BUILDING ENGINEER

Services of building engineer

• Concept of building engineering systems
• Pre-design calculations and simulation
• Supervision of planing
• Evaluation of suppliers’ offers for the equipment
• Supervision of installation works
• Commissioning and testing
• Consultations on maintenance issues

5 REASIONS WHY EACH BUILDING SHOULD HAVE ENGINEER

• Engineering systems became explicitly complex, integrated, and diverse.
• Different systems (heating, ventilation, air conditioning, electricity) are interrelated and influencing each other.
• Energy saving is becoming a crucial factor while considering maintenance expenses
• Building engineer is capable to reduce future energy consumption and investments in the very early stage of the project.
• Elimination of the design mistakes in the engineering systems is very expensive and complex.

9 REASONS WHY IS REASONABLE TO HAVE ENGINEERING SUPERVISION

1. Most architects do not have engineering education. Their experience and competence may be insufficient to control designing processes and to ensure the final quality of engineering systems.
2. Proper concept of engineering systems requires precise definition of client and user’s requirements, accurate calculations, evaluation of alternatives, and assessment of building features.
3. Project manager responsible for the precision of engineering solutions and design is often bound with limited time and financial resources; therefore he tends to repeat standard solutions. He might be even influenced by particular suppliers as well.
4. In most uncontrolled projects, the risk of designing errors is reduced by adding extra reserve in capacities. That causes increased investments and additional expenses.
5. Construction companies find oversized designs as a source of increased financial turnovers that may be used to cover expenses related to rejected works or defective materials.
6. Lithuanian law obligates governmental bodies of technical construction supervision to control the compliance of construction and installation with the design documentation; however, the contents of the documentation (technical and engineering solutions) are not the subject of evaluation.
7. Growing complexity of engineering systems makes evaluation of design and installation quality complicated. It is difficult to distinguish the lobbying interests of the equipment supplier and the real benefit to the client. This task requires specific skills, wide range of experience, high level of competence, and independence.
8. FIDIC contracts require nominating an independent consulting engineer in order to protect the client’s rights to have the product of the highest possible quality at the adequate price.
9. The energy efficiency may be increased and the investments may be reduced by 5-10% by investing into accurate calculations, simulations, and creation of proper concept.

FUNCTIONS AND BUILDING ENGINEER RESPONSIBILITIES

1. Supervision of the engineering system design (heating, ventilation, cooling, electricity, water and sewage, building management, security, and data transfer systems) and coordination of the entire construction process
2. Pre-design estimations, assessment of the alternatives, simulation of the energy consumption and definition of energy needs (on additional agreement)
3. Development of the engineering system concept (cooperation with an architect) according to the needs of the client (user)
4. Designing of the particular engineering systems, evaluation of possible solutions, and incorporation of the engineering system project to the general concept of the building and interior
5. Planning supervision; designer consulting; implementation of the best practice; evaluation of the design quality (functionality, operation, investments, maintenance, and operation costs)

Services of HVAC CONSULTANT (“DOCTOR ENGINEER”)

• Technical audit of the system functional operation
• Definition of the design, installation, or servicing errors
• Solutions for the problem elimination

HVAC DESIGNER

• Design of the equipment layout using 3D modelling tools
• Pre-design calculations using modern HVAC simulation software
• Evaluation of solar and internal heat sources impact to the building, recommendations regarding energetic efficiency
• Calculations of future energy consumption
• Issuing design documentation of the HVAC systems
• Automation solutions by providing functional algorithm in order to ensure optimal and reliable operation and low energy consumption.

Energy performance silmulation

Today, many different criteria must be balanced in order to provide high quality, comfortable buildings that also comply with the building regulations, minimize upfront costs to the client, optimize on-going energy costs, and reduce environmental impact. This can be achieved only with a powerful combination of deep professional knowledge, excellent skills, and modern software tools.
DesignBuilder is a widely recognized application for the energy simulation of the building, while EnergyPlus is one of the most convenient built-in tools for the calculation of energy resources. It provides assessment possibilities to all key parameters related to building fabric, thermal mass, glazing, shading, renewables, HVAC, and financial analysis

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EnergyPlus Simulation allows modeling of the following features:
• Room comfort parameters at annual, monthly, daily, and hourly intervals.
• Heat transmission through the building fabric and systems including walls, roofs, infiltration, ventilation, etc.
• Solar gains on surfaces, dividers’ surface temperatures, and radiant exchanges.
• Thermal mass and temperature distribution.
• Operational parameters of the building and systems, including the infiltration, number of visitors, etc.
• The capacity of the heating and cooling systems taking into the account changing dynamics of the building thermal regimes during the year, month, day, or hour.
• Energy consumption and carbon emissions.
The simulation provides the opportunity to evaluate different alternatives and choose the optimal combination of engineering systems for the particular building. The parameters that increase the investment in the engineering systems and building maintenance costs may be detected and adjusted during the modeling phase. Therefore, the simulation is recommended before the final approval of the architectural design.
Timely and proper modeling helps to reduce both the investments in the equipment and building maintenance costs. It is a modern and economical approach to the building design.