Consulting and Specifying Engineers Magazine Nov 2016

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NOVEMBER 2016
FEATURES
32 | Maximizing a manufacturers
combined heat and power plant
A Midwestern manufacturing facility opted for a hybrid
combined-cycle steam turbine generator solution.
ANDREW PRICE, PE, AND AARON WICKERSHAM, PE
36 | Assessing replacement of electrical

systems
COVER STORY
28 | Optimizing facility operations
with cogeneration systems
Applied Medical Resources optimized operations by
integrating cogeneration equipment into its facility.
CYNTHIA A. CALLAWAY, PE, LEED BD+C
A comprehensive cost-benefit analysis study for each electrical subsystem will allow facilities to plan short- and longterm expenditures for maintenance and upgrade programs.
THEODORE FOWLER, PE, PENG, LEED AP
44 | Understanding the
fan-efficiency rules
Fan efficiency is critical in HVAC
and process air systems. The new
proposed Department of Energy
standard will drive changes in how
engineers design air systems to
minimize fan energy.
Basic fan curve

Maximum rpm
Peak effi
FER 1.1
Unstable region
Static pressure
ON THE COVER: At the Applied Medical Resources facility, the

240-ton absorption chiller uses hot water that is produced by the
microturbine heat recovery system to produce chilled water. The
absorber is base loaded and pre-cools the chilled water return
before it goes to the electric chillers in the chiller plant. The red
piping to the absorber is the hot water from the microturbine
heat recovery system. Courtesy: P2S Engineering Inc.
FER 1.2
Compliant range
FER
Noncom
range
Air flow
WADE W. SMITH, PE
DEPARTMENTS
07 | Viewpoint
23 | Codes & Standards
Building a winning team
Energy codes and lighting
09 | Research
53 | Digital Edition
Exclusive
What do engineers in the

South Atlantic earn?
11 | Career Smart
Practicing the art of
good research
Specifying drop-out ceilings

beneath fire sprinklers
55 | Advertiser Index
12 | MEP Roundtable
56 | Future of
Engineering
Examining medical and

hospital projects
Evaluating the other

side of BIM
48 | How does your salary stack up?

Consulting engineers share information about compensation, accreditation, age, retirement goals, and business
development via a national salary survey.
AMARA ROZGUS AND AMANDA PELLICCIONE
ENGINEERING DISCIPLINES
Use the icons to identify topics of interest.
AUTOMATION & CONTROLS
HVAC
COMMUNICATIONS
LIGHTING
ELECTRICAL
PLUMBING
FIRE, SECURITY & LIFE SAFETY
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Consulting-Specifying Engineer NOVEMBER 2016
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Editors Viewpoint
CONTENT SPECIALISTS/EDITORIAL
AMARA ROZGUS, Editor-in-Chief/Content Manager
630-571-4070 x2211, ARozgus@CFEMedia.com
EMILY GUENTHER, Associate Content Manager
630-571-4070 x2220, EGuenther@CFEMedia.com
AMANDA PELLICCIONE, Director of Research
APelliccione@CFEMedia.com
MICHAEL SMITH, Creative Director
630-779-8910, MSmith@CFEmedia.com
ELISA GEISHEIMER, Production Coordinator
630-571-4070 x2213, EGeisheimer@CFEMedia.com
Amara Rozgus,
Editor-in-Chief
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD

CORY J. ABRAMOWICZ, PE, LEED AP,
Associate, Environmental Systems Design Inc., Chicago
PETER ALSPACH, PE, LEED AP BD+C,
Principal, Mechanical Engineer, Arup, Seattle
JERRY BAUERS, PE,
Vice President, NV5/Sebesta, Kansas City, Mo.
MICHAEL CHOW, PE, LEED AP BD+C,
Principal, Metro CD Engineering LLC, Columbus, Ohio
TOM DIVINE, PE,
Senior Electrical Engineer,
Smith Seckman Reid Inc., Houston
CORY DUGGIN, PE, LEED AP BD+C, BEMP,
Energy Modeling Wizard, TLC Engineering for Architecture Inc.,
Brentwood, Tenn.
TOM EARP, PE, ATD,
Principal/MEP Engineering Director, Page, Austin, Texas
ROBERT J. GARRA JR., PE, CDT,
Vice President, Electrical Engineer,
CannonDesign, Grand Island, N.Y.
JASON GERKE, PE, LEED AP BD+C, C X A,
Mechanical Engineer, GRAEF, Milwaukee
JOSHUA D. GREENE, PE,
Vice President, Jensen Hughes, Framingham, Mass.
RAYMOND GRILL, PE, FSFPE,
Principal, Arup, Washington, D.C.
DANNA JENSEN, PE, LEED AP BD+C,
Vice President, ccrd, a WSP Co., Dallas
WILLIAM KOFFEL, PE, FSFPE,
President, Koffel Associates Inc., Columbia, Md.
WILLIAM KOSIK, PE, CEM, LEED AP BD+C, BEMP,
Mechanical Design Section Manager,
Milhouse Engineering & Construction Inc., Chicago
KENNETH KUTSMEDA, PE, LEED AP,
Engineering Design Principal, Jacobs, Philadelphia
JULIANNE LAUE, PE, LEED AP BD+C, BEMP,
Senior MEP Engineer, Center for Sustainable Energy,
Mortenson Construction, Minneapolis
DAVID LOWREY,
Chief Fire Marshal, Boulder (Colo.) Fire Rescue
BRIAN MARTIN, PE,
Senior Electrical Engineer, Buildings and Places,
AECOM, Portland, Ore.
DWAYNE G. MILLER, PE, RCDD, AEE CPQ,
Chief Executive Officer, JBA Consulting Engineers, Las Vegas
RODNEY V. OATHOUT, PE, CEM, LEED AP,
Principal, Regional Engineering Leader,
DLR Group, Overland Park, Kan.
SYED PEERAN, PE, PhD,
Senior Engineer, CDM Smith Inc., Boston
GREGORY QUINN, PE, NCEES, LEED AP,
Principal, Health Care Market Leader,
Affiliated Engineers Inc., Madison, Wis.
BRIAN A. RENER, PE, LEED AP,
Associate, SmithGroupJJR, Chicago
SUNONDO ROY, PE, LEED AP BD+C,
Vice President, CCJM Engineers Ltd., Chicago
RANDY SCHRECENGOST, PE, CEM,
Austin Operations Group Manager and
Senior Mechanical Engineer,
Stanley Consultants, Austin, Texas
Building a winning team
all is the perfect convergence of

