IECC – Kansas City, Missouri
Jan 09, 2025
The City of Kansas City as of September 29, 2023, requires full compliance with the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code (IECC). The majority of the code complies with today’s energy design for buildings our industry has been proactively delivered for the past decade or more.
So on the surface, the adoption of the code does not seem to be anything that will change since our industry historically has exceeded in delivering energy-efficient projects as part of our norm. The exception is the IECC 2021 Code requires the project to be commissioned by a professional who is skilled in the successful implementation of the commissioning process.
At first, this just looks like another requirement that will increase the cost of construction. However, commissioning is a quality control process and I do not know any Owner who is not interested in quality control because QC saves money. If a building has been properly commissioned using ASHRAE Standards then there will be savings in construction by reducing call-backs, owner satisfaction, and occupant comfort while reducing the carbon footprint of the facility.
For the commissioning to provide the best value it has to start at the project conception. Think about when would you want to start the quality control process of any type of project. However, realizing that when an Owner hires a Design Team and then the Construction Team there is a good chance hiring the commissioning agent was overlooked or thought not to be required. The basis for not hiring is simple as noted above our industry has been providing energy-efficient projects for decades. The project has a design and construction team so why do we need a third-party commissioning agent? Well, it’s not because we need to police our industry even though that may be what it feels like it is because we need to have the skill set on the project that a professional commissioning agent can provide.
A trained Professional Commissioning Agent is skilled in mechanical and electrical engineering, has a strong knowledge of means and methods for constructing a project, and understands the internal workings of the mechanical and electrical systems that consume energy being installed. This is a rare skill set and often many times the commission agent does not possess these skills and simply generates deficiency reports and creates paperwork clutter. For this reason, often Commissioning does look like an added cost to a project with no value.
So even, if the project is knee-deep into construction without a commissioning agent it is never too late to hire the skill set and now given you have no choice it is required by code enforcement. It only makes sense to hire the skill set that can achieve results on a real-time basis. What I mean about real-time is during the commissioning process if a deficiency is found instead of just creating a list the skilled commissioning agent will work with the entire Design and Construction team in the field at the point of the deficiency to implement a solution.
IECC commissioning process requires a commission report once all systems are commissioned and all deficiencies have been corrected or resolved. f the commissioning provider is simply creating a deficiency punch list this can be dragged out for months by sending paperwork back and forth and deliberating the solution. By providing real-time commissioning and getting systems to work as designed and intended during the commission process time for debating solutions is eliminated allowing the final report to be completed when the field commissioning is completed.
sys-tek commissioning has the skill sets described above and will reduce construction costs through the commissioning process by saving construction time, and callbacks and increasing owner satisfaction
Also, download our EBook on “How to Hire a Commissiong Agent” Resource Library | sys-tek
