The Great Recession, as the last five-plus years have come to be known, has been tough on building owners and operations-and-maintenance staffs. As they face mounting pressure to maximize net operating income, they increasingly are turning to existing-building commissioning (EBCx) to keep maintenance and utility costs down. This article defines contemporary EBCx, describes the contemporary EBCx process, and discusses associated energy and cost savings. It also discusses a more targeted approach to EBCx for tight operation budgets.

Recommendations implementable in the near term that can serve as the basis of a national buildings policy were shared during a briefing on Capitol Hill hosted by the High-Performance Buildings Caucus of the U.S. Congress to kick off High Performance Building Week May 13.

The deadline for facilities to submit an Initial Notification of Applicability to meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's finalized regulations for boilers (known as Boiler MACT or BMACT) is May 31, 2013, for major-source boilers and Jan. 20, 2014, for area-source boilers.

A best-practices guide for the design, installation, and maintenance of geothermal systems is available from RSES, the education, training, and certification association for HVACR professionals.

Asked to name the most important trait of a power plant—reliability, availability, or maintainability—most building owners and operators would say reliability. But is it really?

Registration for the sixth annual WaterSmart Innovations (WSI) Conference and Exposition, to be held Oct. 2-4 at the South Point Hotel and Conference Center in Las Vegas, is open.

As part of the U.S. General Services Administration’s (GSA’s) quinquennial review of third-party green-building certification systems, the GSA's Green Building Advisory Committee recently recommended that the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) be used for all federal new-construction and major-modernization projects.

With the U.S. Energy Information Administration reporting offices and office buildings account for nearly 20 percent of all energy use in the United States, Stephen Ashkin, chief executive officer of Sustainability Dashboard Tools LLC, developer of a cloud-based system that tracks, measures, and monitors sustainability, prepared a list of six steps facility owners/managers can take to reduce building energy use and operating costs.

ASHRAE will hold its 2013 Annual Conference June 22-26 in Denver.

Heat density once again is a top concern of data-center managers, a survey sponsored by Emerson Network Power reveals.

A proposed guideline establishing a uniform procedure for producing systems manuals for building owners and operators is open for public comment until June 2.

While there are significant advantages to off-site prefabrication of plumbing, system integrity upon arrival at a project site can be an issue. The ability to withstand transportation movement is imperative.

How safe are your HVAC building-control networks from attacks by "hackers"? Here are six steps you can take to keep your networks secure.

Built in 1929, 1500 Walnut Street is a 22-story, 270,000-sq-ft commercial building in Philadelphia. When SSH Real Estate purchased the property in 2005, it was faced with a failing HVAC system.