Construction Engineering Strategies That Work for Forest Service LEED Buildings
Managing a LEED project is more demanding than ordinary construction engineering. Forest Service personnel who are working with designers and contractors on LEED projects need to know what they're doing. If contracting officer representatives (CORs) aren't already LEED APs, it would be smart to send them to a LEED Technical Review Workshop (http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=1761), so they will understand what is required to certify a LEED project. The inspectors also should attend LEED training, if possible.
What Line Officers Need To Know
LEED projects take at least 15 percent more COR and inspection time. Construction engineering time can easily double or triple if Forest Service personnel are doing the building commissioning or LEED documentation. Be sure the construction engineering budget is large enough to cover increased construction engineering time for LEED buildings.
Commissioning
One of the biggest differences between LEED and ordinary construction practices is that commissioning is required for all LEED-certified buildings. Commissioning is a comprehensive, systematic investigation and tuneup process that examines all of a building's operating systems and assures that the building is constructed and will operate as intended and that it satisfies the owner's operational needs. Because of time and cost constraints and competing demands for their attention, even highly competent contractors and CORs can't assure that everything will work correctly in a new building, but a commissioner usually can. Most commissioners are electrical or mechanical engineers and have many years of experience with electrical, HVAC, and plumbing systems. These are the most critical systems and the ones most likely to have problems. LEED refers to the firm that handles commissioning as the "commissioning agent."
Commissioning a building normally costs a little less than 1 percent of the total construction cost. Typically, the costs of the schedule overruns, change orders, and corrections after occupancy in uncommissioned buildings are far more than the cost of commissioning. In addition, a building that is not commissioned usually costs 8 to 20 percent more to operate than a commissioned building. Commissioning is cost effective, but the expense is paid up front and the savings are recovered over time.
What Contracting Officers Need To Know
Unless the commissioning is handled by Forest Service employees, it's best to hire a commissioning contractor who is independent of the design and construction contractors so that the commissioner answers only to the Forest Service. This assures that the commissioner will not compromise quality because of the interests of the design or construction firm. If it's not possible to hire a completely independent commissioning contractor, the commissioning work should be included with the design contract rather than the construction contract.
In the Southern Region, the Forest Service is the commissioning agent, although the trained personnel who do the commissioning contract out much of the measurement and testing. Most units will need to hire commissioning contractors because they don't have enough staff or construction projects to justify training Forest Service personnel. Forest Service and BLM employees can learn more about commissioning at http://fsweb.wo.fs.fed.us/eng/programs/facilities/commissi.htm. BuildingGreen's online specification Section 01 91 00–General Commissioning Requirements (http://www.buildinggreen.com/guidespecs/Cx_Section_01_91_00.doc) explains how commissioning works and provides an example specification that can be modified for incorporation into individual project specifications.
