Commissioning the Brick Building Envelope

Sponsored by International Masonry Institute, presented by Brian Trimble, PE, Brick Industry Association. Commissioning of various elements within buildings is more common today, such as commissioning HVAC equipment, but dealing with the building envelope has been hit or miss. This presentation lays out the reasons for commissioning the building envelope and how it can improve the performance of the entire structure. With the building envelope becoming more complex than ever, it is important for designers to know what they can do to ensure compliance with the owner’s performance expectations. Components of commissioning including pre-design requirements, construction conformity and operational performance will be discussed and elaborated on. Standard industry practices will be shown and where problems of them occur. Finally, quality assurance tests will be explained on how they can fit into the commissioning process and how to interpret the results.