MEP Precision Detailers

Five Questions Engineers Should Ask About VRF Energy-Efficiency Data

The Mitsubishi Electric Cooling & Heating officials will provide expert answers to the following questions:

• What do the efficiency terms of EER, IEER, COP and SCHE mean?
• How can we compare the efficiency data for traditional HVAC systems and VRF systems?
• What is the best way to determine how much energy an installed system uses?
• What energy-saving features do most VRF systems have that are not accounted for in the EER, IEER and COP criteria?
• Why should IEER be the primary efficiency measure for VRF systems?

Presenters:

Presenters: Paul L. Doppel, Director of Industry and Government Relations, Mitsubishi Electric Cooling & Heating
Nick Conklin, P.E., LEED AP, Application Engineering Manager, Mitsubishi Electric Cooling & Heating

Moderator:

Marc Zipfel, Director of Product Marketing, Mitsubishi Electric Cooling & Heating

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Proponents of Building Information Modelling (BIM) see reduction of waste as being among the key benefits from using BIM systems. Waste reduction, they say, can occur throughout the life cycle of a building-from initial design conception to de-commissioning and demolition.

BIM can cut waste significantly in the design and construction phases and thus lower the biggest single hurdle for many construction projects: capital cost. Design typically accounts for around 10 per cent and construction for around 90 per cent of the capital cost of a project.

"So even a two to three per cent improvement in productivity on the construction side is very significant in real dollars," points out Klaas Rodenberg, chief executive officer of the new Alberta Centre of Excellence for Building Information Modelling (ACE-BIM).

"Some buildings are costing $200 [million] to $300 million."

The shared knowledge base that BIM systems support is one of the ways that BIM can help in eliminating many errors. Traditionally, Rodenberg says, "Most construction is done by small outfits who mostly do a thing once and don't often have an opportunity to learn from the experience. There's no transparency through shared knowledge as builders don't share what costs are or how well things work."

PROVIDING VALUE

Underlining that BIM is focused on information, he says the use of BIM addresses such issues, potentially providing useful data for how best to do comparable projects in the future. "One of the values of BIM is that it enables the sharing of information to boost productivity," he says. "BIM allows you to do things on the basis of a factory routine, not one pipe, one part at a time. Instead, it brings information out of the silos, with all players working off a single model of a building and being able to make the decisions before a single sod of soil is turned."  Read More

A lawsuit over construction of a life-sciences building at a major university stands as the first known claim related to the use of building information modeling by an architect. Furthermore, the claim and its settlement serve as a cautionary tale to others using BIM, says the insurer. “The creators of BIM claim its use reduces risk, and indeed it can—like any other tool, if it is used right,” says Randy Lewis, vice president of loss prevention and client education at the Denver office of XL Insurance, which provides professional liability insurance to licensed design professionals. “If you don't use BIM correctly, you can get into trouble.”

For the life-sciences building, the architect and its mechanical-electrical-plumbing engineer used BIM to fit the building's MEP systems into the ceiling plenum. But the design team did not tell the contractor that the extremely tight fit, coordinated in the BIM, depended on a very specific installation sequence.

When the contractor was about 70% through assembly, it ran out of space in the plenum. “Everything fit in the model but not in reality,” says Lewis.

The contractor sued the owner, the owner sued the architect, and XL brought in the MEP engineer. “It was a very costly claim to negotiate,” says Lewis. XL did not litigate the claim because it would be difficult for any jury to comprehend.

Lewis declines to offer specifics on the project, other than to say the building is open. He also declines to name the players. As far as the settlement goes, he will only say there was a “pretty significant cost,” totaling millions of dollars, which was shared by the architect, the MEP engineer and the contractor.

The problem was poor communication. “The design team never discussed the installation sequence with the contractor, and the contractor wasn't sophisticated enough” to understand the importance of assembling the components in a certain order, says Lewis.

Insurers advise designers not to get involved in means, methods, safety and sequencing. But for this project, even though it was delivered under a traditional design-bid-build contract, it was not enough for the architect to say “I designed it, it fits, here you go contractor, figure it out,” says Lewis.

In the BIM world, parties are encouraged to communicate with each other and make suggestions, says Lewis. That did not happen on this project, he adds. Read More

MEP Precision Detailers partners with Architects, Engineers, General Contractors and independent pre-construction firms to aid in their constructability review process.  Our  goal is to provide the MEP portion of the Constructability Review. Our group members have over a 100 years experience in building, biding, and project managing MEP systems.  MEP Precision Detailers has the experience to perform constructability reviews that will drastically decrease the occurrence and amount of change orders on your project.  We provide, but are not limited to, the following services:

• Confirm the intent of plans and specifications will allow bidders to prepare accurate bids  
• Access limitations of equipment
• Compatibility of materials
• Coordination of trades
• Project scheduling and sequencing
• Project cost estimating
• Value engineering
• LOD 300 or above 3D modeling of systems

