The M Files

by Lynn DeSantis
Marketing Coordinator

McClure Company employees were delighted to join nearly 1,200 people at the Lancaster Convention Center on Thursday, December 1 to celebrate the Best Places to Work in Pennsylvania. We were honored to rank 8th overall in the large company category.  In an impromptu moment we asked some of our folks why they believe McClure Company is among the best places to work. The responses were so entertaining that we decided to share them. Enjoy!

In 2009, I was wilting under a Florida summer sun while waiting in line with my kids to board a ride at Disney’s Magic Kingdom. As we approached the entrance, cool air from an air-conditioning system comforted us before we even entered the open-door structure. My inner geek emerged. I focused on the massive amount of energy consumed to keep us comfortable and entertained. I saw a regular Pandora’s Box of BTUs, even as we were subjected to a sermon on “Environmentality.”

An all-too-common finding during recommissioning. A closed outside ventilation air damper.

Several years prior to my trip, Disney implemented a highly publicized energy management program. Trade journals and the seminar speaker circuit spread the good news of their successful energy measures. Disney hoped their program could serve as an inspiration to other facility managers. As one article stated, “it will inspire other facility owners to develop their own [energy management programs] and cultivate the economic, energy, and environmental benefits that Disney has.”

One plank of the Disney project was a large-scale recommissioning* effort branded as a Building Tune-Up (BTU) program. That aspect of the energy efforts yielded, by far, the best financial returns. Disney was able to save gobs of energy by making simple, low-cost adjustments like changing set point temperatures and altering equipment schedules. Disney’s case was so persuasive that engineers (myself included) and facility managers latched on to look for similar low-hanging fruit in their buildings. Probably not coincidentally, many AEC industry firms began offering some form of recommissioning services.

Recommissioning efforts became the AEC industry’s magic pixie dust.

Our experience is that Disney’s results don’t necessarily translate to the smaller-scale facility owner. Sometimes we discover energy gold. But more often, well-intentioned recommissioning efforts uncover a host of hidden surprises. The school of hard knocks taught us to keep a wary eye on these three most frequent hidden problems:

1. Higher energy costs: Believe it or not, recommissioning efforts often increase a facility’s energy use. Why? Because the number one industry-wide comfort and energy “fix” is to close HVAC system outside ventilation air dampers. Outside ventilation air is required by building codes to provide a healthy indoor environment. But treating the air is frequently a major contributor to facility energy use and, sometimes, poorly treated air can cause comfort problems. Maintenance crews can avoid complaints and expensive repairs simply by closing the dampers. Frightening, but truly an epidemic.
2. Nickel –dime repair costs: Finding inoperable building systems can be pretty simple. But uncovering why they aren’t functioning properly often comes with a price tag. Small system components like damper actuators and hydronic valves sometimes need replacing to make whole systems work properly again. Bunches of small-scale repairs can add up to big dollars, and it’s impossible to know the extent of necessary repairs prior to opening the investigation. We try to manage our clients’ recommissioning cost expectations by recommending a replacement cost allowance as part of our proposal. We bill against the allowance on a time-and-material basis as we uncover their facility’s deepest, darkest operational secrets.
3. Chronic illness: Sometimes the building isn’t functioning properly because it has an underlying terminal illness. The only way to recommission might include major surgery, in the form of a full-scale capital upgrade to fix a flawed design. Case in point: Once we found a building with an HVAC system operating 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Additionally, the cleaning crew kept lighting systems energized all night through the week. Thinking we had struck energy gold, we instituted a temperature setback schedule and turned the lights off when unoccupied. Their energy bills fell dramatically along with their employees’ attitudes. We couldn’t maintain warm enough temperatures through the winter months with the new operating procedures due to an undersized HVAC system. The only way to fix the problem was a full-scale system replacement or to turn everything back “on” again.

Do you have any recommissioning stories to share?

