Commissioning Building Enclosure Assemblies and Systems

Learn about the commissioning process for building enclosures from predesign through early occupancy. This course will cover specific enclosure assemblies including exterior walls, roofs, windows, and doors.

• Building enclosure commissioning professionals 
• Commissioning process authorities and team leaders 
• Contractors 
• Building owners and managers

Please Note: The enrollment and successful completion of this course will meet the eligibility requirements for the certification course, Building Enclosure Commissioning Certification Examination.  If you are interested in pursuing commissioning certification, consider enrolling in both these courses simultaneously. Alternatively, you may enroll in the certification course at a later date when it becomes available.

Overview of the Commissioning Process

• ASHRAE Guideline 0-2013 and Standard 202-2013
• What is the commissioning process?
• What is a quality delivery process?
• ASHRAE/NIBS Guideline 0-2013
• What occurs in each phase of project delivery?
• Benefits of the commissioning process

Building Science Fundamentals

• The 2nd Law in layman’s terms
• Rain control
• Psychrometrics
• Water vapor transport
• Moisture control
• Interstitial condensation
• Confusion about diffusion
• Moisture and materials and sustainability
• Air transport
• Airflow control
• Pressures and IAQ
• Interaction with mechanical equipment
• Heat transfer
• Heat transfer control
• Thermal bridging
• ASHRAE Standard 160
• Moisture control design analysis
• Integrated design for the control of heat, air, and moisture
• Avoiding mistakes
• Learning from past successes and failures

The Building Enclosure Commissioning Process

• Commissioning process roles and responsibilities
• Pre-design phase commissioning activities
• The OPR and BOD
• The BECx plan
• Design and submittal reviews
• Construction phase verification
• The BECx test plan
• Systems manual requirements
• Owner training
• Lifetime persistence plan
• Close out report
• Overview of NIBS Guideline 3-2012
• Overview of LEED v4 EA Envelope Commissioning
• Overview of ASTM E2813
• Benefits and impact of BECx for stakeholders
• Staffing requirements and cost guidelines

Architectural Details and Interfaces

• Water barriers
• Air barriers and the importance of continuity
• Vapor barriers
• Impact of climate and geography
• Transition and interface details
• Walls and facades
• Flashings
• Windows and doors
• Curtain walls
• Roofs
• Slab on grade, foundations, and basement walls
• Sustainable assemblies/high performance details
• Coordination with other building systems and assemblies
• Enclosure penetrations

Building Enclosure Commissioning Tests

• The BECx test plan
• Test standards and guidelines
• Qualitative and quantitative tests
• Verification means and methods
• Performance criteria
• Laboratory tests
• Component, assembly, and whole building tests
• Water tests
• Air tests
• Mockups
• Testing roofs, flashing, and roof penetrations
• Testing walls, windows, and doors
• Testing penetrations
• Infra-red and whole building testing after construction

BECx Case Study

• Building description
• CxP plan and activities
• Construction sequence
• Construction checklists for BECx
• Mock-ups and constructability review
• Schedule
• Building performance and whole building testing
• Summary of scope of work and the close out report
• Examples of completed checklists and test results

Status of the Industry

"Truly enjoyed the class and learned a lot about the commission process and building science that will benefit my career, construction knowledge, and our company. I look forward to implementing what we learned and plan on attending future courses to learn more."

"I took a great deal of information away that will greatly improve my future projects. I definitely plan to endorse this course to fellow colleagues in our industry."

"The course is well worth the time for both experienced enclosure professionals and those just beginning."

"I recently graduated with an Engineering degree taking multiple Thermodynamics, Heat Transfer, and HVAC classes. Your class helped me understand a number of things that those classes didn’t get. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that. Great class, great instructors, and I’ll be recommending it to everyone I can."

"The course refreshed my interest in building science, renewed my interest in the specifics of building enclosure systems, details, and products and raised my skill set and confidence with ASHRAE guidelines, ASTM standards, and testing protocols."

Fiona Aldous

Fiona Aldous is a Principal with Wiss Janney Elstner Associates. She has performed comprehensive building enclosure commissioning on numerous new buildings and repaired a variety of existing building enclosures on projects throughout North America. Her hands-on experience includes design, detailing and installation of various high-performance enclosures, comprising curtain wall and window systems, air barriers, waterproofing of below-grade and plaza systems, low slope roofs and the interfaces of the various enclosure components. Fiona holds a post-graduate Master of Architecture, Bachelor of Architecture and Bachelor of Science degrees. She was a prime author of the BECx industry's founding document, NIBS/ASHRAE Guideline 3 - The Building Enclosure Commissioning Process. She actively serves on ASHRAE technical committees, International Standard Organization’s Technical Committee 163 and 205, and is convener of ISO21105, Performance of Buildings — Building enclosure thermal performance verification and commissioning document. Fiona has authored articles and papers, taught classes and provided presentations on various aspects of the building enclosure and commissioning in the USA, Canada, Japan and Australia.

Chris Schumacher

Chris is an expert in the field of building monitoring and enclosure and building systems testing. Chris oversees much of the work done through RDH Building Science Laboratories, and he regularly consults on the development of experimental test programs for academic institutions, building product manufacturers, and government agencies. Chris’s research work includes the Thermal Metric Project, a multiyear investigation of thermal performance in full-scale wall assemblies; and the development of an apparatus and test method that measures dense-pack airflow resistance to support the development of the Building Performance Institute’s test standard BPI-103 and material standard BPI-102. Before joining RDH, Chris was a founding principal of Building Science Consulting Inc. and a founding partner of Balanced Solutions Inc., an innovative Canadian building science RD&D consultancy.

Ian McIntosh

Dr. Ian McIntosh, PhD, CxM, is a program director for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Office of Interdisciplinary Professional Programs (InterPro). He joined the InterPro Facilities and Building Systems team in December 2020 after being a frequent lecturer and course developer for the previous 20 years. His responsibilities include teaching, directing and business development for commissioning certification courses related to project management, existing buildings, and building enclosures. He is also the owner and founder of ianTEACH LLC, which provides innovative and strategic performance-based training and coaching to engineers, architects, construction and facilities management professionals in various sectors of the national building industry.

He is an Accredited Commissioning Process Manager (CxM) with over twenty years of dedicated experience in Total Building Commissioning (a quality process) and has managed numerous energy, commissioning, retro-commissioning, and LEED® commissioning projects throughout the nation. As a Commissioning Provider and Mechanical Engineer, Dr. McIntosh has prepared and led several Owner's Project Requirements (OPR) workshops, written and integrated numerous commissioning specifications, co-invented and implemented electronic bar-coded checklists, system manuals and tracked owner cost savings. He has also executed hands-on in-depth field work, performed functional performance testing of complex HVAC systems/subsystems and coordinated full-scale operation & maintenance (O&M) and user training programs.

Ian holds Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the City College of the City University of New York (CCNY) and earned his Doctorate in Mechanical Engineering from the Solar Energy Lab at UW-Madison. He and his wife of 18 years like to spend quality time with their four children.