MEP Precision Detailers
(772) 237-0637 Office
(772) 626 5452 Cell
(855) 671-4751 Fax

Let's talk about the acronym BIM,

 
BIM (Building Information Modeling) has been around for many years, it is nothing new! In fact, I would say, along with structural detailers, the HVAC detailers and their software providers invented the process. I personally have worked for companies  that have been doing BIM for well over 15 years. I first started using a product called Quick Pen in the mid 90s. The program did all the things that today's software providers claim is the new thing. It had smart pieces and parts i.e. a diffuser knew it was a diffuser, and a VAV box, knew it was a VAV Box e.g. intelligent parts . Duct, pipe, structures and key architectural elements were modeled in 3D and clash detection was preformed, you could even perform cost estimating and analysis.
 
A few short years later you could also schedule and track every piece of duct, pipe and equipment drawn on the project along with every man hour spent fabricating, loading, trucking and installing it. Hey, personally I'm glad that GCs and design professional have caught on to it, it saves time and boatloads of money. I was on a competitors website the other day and in bright bold letters read the caption, "New for 2011 BIM CAD/CAM". Now if this is something new to them you might have to ask yourself, Just what have they been doing for the last 10 years or so. My guess, they have not been in the industry long or they have been pumping air into mailboxes.
 
If you are outsourcing your HAVC or plumbing shop drawings and coordination, you need to be leery of those tossing around the BIM acronym in every other sentence when you are interviewing them. We do it on our website because we have to stay competitive with keyword search terms on the internet. It will be the last acronym I use when being interviewed by I potential new client because, truth be told, the coordination being specified as BIM is rarely a 'true BIM project'  it's really just 3D coordination and nothing new (some are, but most are not).

Another thing you may want to be leery of, are firms that say they charge less for 2D than they do for 3D. If this is the case they are not coordinating they are tracing over the engineers drawings and maybe paying some attention to the structure and other trades. If you are truly coordinating the job it takes twice as long to do it in 2D and only half as accurate. We only draw in 3D ( yes even if you call and need air pumped into a mailbox) and if you talk to anyone that has been doing so, for any length of time, they will tell you it's almost impossible to go back to 2D. If you call us and you have a job that's being coordinated in 2D e.g. light table, composite drawings or onion skins/vellum layovers, plan on paying more. That may be brash but it's the gods honest truth, it's a painful process.

When designing or redesigning an HVAC system, many contractors have asked how to determine the amount of airflow a return grille should pull from the conditioned space. Supply airflow is determined by ACCA Manual J or by some other accepted method depending on the heat loss or heat gain of each room. Here’s a quick and simple method to establish return grille required airflow that works every time.

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The Motion J3500 Tablet PC is a rugged and powerful slate tablet computer for field professionals across vertical markets that need a robust device for often harsh mobile work environments.  Now with the power of Intel® Core™ i7 and i5 vPro™ processors for nearly 40% performance improvement(1) over previous solutions, the J3500 offers new levels of power, security and manageability. It’s rugged. And it’s packed with integrated features that enable real-time, on-site productivity. > Learn More

The negotiated contract method for RFPs is a rapidly growing trend in construction. Traditionally, RFPs have gone through a competitive bid method – meaning that 100% of the design work is done without the input of contractors and with very little real cost information. With the negotiated contract method, only about 10% of the design work is done before a contractor is brought to the table, which means less paperwork and lower up-front costs. There are several advantages to the negotiated contract method: • Because only a small part of the design work is done up-front (before a contractor is brought on board), no extensive re-design work has to be done when budget/schedule issues with the design become a factor. • A complete team – architect/designer and contractor – is assembled earlier, making for a much more efficient process and outcome. • The RFP process becomes a collaborative effort, rather than a competitive one. There is no other book on the shelf that either focuses specifically on RFPs in the construction industry, or features a step-by-step method for implementing the negotiated contract method. This is a step-by-step guide for managing the RFP process in a way that saves time, money, enhances team collaboration, and assures quality in construction. Focusing on the negotiated contract method (as opposed to the competitive bid method), the book takes readers from articulating the needs/wish list for a construction project, to the analysis of responses and interviews, through negotiations and finalization of the deal. This is a roadmap for: • Preparing, understanding, and assessing the quality of information in an RFP. • Gathering critical, project-specific information from free and up-to-date local databases. • Adding value to the process by assisting consultants in marketing and project management capabilities. • Selecting and working with a team early in the process to stay on-schedule and on-budget. • Improving the materials selection process and the end-result overall quality of construction. • Example and template forms make it easy to create a successful RFP process.

MEP Detailers coordinates construction projects, to ensure efficient projects for like-minded general contractors, construction managers, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing contractors as-well as A&E firms. We provide state-of-the-art coordinated "functional" shop drawings and coordination services.  Give us your worst jobs and we will make it your best, guaranteed!