sports. Football is in full swing.
Basketball and hockey are just
starting. Golf continues to be played in
the warmer states. European football
(soccer) is underway in several countries. Baseball just wrapped up its season with playoffs and the World Series.
Fall is also the perfect storm of conferences and events. Technical experts are
presenting at myriad events around the
world. Awards and lifetime achievement
honors are being given out. Fall classes are
starting for those going back to school or
continuing their education. Engineers are
wrapping up the continuing education
required to keep their license active.
Autumn may be busy, but its never
too busy to consider personal improvement. Business or professional development skills are required at all levels of
a career. The ability to design a new
system or specify the right products are
vital to your day-to-day work; however,
to get ahead, improving personal and
personnel skills are high on the list.
According to this years ConsultingSpecifying Engineer salary survey, 63%
of respondents manage or supervise
junior team members. The majority
(40%) manage 1 to 5 employees directly. Technical continuing education
comes in many forms: online webcasts/
webinars (83% of the 2016 salary survey respondents use them), conferences
and seminars (79%), and professional
organizations (68%). Professional
development follows along those same

lines; conferences and seminars (68%),
online webcasts/webinars (66%), and
professional organizations (57%) assist
in helping engineers develop soft skills
to give them that professional edge.
But the challenge is that many junior
team membersstraight out of college
dont have these day-to-day leadership
tools. Theyre not ready to be brought to a
client meeting due to lack of communication skills. While theyre a whiz at drafting something via a software program,
they havent set foot in a building to see
how their design comes together. Clash
detection is something they learn about
in theory; seeing a too-tight mechanical
room often doesnt happen until someone
has been on the job for 10 years or longer.
One-third (37%) of survey respondents plan to work fewer than 10 years
before they retire; engineers need to
take the data from this salary survey
and put it into practice. Mid- and
senior-level team members need to
startthis falltaking a junior member of the team along to a charrette or
client meeting. You need to spend this
winter ensuring that, in between gutwrenching football games and exhilarating team wins, your team is ready to
jump right into the game in the spring.
If you need ideas, there are several
ways to start the conversation. I suggest you start by asking those that you
supervise or mentor how theyd like to
get more involved in the game.
RICHARD VEDVIK, PE,

Senior Electrical Engineer and Acoustics Engineer,
KJWW Engineering Consultants, Rock Island, Ill.
MIKE WALTERS, PE, LEED AP,
Campus Energy Market Leader, MEP Associates, Verona, Wis.
JOHN YOON, PE, LEED AP ID+C,
7Lead Electrical Engineer, McGuire Engineers Inc., Chicago
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AHREXPO.COM
Most impact on fire, life

safety systems design
AHJ/fire
official
Owner
Architect
72%
research
43%
40%
Electrical
engineer
38%
Mechanical
engineer
37%
Figure 1: Seven in 10 engineers

reported that local authorities having jurisdiction (AHJ) or fire officials
have the most input and impact on
fire and life safety design. Courtesy:
Consulting-Specifying Engineer
2016 Fire and Life Safety Study
7 in 10
electrical engineers
most frequently write performance
or prescriptive electrical and power
specifications. Courtesy: ConsultingSpecifying Engineer 2016 Electrical
and Power Study
56%
of lighting engineers
face challenges with designing
lighting controls sequence of operations, integration, etc. Courtesy:
2015 Lighting and Lighting Controls
Study
2016 SALARY SURVEY:
What do engineers in the South Atlantic earn?
hirty-eight percent of respondents to the Consulting-Specifying Engineer 2016 Salary

Survey are professionally licensed
engineers in one or more states
located within the U.S. South Atlantic regionstates include Delaware,
Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia,
West Virginia, and Washington, D.C.
Below are four salary findings as
they relate to professional engineers
licensed in these states:
1. Compensation: On average,
engineers earned a base annual
salary of $109,995 and a bonus
of $13,185 in 2015, for a total of
$123,180. Fifty-nine percent of
engineers reported an increase in
compensation between 2014 and
2015; nearly half received a 1% to 4%
increase in total compensation.
2. Education: Seven in 10 engineers professionally licensed in the
South Atlantic states have earned
of mechanical engineers
expect to see an increase in projects with energy-recovery technologies in the near future. Courtesy:
2015 HVAC and Building Automation Systems Study
2015 base annual salary
covers several research topics each
year.
$70,000 to $79,999
$50,000 to $59,999
Less than
$50,000
$60,000 to $69,999
4%
8%
$80,000 to $89,999
4%
9%
15%
15%
19%
25%
$150,000
or more
$125,000 to $149,999
More research
See page 48 for more results from the

2016 Salary Survey. Amanda Pelliccione
is the research director at CFE Media.
South Atlantic region professionally licensed engineers

1%
71%
their bachelors degree, and 20%

hold a masters degree. The average
2015 compensation earned by an
engineer with a bachelors degree was
$120,342; average compensation with
a masters degree was $131,247.
3. Primary system specified: Six in
10 engineers primarily specify electrical or power systems and 36% focus
on mechanical systems including
HVAC and plumbing. The average
engineer specifying electrical/power
systems earned a total of $125,398
in 2015; average earnings for those
specifying mechanical systems was
$116,943.
4. Total gross revenue: Firms with
engineers professionally licensed in the
South Atlantic region grossed an average of $13 million in 2015, with 41%
earning more than $20 million.
$90,000 to
$99,999
$100,000 to $124,999
Figure 2: One in four engineers professionally licensed in one or more South Atlantic
states earned between $100,000 and $124,999 in 2015; the average salary earned was
$109,995. Courtesy: Consulting-Specifying Engineer
www.csemag.com/research FOR MORE RESEARCH INFORMATION
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Register for continuing education on a variety of topics, including critical
power, smart buildings, HVAC systems, fire and life safety, lighting design,
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Career Smart
J. PATRICK BANSE, PE,
Smith Seckman Reid Inc., Houston
Practicing the art of good research

In a growing digital age, engineers need to ditch the instant-gratification
mentality and develop in-depth research skills.
ngineers, by nature, are inquisitive folks. They like to look for

things, fix things, and learn things.
The advent of the personal computer,
digital-information storage, and the
Internet, with its easy and constant
access, has changed the way information is made available. Online search
engines encourage typing in keywords,
and thousands of results are instantly
revealed. But how do you know which
of those items will really provide the
information you need or are seeking?
This effort might actually take some
research to get the best results.
Searching print documents versus

online information
One aspect of engineering design is to

calculate equipment needs and capacities and then select the equipment.
Printed catalogs give complete information on fans and pumps including
capacities, operating curves, and dimensional data. They allow a designer to
research selection possibilities and multiple manufacturers while considering
efficient design, operating point, and
future capacity (i.e., can the impeller be
changed or the whole pump?) Having
the family of pump or fan curves at your
fingertips increases the opportunity to
allow your mind to wander so that your
research will provide the best results.
Many manufacturers provide this information online; but in this day of instant
gratification (just give me a selection
that works), some engineers might take
www.csemag.com
the shortest route and choose the first

selection based on their input (search)
versus looking at many selections to
find the more suitable choice (research).
Gaining in-depth knowledge
with research
Many of the online versions of codes