*I’ve chosen the word recommissioning in this post. Commissioning purists might point out that I should use the word retrocommissioning. I believe we can get too caught up in those definitions when, ultimately, we’re just talking about fixing broken buildings. My personal experience is that many commissioning authorities spend too much time chasing paper instead of rolling up their sleeves and getting stuff to work properly. Perhaps we’ll address that issue in a future post.

In October of 2009, President Obama issued an executive order to implement a net-zero-energy requirement on federal buildings by the year 2030. This order effectively upped the ante on the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which required federal buildings to reduce energy use by 30% by 2015, from their 2003 baseline condition.

A net-zero-energy building (NZEB) exhibits zero net energy consumption and zero carbon emissions annually, making them completely independent from energy supply infrastructure. Achieving a NZEB requires heavy doses of efficiency, conservation, and renewable energy measures, as illustrated in the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) YouTube video below.

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and ASHRAE have jumped on the NZEB bandwagon. A great, feel-good vision, it’s pretty easy to latch onto the NZEB euphoria. But the barriers to achieving NZEBs on a meaningful scale are significant.

The topics of NZEBs and deep energy retrofits were front and center at the annual conference of the National Association of Energy Services Companies (NAESCO) in San Diego, in early November. The observations of those in the NZEB trenches confirmed my thoughts on the subject.  I’ve recorded a podcast to share my professional insights and to accompany my summary below. You can listen to my commentary here:

In Summary

• Three federal agency executives expect to fall short of their intermediate goal of 30% energy reduction across their portfolio of buildings by 2015. This is due to a combination of financial, technical, and contractual difficulties.
• With current technologies, NZEBs will only be achievable with very significant capital investments that go far beyond what most businesses and government entities would consider an acceptable return on investment (ROI).
• The challenge is even more significant in an era of reduced government spending.
• The findings of the federal agencies coincide with McClure Company’s experiences from completing energy retrofits on 32 million square feet of Pennsylvania’s building stock: acceptable ROIs are achievable when reducing energy use by 10% to 30%. Deep energy retrofits of 60% or more savings require large capital contributions.
• Finances aside, an assessment by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory found that we could achieve the goal of zero energy on only 22% of our building stock with current technologies as of 2005, while 80% of our existing buildings will still be in use in 2030.

So, putting emotions aside in favor of asking difficult but necessary questions:

• How will we pay for our NZEBs?
• Where will the new technologies come from?
• Who will shepherd the process of reaching this goal?
• Are scalable NZEBs an attainable vision or a distracting fad?

I’d love to hear your perspectives.

This recent clean energy project simply wouldn't have happened without Pennsylvania’s GESA legislation.

The Energy Efficiency Industry is one of the only industries to grow during the recession, hiring people at a time when unemployment seems stubbornly stuck at levels not seen since the early 1980s. According to statistics from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, there are more than 106,000 Pennsylvania jobs in the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries.

Energy efficiency is an economic winner. This is not wishful thinking—it’s based on actual market experience.

Currently, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has the opportunity to create 19,000 high-paying jobs and provide $2 billion of upgrades to its state and local government buildings without any tax increases, through a process called energy savings performance contracting.

Under an energy savings performance contract (ESPC), energy service companies provide technical, engineering, and managerial expertise, while private-sector financial institutions fund the retrofit projects. This makes buildings significantly more energy efficient.

The costs of design and installation of new technologies, as well as equipment upgrades, are to be paid back out of the energy savings over the life of the contract—at no net cost to the government.

Every $1 million of ESPC project value is estimated to create 10 direct jobs in engineering, construction, and equipment manufacturing; professions hardest hit in this recession. The multiplier effect of the income created by these direct jobs provides another 10 to 12 imputed jobs per $1 million of project value.

ENERGY PERFORMANCE CONTRACTING = Jobs Period!  Not maybe, not possibly, but certainty: ENERGY PERFORMANCE CONTRACTING = Jobs.

