School districts, like other public institutions throughout the country, are under tremendous pressure to cut costs and trim budgets. With every dollar being scrutinized by administrators, board members and citizens, school leaders have an opportunity to save thousands in operating costs by commissioning their new and existing buildings.

“Commissioning means ensuring a school facility and all its systems are working properly, much like a ship is commissioned before it’s put to sea,” explained Dave Hewitt, manager of BetterBricks. The idea that commissioning can save school district’s money is one finding of a project funded by BetterBricks that examined 20 new and existing public building projects in four states, including several K-12 facilities that were commissioned during the past four years.

BetterBricks, an initiative of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance and supported by local electric utilities, is a free resource that connects building professionals with the information, tools, training and consultations needed to design and construct high performance buildings.

Year-After-Year Savings

Bainbridge Island High School in Washington is saving an estimated $20,000 a year because of commissioning work.

Bainbridge Island High School in Washington state is saving an estimated $20,000 a year because of commissioning work the school district did on a major addition to the facility. In addition to the annual savings, the commissioning process identified and corrected problems during construction that could have cost the school another $25,000.

“The program was so successful at the high school that the following year every school in the district was retro-commissioned,” said J.R. Fulton, the district’s construction manager.

Overall, the BetterBricks look at commissioned schools determined that on average districts could save about $11,000 in energy costs on a 109,000 square-foot building . This is good news for financially strapped school districts and comes at a time when district leaders are looking for creative and new ideas to save scarce dollars.

In addition to the annual energy savings, districts could realize an initial, one-time benefit of nearly $15,000 for each new facility commissioned, as compared with non-commissioned schools, the BetterBricks project found.

Ensuring Proper Operation

While most people assume a new school’s operational systems are ready to go when its doors open for the first day of class, industry professionals know that too often that is not the case, leading to costly and complicated problems down the road. Operational systems in existing schools may never have worked properly or stopped working at some point. Commissioning can identify problems and provide information on how systems can be optimized.

In Beaverton, Ore., a suburb of Portland, continued maintenance problems at its Sexton Mountain Elementary School prompted district officials to investigate the school’s operations and energy use. Tests were conducted on the roof, walls, windows, lighting, HVAC and controls and repairs resulted in more than $10,000 in immediate energy savings during the first year. Savings continue in subsequent years as well.

“The issues identified in the commissioning report… provided the justification to move Sexton Mountain School up on the priority list for bond funding of repairs,” said Jerry Green, Beaverton’s administrator for energy and environment.

For district officials, commissioning means a school’s HVAC and lighting systems have been designed correctly, installed properly and fully tested. For teachers and students, it promises a safe, comfortable and healthy work and learning environment. For school leaders, it offers lower utility bills. And for taxpayers, it translates into a wise use of revenues as schools are built with fewer change orders, problems are detected early on and building custodians are trained to maintain HVAC systems and controls once the building is up and running.

The cost of commissioning depends on the size and complexity of the project; however, it accounts for a small portion of construction and renovation budgets and the potential pay off can be big, including:

-Early detection of potential problems

-Fewer change orders

-Precise tune-up of HVAC systems and controls

-Better building documentation

-Trained building operators

-Shortened occupancy transition period

-Decreased operation and maintenance costs

-Lower utility bills

-Healthy and comfortable work environment for students, teachers and staff

Helena, Mont., school officials turned to commissioning when one of their newer middle schools didn’t operate as intended and high energy bills and staff comfort complaints spiraled. Annual energy savings of more than $15,000 have already paid for the $8,700 commissioning cost, which concentrated on the building’s HVAC system.

“Future building projects under my direction will surely have commissioning as part of the architectural contract because the benefits outweigh the cost,” said Ron Whitmoyer, East Helena Schools Superintendent.

Putting A Practice Into Policy

Continued maintenance problems at Sexton Mountain Elementary School in Beaverton, Ore., prompted district officials to investigate the school’s operations and energy use.

“Commissioned facilities are ‘smarter’ in terms of energy efficiency and make for a more comfortable environment for students, faculty and staff,” said Hewitt. “The education community should look to commissioning as an innovative tactic to cut costs as well as to help build and maintain schools that perform at an optimum level.”

School officials throughout Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana are doing just that for both new and existing buildings. The State of Oregon now requires commissioning on existing schools receiving state funds for major energy updates.

To the north, the Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) adopted a policy in 2001 for commissioning of all K-12 school buildings. Specifically, commissioning by an independent authority is required for a school board to receive matching funds from OSPI on any project over 50,000 square feet.

Commissioning is likely to gain a larger foothold in the education community as educators learn more about its advantages and the important role it can play in saving districts money and building better schools.

For more information on commissioning or copies of the case studies developed under the project, visit the BetterBricks site at www.betterbricks.com/commissioning or the Building Commissioning Association at www.bcxa.org.