and standards have keyword search
capabilities that allow a user to enter a
keyword to find locations where that
word is used in the document. But what
does that tell you? Does it tell you the
context in which it is used or the context
in which you need it? Not always. That
takes research and comparison of code
editions and referenced codes. Reading
and understanding how the code is used
and how it applies takes time, and on
many occasions that needed time is not
actually spent.
Too often, when a code question
arises, many engineers have to ask
more experienced engineers because
the Internet search did not give a clear
answer. But where did the old guy
get his knowledge? Books. Engineers
need to learn how to take the time to
do the appropriate research to gain the
understanding needed to make a good
decision. Reading the entire code or
standard will give a person the whole
picture, not just the relevant word use.
That is part of doing research; becoming familiar with the whole story and
not just a single answer. A researcher
needs to see all sides and find the truth.
Wikipedia might be good for birthdays
and song lyrics, but not necessarily for

sound engineering judgment. Besides,
who can say that everything on the
Internet is correct?
There is a lot to learn by reading
books and articles. Practicing engineering in the design and construction world
helps you become a researcher as well
as someone to be researched. Engineers
must make time to study, to read, to
research. A college professor once told
his class that finding an answer is good,
but citing the source for that answer not
only creates a basis for the research that
went into finding that answer, but also
lends credibility to it. Another way to
look at it is to imagine being questioned
about the source of information and
your only answer is, I Googled it.
Next time something needs to be
looked up, consider doing research, not
just searching. You will be surprised by
how much you can learn. Libraries hold
many secrets just waiting to be shared.
Technological advances might not be the
best tools to teach the younger generation (millennials) in the engineering
business the art of good research. It is
the older generations job to reinforce
the need and value of doing things right,
so future generations can expand their
knowledge as much as possible.
J. Patrick Banse has more than 35 years
of experience in the consulting engineering field at Smith Seckman Reid. He is a
Consulting-Specifying Engineer advisory board member emeritus.
11
MEP Roundtable
Examining medical
and hospital projects
Engineers tasked with working on hospital and medical campuses find themselves
tackling unique challenges: evolving technology, increased specialization, and maintaining
operations while under construction. Here, professional engineers with experience on
such facilities share advice on how to finish projects that report a clean bill of health.
CSE: Whats the No. 1 trend you
see today in the design of hospitals
and medical campuses?
Larry Anderson: We continue to see
the convergence and integration of
technologies into the infrastructure of
hospitals. For example, data from the
nurse call system can be used to collect information on call times. The data
can then be used to support a hospitals
consumer assessment of health care
providers and systems (CAPHS) score.
There has been an increase in wireless
communications infrastructure within
hospitals to support connected medical
devices along with patient and family
mobile devices. Many connected medical devices can now directly populate
the patients medical record and the
hospitals security systems.
Jeremy Jones: Health care systems
are shifting everything they can to
lower acuity, community-based care.
We are seeing an increase in freestanding emergency departments (where
allowed by local codes), ambulatory
12
surgical centers, wellness centers, and the

like. Hospitals arent going away, but the
main hospital is transitioning to handle
the higher acuity needs, such as trauma,
surgery, and intensive-care units (ICUs).
We suspect that this is driven by changes in reimbursement criteria from the
Affordable Care Act. Uncompensated readmissions will go down if patients stay
out of the hospital and/or can receive the
care they need closer to home, but outside a heavily clinical setting.
Daniel S. Noto: The biggest trend
throughout the health care industry is
the move toward locating acute care that
doesnt require an overnight stay to medical office buildings (MOBs). MOBs used
to be filled with general practitioners,
pediatricians, OB/GYNs, etc., but now
were seeing ambulatory surgery centers,
cancer-treatment facilities, and imaging
centers. Ten years ago, all of these were
located in hospitals.
Jonathon B. Slagel: One of the most
overarching trends we are seeing in the
health care industry is the decentralization of health care services. Much of the
Larry
Anderson,
PE, RCDD, CDT
Jeremy Jones,
PE, LEED AP,
EDAC
Principal
TEECOM
Oakland, Calif.
Healthcare Market
Leader
Affiliated Engineers
Inc.
Chapel Hill, N.C.
health care development we have been

seeing is investment in outpatient treatment and surgery centers and medical
service complexes. While health systems
continue to invest in their acute-care
hospitals, we have seen that the bulk of
that investment is focused on updating
existing services or technologies. With
the health care industry increasing focus
on preventive and outreach care, we
have seen a decline in projects focused
on increased inpatient bed capacity and
services.
Bill Talbert: We see resiliency of systems to maintain critical operations
during disruptive events and adaptability of systems to meet changing needs
over a buildings lifespan.
CSE: What other trends should
engineers be aware of for hospitals
and medical campuses in the near
future (1 to 3 years)?
Slagel: With some of the natural
and human-created events we have
experienced over the past several years,
Daniel S. Noto,
PE, LEED AP BD+C
Healthcare Studio
LeaderSoutheast
Region
exp
Atlanta
www.csemag.com
Figure 1: The new 2.8-million-sq-ft Parkland Memorial Hospitalthe largest public health care project in the country built in one
phaseopened August 2015 in Dallas. The new hospital encompasses 862 licensed beds, 96 neonatal intensive care unit rooms,
and a 120-bay emergency department. TEECOM engineers planned and designed the integrated-technology systems including
telecommunications, security, audio/video, network, and wireless, as well as onsite information technology (IT) project management services. Courtesy: Dan Schwalm, HDR Architecture
the health care industry continues to

drive focus on disaster planning and
preparedness. While much of this planning and training is focused on the
health care and facility staff s readiness
to respond, there is an increasing focus
on the buildings mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) infrastructure systems. We have been seeing an
increasing trend of hospitals focusing
on the expansion of emergency power
systems to provide capacity beyond the
required loads in the hospital. Many
facilities are starting to look at installing generator farms that can support
required life safety and critical patient
services during short-term power outages as well as full power-service backup during extended power outages.
These projects develop a more reliable
infrastructure system that can better
support hospital functions in the event
of a catastrophic event.
www.csemag.com
Noto: From an engineering perspective, the No. 1 concern in all of our

designs should be to prevent and control
hospital-borne infections.
Anderson: Three years or less is
too short of a time frame for hospitals. Some of the hospitals we have
designed took up to 10 years to design
and construct. In 10 years, there can be
dramatic changes in technology. We
see some technology systems, especially in the audio/video discipline,
change every 6 months. Because of
this, we must design flexibility into the
buildings technology infrastructure to
accept new technologies that will be
available at the time the hospital opens.
One trend that we see is the integration
of mass notification systems, which
are now required by code. The voiceannunciation component of this system requires high intelligibility, like a
public address system, but also needs
to meet survivability and be monitored,

