Managing a new construction project

The quality of a building and its performances in terms of comfort and energy consumption result from common choices and actions initiated by the project owner, the project management, firms, administrators and householders.

For each phase of a BBC-effinergie project, a coordination with the stakeholders is all the more essential in order to reach the objective of a comfortable and energy-saving building.
It is therefore crucial for everyone to ask oneself key questions about the different phases from the project to the final management of the building.

Programme phase

Did I really mention in the programme my will to get a BBC-effinergie labelled building?
What experience is required for the project management team in terms of low-consumption building? Is it acquainted with the requirements of the label and is there an energy efficiency specialist in the team?
Did I make provisions for fees that would enable the project management team to complete successfully a work of energy optimization for the building?
Whom did I put in charge for the creation of the BBC-effinergie label application file? Who can give me the right information?
Did I express the will to implement measures that would give a sense of responsibility to the future users (building user‘s guide, meters in evidence, consumption control for each utilization,…)?

Design phase

Does the thermal engineering office take part in the project from the first design sketches?

Did I optimize the building and its facilities through a study of all the potential uses (compactness, management of free supplies during all the seasons, indoor spatial requirements, over-insulation, control of the thermal bridges, airtightness, choosing facilities, energy alternatives,…)?

Did the designer and the thermal engineering office correctly informed the project owner about the impacts of the chosen alternatives upon investment and operating costs, but also about the management and the maintenance of the building and its constituents?

Do the results of the thermal survey afford to meet the requirements of the BBC-effinergie label?

Do I correctly respect the regulatory requirements in terms of summer comfort?

Did I plan a hypothesis summary of the thermal survey listing the performances of the results to implement?

Did I include these performances in the tender enquiries and contracts?

Are all the details about the implementation – that would finally enable to reach the expected performance (especially with the thermal bridges and airtightness) – correctly notified in the diagrams or annotations?

Did I mention, in the firms contract, that a test about the building air permeability will be carried out?

Do the chosen firms have an experience in terms of low-consumption buildings? If so, do they have specific qualifications?

Do the contracts signed with the firms respect all the instructions about the building energy performance?

Did I check that all the planned construction alternatives and facilities benefit from recognized performances? Besides, did I correctly check that they were known and recognized by certification bodies? Should the opposite occur, did I consider using the specific procedure of regulatory compliance stipulated in the order of May, 24th 2005?)

Building phase

Has the staff of the stakeholder firms been trained for the alternatives controlling the air permeability? Are they sufficiently skilled for these structures?

Is the body – I contacted to measure the building permeability – recognized by the certification body?

Did I plan to carry out an intermediate airtightness test that would help to implement easily the potential corrective actions?

Did I check that the performances of the implemented products and facilities were initially mentioned in the thermal survey?

Did I check that the implemented products and facilities have been correctly evaluated and recognized by the certification bodies?

Have the notebooks – that mention the details about the execution of the project – been passed on to the concerned firms? Have these details been improved with the firms? Does the achieved work respect these requirements?

Did I plan an intermediate acceptance of the work before the face-laying and duct sealing in order to observe the quality regarding the laying of the insulating material, the piping and cable transit and the potential airtightness diaphragms?

Acceptance of the work phase

Was the air permeability of the housing measured and were the possible problems solved?

Were the flows of the ventilation equipments correctly regulated? Do I have the acceptance report?

Were the regulation and programming systems of the heating, hot water output and air control equipments regulated? Do they correspond to what was initially planned?

Was a guide about the building control drawn up for the attention of the project owner? Does it include all the technical information about a regular maintenance of the equipments?

Was a building user‘s guide drawn up for the attention of householders?

Utilization and building maintenance phase

A BBC-effinergie building is very vulnerable in terms of use and maintenance.

It is necessary to provide the householders with simple information that would help them understanding how they can act upon the equipments in order to adapt the performance to their needs, how they can control comfort and energy consumption and how they can maintain the equipments.

Did I write a user and maintenance guide(3) for the attention of the householders that includes the energy aspects? Was this guide shown to the householders? Are there pages to fill in in order to note down the control of the equipments?

This guide could particularly insist on:

The control of temperature in the rooms with a description of the equipments and the instructions for use at the disposal of the inhabitants. An increase by 1°C of the indoor temperature contributes to a rise of the consumption of about 2 kWhpe/m2.yr in the Mediterranean area and 4 kWhpe/m2.yr in a cold area.

The use of hot water and the energy cost regarding different behaviours. Consumption may effectively treble according to the use. The installation of water economizers is complementary to the hot water production supplied by solar collectors. This is one of the main methods to reduce energy consumptions.

The control of shutters in winter. In daytime, opening shutters enables to take advantage of solar supplies and their closing at night can reduce heat consumptions.

In summer, controlling sun-blinds and opening windows offer both a protection from the sun and a natural and free air-conditioning, especially in the night for the latter.

It is relevant to hang clothes up to dry outdoors, if possible, or in a room that is not heated and correctly ventilated.

Maintaining frequently the heating equipment and the necessity of a maintenance contract.

The necessary maintenance of the mechanical ventilation equipments and the necessity to clean regularly the air inlets, and the filters, in case of a bypass system.

Besides, the choice and the use of equipments is predominant for the consumers of specific electricity.

The guide will insist upon the interest of:

The choice of the household appliances (refrigerator, freezer, washing machine,¡K) labelled A or A+ energy which are correctly adapted to the needs and they can therefore save around half of these consumptions;

The choice of the washing machine and dishwasher that can be connected to the solar hot water;

The use of compact fluorescent lamps in, at least, all the main rooms that can save the 3/4 of their usual consumption;

Supplying ¡V with a socket controlled by an easily reachable button switch ¡V computers, games consoles, DVD players, decoders,¡K to switch them off when they are not used.

_{(3) «Guide pour l’élaboration de notices de surveillance et d’entretien des immeubles collectifs de logements ou de bureaux» AFNOR (FD P 05-101 reference), September 2003}

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