FAQ

No. In ICE’s opinion, independence is the cornerstone of providing the owner unbiased, uncompromised, energy-efficient, commissioned facilities.

ICE believes that there are many people trying to be commissioning authorities while utilizing the services of the installing contractor to perform their own testing. ICE’s approach is quite different. In order to perform proper commissioning, an in-house team of professional engineers and field test engineers need to oversee all field testing which is performed.

As stated previously, independence is the cornerstone of commissioning. Therefore, the design engineer should not be the commissioning services provider. In addition, the most effective commissioning agents are those individuals who have significant experience in both design engineering and field testing. More often than not, design engineer’s employees lack the field testing experience necessary to make them effective commissioning agents.

Commissioning, since it is often not included, will increase the base cost of a project. However, the net savings obtained from: identifying and resolving deficiencies before they become major problems; preventing major errors and omissions before it is not economically feasible to correct; physically verifying that systems operate correctly and in accordance with the design intent; all of which are major benefits of commissioning, lowers the overall construction costs, significantly reduces change order claims, and ensures the lowest possible energy usage. From an overall project perspective, it is definitely more economical to purchase commissioning services than to not purchase them.

No commissioning authority should provide a blanket program. ICE, through 75 years of experience, designs programs that are customized to meet the needs and requirements of the project. A program that provides the best value added services and a quality end result.