like a fire alarm system. Today, there
are systems available that can serve all
three purposes for public address, fire
alarm, and mass notification annunciation. Sound masking may also be added.
Combining these into one system can
save the hospital money and reduce
the number of devices mounted to the
ceilings and walls that would have been
required by separate systems.
Jones: One significant trend is
the increased role of technology and
information technology (IT) systems
in the actual delivery of medicine.
This increase has been slowly taking
place for decades, but is now growing
exponentially. A hospitals CIO and IT
team are now common participants in
every stage of health care project planning. IT infrastructure requirements
are exploding, and future expansion of
this infrastructure must be understood
Eric Reuther,
PE, LEED AP
BD+C
Jonathan B.
Slagel, PE,
LEED AP, HFDP
Bill Talbert,
PE, BEMP,
LEED AP
Principal
McClure Engineering
Associates Inc.
St. Louis
Principal/Vice
President York
Office & Healthcare
Barton Associates
Inc.
York, Pa.
Senior Mechanical
Engineer
MEP Associates LLC
Verona, Wis.
13
MEP Roundtable
and planned appropriately. We are also
seeing an increase in building automation system (BAS) trending and record
keeping. A facility engineer might
be called upon to report on historical temperatures, humidity, and room
pressurization that individual patients
or individual operating rooms have
experienced. This capability is much
easier to plan at the beginning versus
as a retrofit.
CSE: Please describe a recent
hospital or medical campus project
youve worked on.
Talbert: I most recently provided
sustainable-design consulting and
analysis for the University of Minnesota Health Clinics and Surgery Center
with my previous employer. This is a
5-story, 342,000-sq-ft outpatient facility
located in Minneapolis. I am currently
working on a complete air handling system

retrofit for the Thomas E. Creek VA
Medical Center in Amarillo, Texas.
This is a 4-story, 120,000-sq-ft primarycare facility with surgery, ICU, imaging, laboratory, kitchen, and pharmacy
services.
Jones: One project we are exceedingly
proud of is the North Tower expansion
to the Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital. This project included a 225,000sq-ft addition, which added 16 new
operating rooms and 96 patient beds,
relocated the emergency department,
expanded central sterile and materials
management, and replaced the existing
central utility plant all while hospital
operations continued without major
interruption. Team members included
Perkins + Will, Hammes Co., Brasfield
& Gorrie, and Affiliated Engineers
Inc, among many others. As the first
project in our area to use active chilled
Figure 2: The new University of California San Francisco Medical Center (UCSF) is
the first hospital in the nation designed and constructed using an integrated project delivery method. With this approach, design and construction teams worked
together in one location to enhance collaboration and keep the project on schedule.
TEECOMs IT project manager was onsite full time, interfacing with UCSFs IT project
and construction teams to facilitate decision making. Courtesy: Stantec
14
beams for patient care spaces, the

project received a lot of national attention. We measured the performance of
many facets of this project over the 2
years following occupancy. Major successes include a reduction in historical infection rates (which were already
very low) and a significant decrease
in patients temperature complaints.
In addition, with the improvement in
energy efficiency via new certified energy procurement professional (CEP),
active chilled beams, solar hot-water
heating, etc., the heating and cooling
energy consumed by the facility actually went down despite adding 225,000
sq ft of conditioned space.
Anderson: The new 2.8 million-sq-ft
Parkland Memorial Hospitalthe largest public health care project in the country built in one phaseopened its doors
August 2015 in Dallas. The new hospital,
which encompasses 862 licensed beds,
96 neonatal intensive care unit rooms,
and a 120-bay emergency department,
has been hailed as a model of digitally
supported health care. We planned and
designed the integrated-technology systems that enable the hospitals innovative
model of connected care. Our integrated-technology design services included
telecommunications, security, audio/
video, network, and wireless as well as
onsite IT project management services.
The integrated-technology systems we
designed for Parkland Memorial Hospital captures and records data, enhances
security, and enables efficient operations
in many ways.
Slagel: Our firm recently completed
work for a multiphased expansion/
remodel of the surgery and central sterile processing departments in a central Pennsylvania hospital. The project
included construction of 10 new operating rooms and one endoscopy procedure room along with new pre-operation
and post-anesthesia care unit space. The
project also constructed a new area for
the central sterile processing department to locate it in closer proximity to
the operating theater. One of the key
www.csemag.com
drivers for the MEP systems on this

project was high reliability. Each operating room was designed with a pair of
isolation power panels, with each served
by a separate transfer switch and central
uninterruptible power supply (UPS)
source to ensure continuous power supply via redundant pathways. The HVAC
system was designed to use multiple air
handlers serving the surgery department
such that equipment failure of one system would only impact a portion of the
suite, permitting staff to continue procedures in the remaining available spaces.
CSE: What unusual requirements
do hospitals and medical campuses
have from an engineering standpoint?
Noto: The higher-than-average airflow quantities and more strict humidity
control are typically the toughest
engineering considerations when designing a health care facility.

Slagel: One of the biggest requirements for MEP systems in hospitals and
medical campuses is that they support
the safe care of patients and continuous
operation of the health care facility. For
example, HVAC systems for licensed
health care facilities require a higher
level of filtration than most commercial
buildings. Minimum airflow and spacepressurization requirements must also
be considered while designing these
systems, all of which are defined to protect patients and clinical workers from
contagions. Electrical systems for hospitals require the development of distinct
branches of emergency power within
the facility, with each branch dedicated
to specific functions and operations. The
separation of emergency power distribution in hospitals is driven to minimize
the risk of downtime for those systems
serving functions essential to patient and

staff safety, such as medical equipment in
ICU bays and life safety systems including fire alarm and emergency egress lighting. These examples, as well as others, add
costs to health care facilities but are necessary to ensure that a safe environment
is maintained for patients, visitors, and
health care professionals.
Anderson: Patients may have the
expectation that the health care received
from one hospital will be similar to that
of another hospital. However, from an
engineering standpoint, every hospital
organization is unique. This requires us,
as designers, to have an open mind in
providing our clients with engineering
solutions and an engineering approach
for project delivery. The way a hospital
has organized its departments may have
an impact on the way we engineer a system. For example, from an engineering
standpoint, it may make sense to install
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MEP Roundtable
The FGIs Guidelines for Design and
Construction of Hospitals and Outpatient
Facilities and ASHRAE 170 are two
critical publications for the design of
hospital HVAC systems.
Bill Talbert
converged technology systems equipment in one technology

room. However, the project design may require splitting up
technology systems into multiple spaces. We have also seen
clients completely separate their facilitys data network from
their IT network. This requires us to design two completely
separate technology infrastructures for the hospital.
Jones: Downtime in a hospitals electrical, HVAC, and
medical gas systems have the potential to negatively affect
patient outcomes. As a result, significant thought must be
given to redundancy, reliability, and maintainability so that
this risk is minimized or eliminated. Most hospitals must
remain functional during and following natural disasters.
This is important for the existing patients as well any new
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patients. The result is an increase in the need for emergency