This new economic powerhouse is the direct result of innovative public policies like Pennsylvania’s Guaranteed Energy Savings Act (GESA), which enables job creating energy performance contracting. But now, it’s all at risk.

The Corbett Administration is currently evaluating GESA and has suspended any projects currently under development. This has put on hold the proven job creating benefits of the GESA that can continue putting Pennsylvanians to work in this tough economic environment at no expense to the government.

At a time when all policies are being measured against the yardstick of job growth, we encourage Governor Corbett to support GESA and allow energy service companies to get back to business—putting people to work, saving taxpayer money, and reducing energy costs for their customers.

Bad news for stereotypical engineers: Personality matters as much as technical aptitude.

In a post titled Design-Build Discussion Generates Buzz, PC Construction Company concisely captured what those of us immersed in successful Design-Build practices already know (bold underlines added by me):

When asked the question “What one piece of advice can you give to improve our future success with Design-Build?” the panel agreed that selecting the people with the right personality traits is key. This was a bit surprising to some who have never been involved with a Design-Build project. They imagined success would relate directly to engineering, technical, or organizational skills. Mike Cecil of PC Construction added that those skills can be learned, whereas personality traits are inherent. Collaboration, communication, and trust are just as important to the success of a Design-Build project as are technical aptitude.

And so we have our predicament. Collaboration, communication, and trust aren’t traits we associate with the stereotypical Dilbert-esque engineer. Successful Design-Build scenarios require those with sharp analytical skills to step outside the comforts of their womb-like offices and to listen and engage.

My alma mater used to invite me to speak to sophomore engineering students about what it’s like in the real world. The students would invariably ask, “What are my most important classes?” or “What are you looking for when hiring engineers out of college?” Highly educated professors would spit out their coffee at my responses. I would tell students that getting into and graduating from the arduous engineering program was enough evidence of technical aptitude. I wanted folks who could read, write, and carry an intelligent conversation. That viewpoint didn’t exactly make me a candidate for a distinguished engineering alumni award.

Good Design-Build practices encourage open conversation among stakeholders throughout the project’s life cycle. Trust is an essential element for win-win outcomes and only develops out of relationships. Relationships only develop through honing the soft skills of communication.

In 1995, I was a young engineer charged with designing factory certification test stands for a major manufacturer’s largest water-cooled chillers. It was the project of a lifetime, requiring intimate knowledge of national testing standards and mechanical engineering principles. It also involved installing many thousands of feet of circuitous large-bore steel piping.

As required on competitively bid projects, it was my job to tell the bidding installers through specifications how they should hang, support, weld, and generally put together the pipes. I was faced with the same unspoken dilemma that all young college-educated engineers have: I didn’t know jack about installation methods for large-bore piping. My expertise was in fluids, thermodynamics, and heat transfer. Nothing in my personal experience could have possibly taught me anything about installing heavy pipe. Yet, our contracting method demanded that I specify how that ought to be done. So I pretended to understand the AIA Master Specification and did my job.

Luckily the project was awarded to a company with a strong field crew. Their superintendent was a seasoned veteran named Ken. Instead of following the normal rules of contractor-engineer engagement on competitively bid projects by firing off RFIs or issuing change orders, he would ask me to visit the site, where we would take the time to interact. Ken would show me how the piping layouts could be designed for the better, to reduce installation time, and save the customer some money. It was fun and very revealing.

Our respect for each other made the outcome a positive one for all stakeholders. Ken had knowledge that college-educated engineers didn’t, and we valued his specialized expertise. Correspondingly, I knew the technical rationale and physical laws governing the design, and sometimes Ken counted on me to offer those insights in return. It was freeing for both of us. Our mutual trust allowed us to completely focus on what we knew. And we felt equally free to admit what we didn’t know.

The job came together beautifully, ahead of schedule and under budget. And it was all because we discarded traditional contractual barriers in favor of valuing open communication. This is the desired norm of great Design-Build practice.