In February, I had the opportunity to participate in the ASHRAE winter conference committee meetings in Atlanta, GA. As usual, these meetings were productive and filled with good discussions with industry leaders about various ASHRAE publications. At these meetings, there was significant discussion around how to foster a greater understanding of standards, guidelines, and annexes across the industry, including amongst people not as close to them. To that end, the following diagram was shared at the conference:
I really like this diagram as it outlines the structure of standards and guidelines, making it clearer for users. It showcases at a glance the standards, guidelines, and relevant annexes that are available, planned or coming soon. For clarification for people who may not be as familiar with this diagram:
- Standards are written in code-enforcible language and are frequently adopted into State or local codes.
- Guidelines provide more detailed descriptions of activities and highlight best practices. They contain activities the practitioner may elect to follow and go beyond basic requirements found in the Standards.
- Annexes contain examples and further explanations common to the Cx Process and can be referenced by a number of Standards or Guidelines.
As a reminder, ASHRAE created a free annex library last year to make it easier to keep common annexes current across all standards through a process of ongoing review and revision.
As an active participant on the committee for Guideline 1.7P, I was pleased to see Marcus Myers of Stantec and Arizona State University nominated as the Chair of the new ASHRAE Guideline 1.7P, Ongoing Commissioning Process for Buildings, Systems and Assemblies. This important work will directly impact maintaining and improving facility operations performance, and I look forward to working with Marcus on it. If you’re interested in getting involved with this committee or other aspects of ASHRAE, sign up to volunteer here.
That’s all for now. Hope to see you in June at the ASHRAE Annual Meeting in Tampa!