power, domestic-water storage, fire-water storage, and general redundancy of MEP systems. Many health care spaces
have code-mandated temperature and humidity requirements that are well below what is required for nonclinical
settings. Clinical needs often drop these requirements even
further. One of the most significant examples is that many
surgeons require temperatures well below code requirements.
A request for 60F or colder in an operating room is not
uncommon. The result is a need for creativity beyond traditional 42F chilled-water cooling coils, such as subcooling
by glycol or heat-recovery chillers, wrap-around heat pipes,
or desiccant dehumidification to drop supply dew points so
that low temperatures can be achieved while keeping relative
humidity below 60%. Accomplishing all of this while keeping
energy efficiency in mind only adds to the excitement.
CSE: When working on monitoring and control systems in hospital or medical campus buildings, what factors do you consider?
Talbert: Hospital systems are often very complex, and
there is a need to balance the available facility resources
with the amount of control and monitoring available. The
key is to provide facility staff with the information necessary
to measure performance effectively and identify and solve
problems efficiently. Hospital staff may be dealing with thousands of potential monitoring points, resulting in hundreds
of alarms. Controls systems need to effectively organize and
manage this information in a manner that fits the hospitals
resources; otherwise, staff will become overloaded and will
seek quick fixes that may sacrifice system performance.
Slagel: Whenever our work involves monitoring and control
systems in a health care environment, we ensure that the
facility owner and engineering team is part of the design
discussion. It is imperative that the equipment and control points and alarming specified with project equipment
be coordinated with the owners operational practices and
needs. Monitoring additional points on a piece of mechanical equipment that an owner/operator does not look at simply adds cost to the project without any associated value.
Similarly, if control points that are critical to allowing a facility
engineer to efficiently troubleshoot system problems are omitted
from the project scope, the owner may experience delays and
increased system downtime if/when a system problem occurs.
Noto: Using a system that is compatible with the existing
controls system is very important. Most facilities dont want
multiple building automation systems (BAS).
Jones: Factors that are considered are accountability and simplicity. It is an unfortunate truth that most
hospitals maintenance departments are understaffed;
they are being asked (perhaps asked is the wrong
16
$POTVMUJOH4QFDJGZJOH&OHJOFFSt/07&.#&3
word) to do more with less. They do not have the time

or personnel to maintain and fully troubleshoot BAS
complexity. They need simplicity. If a design engineer can
squeeze out an additional 0.5% in energy efficiency by adding 20 steps to the logic of a control system, we might not
have done them any favors down the road. Also, another
unfortunate truth is that when a facility engineer is confronted
with a problem in the field that has generated a patient or physician complaint, they need to fix it immediately. The result
is that the best intentions of control systems can be manually
overridden. Sometimes the easiest way to deal with a hot call is
to manually close a hot-water valve. Without a means to track
what has been changed and by whom, a perfectly functioning
control system can become unrecognizable and impossible to
troubleshoot within a very short time.
CSE: Please explain some of the codes, standards,
and guidelines you use as a guide. Which codes/standards should engineers be most aware of in their design
of such projects?
Slagel: Outside of local building codes, the two most
important codes/guidelines related to health care work are the
Facility Guidelines Institutes (FGI) Guidelines for Design and
Construction of Health Care Facilities and NFPA 101: Life
Safety Code. These documents have been adopted by most
states as a requirement for Department of Health review and
licensure as well as by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Services (CMS), which dictates requirements that must be
met for health care facilities to participate in Medicare and
Medicaid reimbursement programs. A host of additional
standards is referenced in NFPA 101 that must also be followed, such as NFPA 99: Health Care Facilities Code, which
contains additional requirements on systems including electrical and medical gases. As always, it is important to verify
all applicable codes with the local authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) to ensure that designs incorporate the correct
edition of each particular code or guideline and any state- or
local-specific codes that also apply.
Noto: From an HVAC point of view, ASHRAE Standard
170-2013: Ventilation of Health Care Facilities should be
considered the bible of health care design. It covers all
aspects of acute-care HVAC design and should be used as a
starting point in all health care designs.
Jones: When new graduates or even seasoned staff who
are new to health care ask this same question, they expect the
answer to be simple. The truth is that it is often very difficult
to get to the bottom of many code-related issues in health care.
It is also true that the answer greatly depends on the location
of a project. One root problem is that there is a lot of overlap
in the subjects governed by different codes. These codes are
continually being updated, but by different individuals with
17
varying interests, and on different update cycles. It is important to understand the latest changes to NFPA 99, but know
that they might not necessarily apply to a given project yet,
because many jurisdictions are literally decades behind in
the adoption of new versions. For example, although many
states are governed by FGI guidelines, 14 states use their
own alternatives to those guidelines. Even among the states
that follow FGI guidelines, six different versions are being
enforced, some going back more than 20 years. In addition,
standards like ASHRAE are adopted as code in some jurisdictions (like ASHRAE 170 into FGI), but merely viewed
as good practice or recommended practice in others. With
that being said, every health care engineer needs a working
understanding of FGI (even if your state hasnt adopted it
yet), NFPA 99, NFPA 101, and the various ASHRAE standards.
Talbert: The FGIs Guidelines for Design and Construction of Hospitals and Outpatient Facilities and ASHRAE
170 are two critical publications for the design of hospital HVAC systems. These documents provide direction on
ventilation, infection control, filtration, temperature, and
humidity conditions. They have been adopted by many codes
and accreditation organizations.
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MEP Roundtable
Figure 3: Barton Associates provided mechanical, electrical, and plumbing design services for renovation and expansion of the
existing surgery suite in the health pavilion at the WellSpan Ephrata Community Hospital in Pennsylvania. The $16 million, 50,000sq-ft project was completed in June 2015. Photo courtesy: Barton Associates Inc.
Anderson: We have designed several

health care facilities in California. This
requires compliance with California
Title 24, the states building standards
code, and the regulations outlined by
the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development. Each state has
its own requirements. Something that
may be mandatory under Title 24 may
not be in another state that is following the International Building Code.
Other guidelines or standards we
apply include FGIs 2014 Guidelines for
Design and Construction of Hospitals
and Outpatient Facilities, ANSI/TIA
1179: Healthcare Facility Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard, and
UL 1069: Standard for Hospital Signaling and Nurse Call Equipment.
CSE: What are the most challenging codes and standards to
follow for hospitals and medical
campus buildings? What makes
them so challenging?
Noto: ASHRAE 170-2013 is a very
challenging HVAC standard that most
jurisdictions (excluding Florida and
California) adopt into their health
care design code. What makes them
challenging is understanding that the
air-change rates in the standard are
www.csemag.com
just a minimum and shouldnt be the

design intent. Additionally, having a full
understanding of the different pressure
relationships (positive, negative, or neutral) are key to a successful project.
Anderson: The codes themselves are
not as big of a challenge as the interpretation. We can design to the same
code in two different jurisdictions,
but have two different AHJ interpretations. There have been times when
we thought we applied a reasonable
interpretation of a code based on AHJ
approval in other jurisdictions only to
have it interpreted differently for the
next project. Unfortunately, this does
not get discovered until either the drawings are fairly complete and submitted
for permit or, worse, when the project
is being inspected during construction.
Jones: Health care code challenges fall
into several categories. The following are
two examples. First, when they conflict
with outside requirements. For example,
the 2012 version of NFPA 99 removed
the requirement for smoke evacuation
in windowless anesthetizing locations.
However, until this past summer, CMS
hadnt adopted NFPA 2012. This is quite
a conflict because CMS is a regulatory
agency that reviews existing hospitals
for compliance. They have no role in
design approval or initial licensure.
Basically, the design community was

free to delete smoke evacuation, but we
had to install it anyway because CMS
would still cite a hospital for not having it. Even now, many designers are
reluctant to delete it without having
certain confirmation that CMS recent
adoption truly means they wont continue to look for it. A second challenge
is when compliance is impossible. For
example, ASHRAE 170 (codified by the
FGI guidelines in most states) requires
70% of the area above a surgical table
(plus a 12-in. extension on all sides) in
most types of operating rooms to be
laminar air distribution. In the case of
a ceiling-mounted hybrid, however, the
overhead support for the hybrid equipment will almost always make the 70%
requirement impossible. In many jurisdictions, the code authorities are open
to discussing these types of conflicts
during design. Where they are not, we
are often stuck crossing our fingers and
hoping that the code authority understands the impossibility, but that is an
uncomfortable position to be in.
Read more at
www.csemag.com/archives about:
n Automation and controls
n Electrical/lighting/power
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n HVAC
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19
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Codes & Standards

