Life-cycle commissioning of energy efficiency and indoor climate

Numerous studies and everyday experiencesprove the fact that even new buildings do notperform as expected. Dissatisfaction with theindoor air quality and thermal comfort iscommon and the energy performance is not onthe targeted level regardless of the newtechnologies utilized and advanced systemsinstalled. To avoid these Izinds of situationsquality assurance procedures known as BuildingCommissioning have been developed in manycountries and taken into the use especially inUSA. In order to start similar activities inFinland a R&D project was carried out in 2004-2006 as part of the Finnish Building ServicesTechnology Programme (CUBE). In thecollaborative project including VTT, TampereUniversity of Technology and many public andprivate actors from construction sector generalguidebook for commissioning was developedand for the commissioning (Cx) a Finnish term"Toimivuuden Varrnistaminen" (ToVa) waslaunched.In the guideboolc general procedure for ToVaactivities is described covering the whole lifecycle of the building. ToVa means cleardefinition, capturing and documentation ofend user requirements and their complianceassessment and verification in all the phasesstarting from design through construction to theoperation and use. In the guidebook specialfocus has been put on the indoor air quality andenergy efficiency. Guidebook includes generalinstructions for the assessment and verificationof IAQ and energy efficiency but gives alsochecklists to be used in different phases ofbuilding process. Organizing and responsebilitiesof ToVa-activities as well as methods tobe used in different phases have been discussedin guidebook. In a separate report usefulmeasurements for ToVa have been describedand instructions for practical work are given.For the deployment and further development ofToVa-activities internet domain (www.tova.fi)have been set up and www-based tools for someToVa-activities have been developed. In thepaper this Finnish commissioning guide will bediscussed and some internet based tools will bedemonstrated.