Environmental Almanac: Group 'saving planet two buildings at a time'

In a recent column on the University of Illinois' progress toward goals articulated in its Climate Action Plan, I noted that Ben McCall, the associate director of the Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment, had called special attention to the role of a team at Facilities and Services known as the Retrocommissioning Group.

Since then, through conversations on campus and elsewhere, I've been reminded that few people know much about the group or the work they do. Given our long-term interests of conserving resources and saving money, that's too bad, because the UI personnel who do retrocommissioning are champions of both.

So let me bring you up to speed.

In a nutshell, retrocommissioning refers to a process of analyzing the energy-dependent systems in a building HVAC and lighting and then doing what's necessary to get those systems operating as efficiently as possible.

Facilities and Services first formed a team dedicated exclusively to retrocommissioning in 2007. It was composed of five people and was led by Karl Helmink, an engineer with long experience in HVAC. Their tongue-in-cheek slogan then was "Saving the planet one building at a time." Since then, the group has grown to 20 people, and it now operates in two teams, so they've updated their slogan to "Saving the planet two buildings at a time." Both teams include engineers, field technicians, tradesmen and student interns.

The teams typically spend about two months on a building, and they employ a highly systematic approach. Their work entails a thorough analysis of available documentation on mechanical systems by engineers and a comprehensive investigation of operating conditions, equipment and more by field technicians and tradesmen.

Members of the team also confer with representatives from the facilities where they work throughout the process to make sure their needs are met. "When our work is finished," said Helmink, "they've got to be happy with the building."

One straightforward thing the retrocommissioning teams do is identify maintenance issues that tend to multiply in overlooked places as facilities age things like clogged ducts, stuck dampers, damaged coils and worn out sensors.

Beyond attending to such issues, they also focus on ensuring that lights and heating and cooling are on only as they are needed, rather than around the clock. Toward this end, they install occupancy sensors wherever they can.

Such tuneups can have really amazing impacts.

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Environmental Almanac: Group 'saving planet two buildings at a time'