Energy codes and lighting
Lighting designers have many resources when designing energyefficient lighting in nonresidential buildings. Designers do not have to
sacrifice quality or reduce lighting levels just to meet energy codes.
BY MICHAEL CHOW, PE, CxA, LEED AP BD+C, Metro CD Engineering, Columbus, Ohio
ccording to the U.S. Department of construction throughout the United

Energy, lighting accounts for 20% of States. There are other energy codes
total commercial buildings energy use. such as California Title 24 and variEnergy codes were first developed in response to ous other local energy codes.
the energy crisis in the 1970s. Energy codes have
led to the development of more efficient lighting. Understanding codes
The efficacy of a light source is measured in in your area
lumens per watt. The higher the number, the
How does a lighting designer
more energy-efficient the light source. For know what codes and standards
example, early versions of LED
apply to the designers
light sources were roughly 60
project? A very useful
Learning
lumens/W. It is common now to
resource can be found
objectives
see LED light sources with an effiat the U.S. Department
Know the codes, stancacy greater than 90 lumens/W.
of Energys website,
dards, and guidelines that
There are two major energy
www.energycodes.gov,
dictate energy-efficient
efficiency standards/codes in
which lists the energy
lighting design.
the United States. These energy
codes for each state.
Become familiar with
codes encompass lighting and the
Local codes should
COMcheck as a tool to
amount of energy, typically meaalso be checked by
design lighting within a
nonresidential building.
sured in watts per square foot, for
the lighting designer
Understand that there
a building or area.
because local codes
are trade-offs when difThe first standard is ASHRAE
may supersede state
ferent types of design
Standard 90.1: Energy Standard
codes in some states.
methods are used to meet
for Buildings Except Low-Rise
There is a section
energy codes.
Residential Buildings. The second
on the website titled
code is the International Energy Conservation Status of State Energy Codes,
Code (IECC) developed by the International with a drop-down menu allowing
Code Council (ICC); all states have adopted a lighting designer to select the
some version of this.
state in which the project is located.
Energy codes, such as ASHRAE Standard Once a state is selected, the website will redirect
90.1 and the IECC, are updated every 3 years. the designer to the state-specific page that lists
Typically, every update results in more stringent the commercial and residential energy codes. As
energy codes and lower lighting energy use as an example, see Figure 1 for the listing for Ohio
compared with the previous version.
as of Aug. 1, 2016.
ASHRAE Standard 90.1 along with the
There also are pertinent links for energy codes
IECC have both been widely adopted as the related to each state. This includes ASHRAE
benchmarks for energy efficiency in build- 90.1, the IECC, and/or other energy codes. For
ings. They have become the basis for building example, the Current Code column in Figure 1
codes, and the standard for building design and shows the 2009 IECC as the current energy code.
www.csemag.com
Figure 1: Here is an example of a states energy

codes listed on
www.energycodes.gov.
This figure shows the Ohio
Building Commercial
Energy Code as of
Aug. 1, 2016. Courtesy:
U.S. Department of Energy
23
Codes & Standards

WA
NH
MT
ME
VT
ND
MN
OR
ID
WI
SD
RI
MI
WY
PA
IA
NE
NV
IL
UT
IN
OH
CO
CA
WV
KS
AZ
MA
NY
OK
NM
MO
NC
TN
AR
SC
MS
TX
VA
KY
AL
GA
CT
NJ
DE
MD
DC
America Samoa
Sam
Guam
LA
N. Mariana Islands
Puerto Rico*
AK
FL
U.S. Virgin Islands
HI*
Can use COMCheck
Applicable by county/jurisdiction
COMCheck not applicable
Figure 2: This figure shows which states

allow the use of COMcheck software to
show compliance with the energy code.
Courtesy: U.S. Department of Energy
It also states that ASHRAE 90.1-2007 is

allowed as an energy code as a direct reference to the 2009 IECC. So for Ohio,
both the 2009 IECC and ASHRAE 90.12007 are acceptable current energy codes.
It is important for a lighting designer to
communicate with the rest of the design
team when more than one energy code
can be used. A consensus should be made
among the design team members early in
the design phase as to which energy code
will be used. Most authorities having
jurisdiction (AHJs) do not allow mixing
of energy codes. For example, a lighting
designer would not be allowed to show
that the lighting design for a commercial
building meets the 2009 IECC while the
rest of the design team shows compliance
with ASHRAE 90.1-2007.
24
Figure 3: A screenshot of the desktop version of COMcheck shows an example

projects home screen. Courtesy: Metro CD Engineering LLC
Tools that help meet the codes
How does a lighting designer figure

out how a commercial lighting design
will meet the energy code? Determine
what your projects requirement is by
selecting the state, as described above,

and view the states approved compliance tool. A lighting designer will need
to know what form or tool is required
to show that a projects lighting design
www.csemag.com
Figure 4: This screenshot of the Webbased version of COMcheck shows an

example projects home screen. Courtesy: Metro CD Engineering LLC
complies with the state energy code. The

compliance tool usually encompasses the
design of the buildings HVAC system,
the building envelope, and the buildings
power in addition to the lighting design.
The most commonly used tool is COMcheck. In an example used with Figure 1,
Ohios energy code shows COMcheck as
an approved compliance tool.
The COMcheck software product
group allows the lighting designer to
determine whether new commercial or
high-rise residential buildings, additions, and alterations meet the requirements of the IECC and ASHRAE
Standard 90.1, as well as several statespecific codes. COMcheck also simplifies compliance for building officials, plan checkers, and inspectors by
allowing them to quickly determine if a
building project meets the code.
Figure 2 shows which states can use
COMcheck to show commercial buildings energy code compliance. States
that do not allow COMcheck will have
a link to the accepted compliance tool/
method once the state has been selected
from the Status of State Energy Codes
section of www.energycodes.gov.
COMcheck comes in many variations
and can be downloaded onto a computer. There is also a Web-based version.
The user interface is similar for both
versions. Figures 3 and 4 show both versions home screens.
www.csemag.com
Figure 5: This is an example of a project using COMchecks whole building method showing noncompliance with the energy code. The whole building method is easier to input data
than the space-by-space method, but it does not account for lighting-power density tradeoffs between spaces within the building. Courtesy: Metro CD Engineering LLC
The lighting designer should verify

