The Residential Commissioning Process

Audit and Diagnostic

In the first phase of commissioning, the metrics for the house are surveyed using instrumented and non-instrumented techniques. The results of this survey are then compared with the norms for the house. For new construction, the norms will be those of the Title 24 compliance material or of the equivalent local building codes. For an existing house, the norms may be based on design intent (if any was ever documented) or on what a particular component should be able to do compared to other similar houses.

Tuning and Tweaking

The performance of many components and systems may not meet the norms, but it will be possible to improve their performance by making minor adjustments, repairs, or retrofits on the spot. An example is sealing leaky ducts. Such tuning and tweaking can often provide significant improvements in performance for very little marginal cost. The purpose of this step is to improve the performance of the house to at least the design intent. Sometimes, that intent will be unknown. In those cases, the optimization will be to other norms, such as the best performance achievable without repair or retrofit.

Opportunity Identification

After the tuning and tweaking, there still may be components that are not performing up to their potential. This commissioning step provides the client with information about what potential repair or retrofit opportunities to investigate further. Even when components are performing to their norms, newer technology may make replacement worth considering.