Recommissioning provider works closely with facility staff on initial project and is retained as a consultant to perform advanced tasks on future projects. This is similar to the third approach in that the in-house staff works to take on the role of the recomm-issioning provider. In this approach, however, the third-party commissioning consultant is retained for future projects to oversee critical parts of the assessment or advanced tasks such as functional testing, data analysis, and savings estimates and calculations.

CAUTION: While it may be tempting to have existing facility staff shoulder the majority of the recommissioning work, the key is to strike the right balance. If owners expect too much from staff, the process may stall or stop altogether. It may be helpful to think of the first recommissioning project as a capacity building opportunity for everyone, and to increasingly rely on in-house expertise with each successive project.

Good reasons to have a third-party recommissioning provider lead the recommissioning process include:

• The owner or manager may not have the time or staff resources to participate in the process or the in-house skills to perform the in-depth assessment that is required during the recommissioning process
• Consultants specializing in recommissioning and O&M services have significant experience to draw upon, enabling them to offer a fresh perspective on a building. A third-party provider has no preconceived notions about how the building should perform, and has no vested interest in maintaining the status quo
• Recommissioning providers are "tooled" for performing the work since they generally use data loggers, functional test forms, power monitors, and other specialized tools on a regular basis. Most have proven assessment and testing procedures that can be customized to fit a specific building
• Engineering analysis is the specialty of the recommissioning provider, who has the analytic skills and resources needed to diagnose hidden problems and determine the cost-effectiveness of selected improvements

The following Table 5 shows the way roles were split for a large corporation with a highly experienced facility staff dedicated to the project. In this case, the energy manager developed an in-house recommissioning program to be used across all their facilities. The recommissioning provider served as a consultant for testing systems, analysing data, and training building staff throughout the process.²⁸

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²⁶ Natural Resources Canada's CanmetENERGY offers an Advanced Recommissioning Course targeted at recommissioning service providers and based on the RCx methodology described in this RCx Guide. Additional information is available on the Website.  
²⁷ I bid 26.
²⁸ Haasl, Tudi, Robert Bahl, E.J. Hilts, and David Sellers. Appropriate Use of Third Parties in the Existing Building Commissioning Process – An In-house Approach to Retrocommissioning. World Energy Engineering Congress. (2004).
²⁹ I bid 28.