that the latest version of COMcheck is
being used. This should be done before
a project is started and again before it
is ready to be submitted for code plan
review. When connected to the Internet,
the desktop version of COMcheck will
automatically check for a newer version
whenever it is first opened. The software also will provide a link to download the latest version.
Each project should have all the project details filled out even though it is listed as optional in COMcheck. This will
help provide the plans examiner with
details of the building location, the owners contact, and the lighting designer.
The designer/contractor section should
list the name and contact information of

the designer/engineer of record for the
lighting design. This should match the
name of the professional engineers seal
on the lighting plans.
Building area versus
space-by-space method
COMchecks Interior Lighting Method and Areas section is where the rubber meets the road. This is where the
designer finds out if the lighting design
meets the energy code. ASHRAE Standard 90.1 allows either a building area
method or the area category (space-byspace) method.
ASHRAE Standard 90.1s lighting section has a table that lists the lighting-power
25
Codes & Standards
Figure 6: This is an example of a project using COMchecks space-by-space method

showing compliance with the energy code. The space-by-space method may be more
tedious to input data, as compared with the whole building method, but it may result
in a project being compliant due to lighting-power density trade-offs between spaces
within the building. Courtesy: Metro CD Engineering LLC
densities (LPD) using the building area

method and also the space-by-space method. The building area method typically
is easier to use than the space-by-space
method. This is because the designer only
needs to enter the entire square footage of
the building or the area of an existing building being added or renovated to determine
compliance.
Lets compare the building area
method to the space-by-space method.
ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2007 has a table
that lists office for the building area
method with an LPD of 1.0 W/sq ft. The
same standard lists an office-open plan
with an LPD of 1.1 W/sq ft. A lighting
design may not comply with the building area method, but may comply with
the space-by-space method due to the
trade-offs allowed.
Figure 5 shows an example of a COMchecks whole building area method concerning a 10,000-sq-ft office building
with hypothetical LED lighting fixtures.
This example shows the project is not
26
in compliance with the building area

methods LPD of 1.0 W/sq ftwhich
equates to 10,000 W. The example has a
total proposed wattage of all the lighting
fixtures at 10,104 W, which exceeds the
allowable 10,000 W by 1%.
Figure 6 shows the same building
using COMchecks space-by-space
method. Each area within the building was entered along with the lighting fixture used in each area. Note that
the office-open plan and the officeenclosed have similar LPDs of 1.1 W/
sq ft, which is greater than the office
LPD of 1.0 W/sq ft for the building area
method. Even with the other supporting
spaces listed (corridor, restroom, electrical/mechanical room), the total of
these spaces has an allowable wattage of
10,850 W. This amount is 850 W greater
than the allowable 10,000 W using the
building area method.
Our office example shows that the
space-by-space method allows more
watts for compliance than the building
area method. This allows our sample

project to comply with the energy code
selected (ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2007).
What does a designer select if a projects space is not listed in the ASHRAE
Standard 90.1 space-by-space-method
LPD table? ASHRAE Standard 90.1
states selection of a reasonable equivalent category shall be permitted. The
designer should keep in mind that the
AHJ (typically, the plans examiner) is
the decision-maker when it comes to
interpreting if the selected equivalent
category will be allowed.
Making sense of COMcheck
Learning to select and input the lighting designs lighting fixtures into COMcheck can be confusing. For example,
COMcheck has several different types
of LED light sources to select from
including, but not limited to, LED
multifaceted reflector (MR), LED parabolic aluminized reflector (PAR), LED
A lamp, LED linear, etc. Once the light
source is selected, the designer is provided several different wattages for the
light source.
A lighting designer may be confused
about which wattage to select if there
is not an exact match for the lighting
www.csemag.com
fixture being inputted into COMcheck.

The lighting fixture that most closely
matches the energy (watts) used should
be selected. The designer can then manually input the energy each fixture uses,
which is commonly referred to as input
watts, into COMchecks Fixture Wattage form box.
It is important to ensure the correct
input wattage is entered for each light
sources fixture wattage. COMcheck provides a default for many light sources. A
common challenge that designers face is
identifying the correct value to enter in
the fixture wattage section.
According to the COMcheck Software
Users Guide, designers may either use
the typical input wattage provided by
the software or override it with a value
based on the equipment the designer
intends to install. In either case, the
designer needs to be prepared to provide supporting documentation based
on the manufacturers literature to the
building department, if requested.
Most LED light sources have varying
input watts dependent upon the color
temperature and lumen output. The
designer can typically find the input
watts for each LED light source by finding the specification sheet for a fixture
and then locating the color temperature
and lumen output package that matches
the lighting fixture used for the design.
High-intensity discharge (HID) light
sources need to include the input watts
for the fixture wattage. For example, a
lighting fixture with a ceramic 150 W
metal halide pulse-start lamp needs
to use the input wattage with both the
lamp and the ballast. This information
is usually obtained from the ballast
manufacturer. A typical input wattage
for this type of combination is 168 W.
Fluorescent light sources need to take
into account the lamp wattage and the
ballast wattage for the fixture wattage.
There are many different ballast factors available that can alter the fixture
wattage, and it is important that the
designer enters the correct combination
of lamp and ballast.
www.csemag.com
It is important to ensure the correct input

wattage is entered for each light sources fixture
wattage. COMcheck provides a default for many
light sources. A common challenge that designers
face is identifying the correct value to enter in the
fixture wattage section.
Lighting control wattage credits are
not allowed in ASHRAE Standard 90.1.
Lighting control credits were included
in Standard 90.1-1989 as a trade-off for
increased installed (proposed) lighting
power. However, the lighting control
credits were complicated to apply.
The control credit approach was also
abandoned with ASHRAE 90.1-1989R for
reasons of simplicity. Some felt the credits
in ASHRAE 90.1-1989 had been ineffective in motivating the use of advanced
controls because users were able to show
compliance without using the credits.
COMcheck does not allow control credits,
and this allows the program to avoid complicated calculations related to controls.
Daylighting-control requirements were
first introduced in ASHRAE Standard
90.12010 and have now been expanded
in ASHRAE 90.12013 and IECC 2015.
Increased LPD is allowed when daylight
controls are available as per ASHRAE
Standard 90.1 when using the space-byspace method.
COMcheck also provides a requirements checklist in the lightingcompliance report relating to controls,
switching, and wiring. Lighting designers should ensure the design meets or
exceeds these requirements. Some of the
requirements may be not applicable to
a project.
Energy efficiency guidelines
Lighting designers should keep in mind

that compliance with the energy code is
the minimum requirement. There may
be other project requirements, such as
a certain U.S. Green Building Council
LEED certification level for the project
(Certified, Silver, Gold, and Platinum).
LEED certification for new construction and major renovations to existing

