Who should provide the building commissioning services?
Must it be a third party CA, or can the general or mechanical contractor or the engineer provide this service? The CA must be an advocate of the owner. If the CA’s firm has other project responsibilities or is not directly responsible to the owner, a conflict of interest exists. A general or mechanical contractor verifying building systems can be like the fox guarding the henhouse. The CA should be an objective, independent third party. In addition, the persons conducting the commissioning service should be professional engineers. They should have in-depth experience as a designers of MEP (mechanical, electrical, and plumbing) systems, as well as field construction and construction management experience. According to the Building Commissioning Association (BCA), these individuals should have recent hands-on field experience regarding: • Building systems commissioning, • The physical principles of building systems performance and interaction, • Building systems start up, balancing, test
