By Dave Newman
This article is Part 2 in our ‘Three Pillars of Performance’ series. If you missed Part 1, you can catch up by reading Beyond the Blueprint: The Three Pillars of Performance Your Projects Can’t Afford to Ignore.
As an architect, engineer, or construction professional, you want to deliver a building that performs exactly the way you’ve designed and constructed.
On day one, everything works exactly as planned. But what happens a year, five years, or a decade down the line?
Even the best-designed public buildings experience “performance drift.” Over time, systems deviate from their original design intent. Miscalibrated equipment, well-intentioned manual overrides, and forgotten schedule changes accumulate, leading to comfort complaints, energy waste, and operational inefficiency. This is where a strategic intervention can turn a creeping problem into a significant opportunity for restoration.
Enter Retro-Commissioning (RCx). It’s more than a tune-up; it’s a systematic investigation that not only restores building performance but can also uncover additional capital projects for your AEC firm.
Performance Drift: Common Gaps RCx Uncovers
Performance drift isn’t the result of a single major failure, often it’s the result of a slow accumulation of minor issues. At Energia, we see the same culprits appear time and again during the retro-commissioning process.
(1) The ‘Temporary’ Fix That Becomes Permanent
The most common issues often start with a quick manual adjustment, where a building’s maintenance staff is focused on responding to immediate needs. One example I’ve seen in the field results from a temporary condition, like a comfort complaint in a certain room, for example a tenant says the office is “too warm,” so maintenance manually turns down the room thermostat, and then everybody just kind of forgets that they made that adjustment. The system is put in manual mode to solve a one-time issue, but it’s never returned to its automated schedule, leaving it running inefficiently around the clock.
(2) The Forgotten Override
Special events or unusual circumstances often require temporary changes to a building’s HVAC schedule. Problems arise when these changes aren’t reversed.
A common example we’ve seen is overriding temperature controls to account for an exceptionally cold week, perhaps to protect the building from frozen pipes. But then, once the event is past, the system isn’t reset to its baseline. The emergency setting becomes the new, energy-inefficient normal.
(3) Silent Sensor and Control Drift
A building’s control system is only as good as the data it receives. Over time, thermostats, humidity sensors, and pressure sensors can drift out of calibration. A thermostat might be reporting 70 degrees when the room is really 73 degrees, causing the HVAC system to fight a phantom problem, wasting energy and failing to provide actual comfort.
Restoring Order: The Retro-Commissioning Process
How can we correct this drift? Retro-commissioning is the solution. At its core, retro-commissioning is a process of test, check, and inspect to identify ways to get a building back to its original design.
It’s a whole building and system investigation that goes beyond day-to-day maintenance firefighting calls. While building staff are busy dealing with broken equipment and urgent comfort issues, the RCx process provides a dedicated, systematic effort to analyze the entire facility, identify the root causes of inefficiency, and create a clear path back to optimal performance.
The Commissioning Agent’s Role: Your Independent Verification Partner
As a commissioning agent, it’s our role to act as independent investigators and strategists who identify building deficiencies and create a report detailing what building systems must be realigned or replaced.
Our process involves:
- 1Investigating: We test, measure, and verify the performance of equipment, schedules, and sequences of operation.
- 2Documenting: We create a comprehensive worklist that pinpoints every issue, from simple setpoint corrections to major equipment deficiencies.
- 3Facilitating: If a deeper fix is needed, for example, if water flow rates are off, a specialized Test and Balance (TAB) contractor may be required. As the commissioning agent, we facilitate this process, ensuring the right experts are brought in to execute the plan.
This creates a clear and unbiased roadmap for repairs and upgrades, which the facility owner can then use to engage contractors and engineers like you.
From Tune-Up to Transformation: The Real AEC Opportunity
While some building owners may hesitate at the upfront cost of retro-commissioning, our findings often reveal a compelling return on investment. For the AEC community, this is where the real opportunity lies. The RCx process frequently uncovers issues that a simple tune-up cannot solve. As we go through the commissioning process, we often identify opportunities for capital upgrades.
An RCx report can be the catalyst that moves a conversation from basic maintenance to critical modernization. When we discover that a system is out of date, broken beyond repair, or past its useful life, it opens up discussions about what it will take to truly modernize the facility. For an AEC firm, this can translate directly into new projects, including:
Energia: Your Strategic Partner in Building Performance
At Energia, we provide the specialized technical expertise that empowers our AEC partners. As a certified Woman-Owned Business Enterprise (WBE) with a full-service Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing (MEP) engineering team, we understand public sector buildings from the ground up.
We act as your collaborative partner, applying our deep knowledge of building systems to uncover the data-driven business case for your next project. By engaging us for retro-commissioning, you gain a strategic tool that not only serves your client’s immediate needs but also builds a clear roadmap for future design and construction work.
Ready to correct performance drift and deliver unparalleled value? Let’s build a more efficient future together.