buildings requires that projects exceed
ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2007 for LEED
v3 and ASHRAE 90.1-2010 for LEED v4.
This requirement is mandated through
the Energy and Atmosphere Minimum
Energy Performance prerequisite.
LEED projects seeking certification
commonly have a lighting design that
exceeds the energy code requirements for
LPD. Most LEED projects seeking certification need to exceed the energy savings over the minimum required by the
Minimum Energy Performance prerequisite. The Optimize Energy Performance
credit takes into account HVAC, lighting,
hot-water heating, and other systems that
use energy. Credits are achieved by the
percentage the design exceeds the Minimum Energy Performance prerequisite
requirements.
Energy codes help reduce a commercial
buildings lighting-energy consumption
by limiting the amount of energy (wattage) that can be installed. Other standards
and certifications, such as LEED certification, require buildings to use less energy
than the energy code allows.
Lighting designers need to determine
what energy codes apply to their project. COMcheck is a useful tool to show a
lighting design complies with an energy
code.
Michael Chow is the founder and owner
of Metro CD Engineering. He is a member
of the Consulting-Specifying Engineer
editorial advisory board and is a 2009
40 Under 40 winner. Chow has won six
Illuminating Energy Society Illumination
Awards of Merit.
27
Optimizing
facility operations
with cogeneration
systems
Applied Medical Resources optimized
operations by integrating cogeneration
equipment into its facility.
CYNTHIA A. CALLAWAY, PE, LEED AP BD+C,
P2S Engineering Inc., Long Beach, Calif.
Learning
objectives
Realize the facility operations improvements with
cogeneration systems.
Understand performance
data to meet facility requirements.
Explain design considerations for cogeneration
systems.
cogeneration system is
not a single technology,
but an integrated energy
system that can be modified depending upon the
needs of the energy end user. This type
of system burns natural gas to simultaneously produce electricity and heat (see
Figure 2). The heat is recovered from the
combustion systems exhaust stream and
converted into useful thermal energy, in
the form of steam or hot water, which is
either used directly or fed into an absorption chiller to provide cooling.
Expanding manufacturing with

onsite generation
Applied Medical Resources (AMR)

was moving its manufacturing equipment into a larger facility and expanding
its manufacturing capabilities. The company was interested in providing onsite
28
generation for the two new buildings

and central plant located in Lake Forest, Calif. The larger building is used for
manufacturing injection-molded parts
and operates around the clock with the
exception of 2 days per year. The smaller
building houses offices and manufacturing support spaces. A bridge structure
between the buildings houses the chiller,
boiler, and cooling tower systems that
serve the HVAC and process cooling/
heating loads. The onsite generation
equipment would be located in the
bridge equipment area.
The manufacturing equipment consisted of existing units that would be
relocated as well as new units. Space
for future growth was provided. To
evaluate the initial and future power
requirements of the facility, AMR
provided electrical data for the existing manufacturing building currently
www.csemag.com
housing the manufacturing equipment

that would be moved. Fifteen-minute
data for April 1, 2011, through June 26,
2013, was used to determine the facilitys base electrical load. Monthly data
for January 2004 through August 2013
was used to estimate future expansion
and increases in electrical load.
The 15-minute electrical data was
used to determine the minimum facility load. The four data points for each
hour were averaged to obtain the hourly
average kilowatts. These averages were
then binned in 50-kW increments to
determine the percentage of the time
the facility was operating within each
bin. It was found that the current injection molding facility operated at 500
kW or less approximately 96% of the
time. The maximum facility load during
the period was 1,085 kW and occurred
less than 1% of the time.
www.csemag.com
Figure 1: At the Applied Medical Resources facility, the 240-ton absorption chiller uses
hot water that is produced by the microturbine heat recovery system to produce chilled
water. The absorber is base loaded and pre-cools the chilled water return before it goes
to the electric chillers in the chiller plant. The red piping to the absorber is the hot water
from the microturbine heat recovery system. Courtesy: P2S Engineering Inc.
The average kilowatt data for each hour

was then analyzed to determine if there
were significant differences in weekday
and weekend usage. Three day types were
used: weekday, Saturday, and Sunday. For
each hour, the kilowatt data was averaged
by day type. There was not a significant
reduction in usage between the day types.
The weekday usage was typically the
highest, followed by Saturday and Sunday.
In all cases, the average kilowatt measurement was greater than 500 kW.
Based on the mentioned data analyses,
a cogeneration system with a 500-kW initial capacity could be operated continuously at nearly full capacity.
Facility growth with

cogeneration systems
Future growth also was considered.

AMR intended to maintain the rate of
growth they had experienced over the
previous 5 years. The monthly electrical
data was used to calculate the year-overyear increase in consumption (kWh)
and demand (kilowatts) for each month
and for each year as a whole. The average year-over-year growth factor for
consumption was 1.10 kWh and for
demand was 1.19 kW. Using this data, the
required minimum generation capacity
would increase to approximately 1,100
kW in 5 years.
29
Optimizing facility operations with cogeneration systems

While meeting the facility electrical needs was the primary focus, it
was important to understand where
the cogeneration systems heat recovery could be used and to determine
the associated minimum load. A process cooling-water system provides
a consistent 24-hour load that can be
served by the waste heat recovery associated with the cogeneration system. To
of a generator is defined as a generator

capable of self-excitation and black start
for supplying power to a distribution
system that is electrically isolated from
the local utility power supply.
To have this capability, the cogeneration system needs to have an automatic
inverter disconnect or shutdown that
prevents any power from being fed back
into the grid in the event of an outage.
Island-mode operation of a generator is defined as

a generator capable of self-excitation and black start
for supplying power to a distribution system that is
electrically isolated from the local utility power supply.
quantify this load, temporary data collection equipment was installed on the
current system in the existing manufacturing building. The system flow, supply
temperature, and return temperature
were trended on 1-minute intervals.
The tonnage for each 1-minute interval was calculated using the flow and
temperature difference data as shown
in Table 1. The average hourly tonnage was calculated for each hour by
summing the interval data and dividing by the number of intervals. This
average hourly tonnage data was used
to develop a typical daily load profile
for the process cooling-water system.
The future growth in process cooling
load was assumed to occur at the same
rate as the electrical load. All of the
observed existing equipment required
process cooling water, and future
growth in the manufacturing building is directly related to the addition
of equipment. A 10% year-over-year
growth results in a minimum requirement of 90 tons.
AMR also wanted the system to provide standby power during an extended
blackout. The cogeneration system
would need to be capable of operating in an island mode in a manner
acceptable to the electric utility and
in compliance with the current code
requirements. Island-mode operation
30
It also must have an approved, breakbefore-make transfer switch to ensure

that the generating equipment is only
capable of independent operation when
disconnected and only supplies specified and controlled loads during the
outage.
Choosing generation equipment
for cogeneration systems
The type of generation equipment

considered was determined by the base
electrical load. In general, all generation
equipment types perform best when
operating at full load. Since the initial
base facility load is 500 kW, two types
of generating equipment are applicable: microturbines and reciprocating
engines. Both types allowed for future
system expansion to meet the 5-year
base-load projections.
Both generating equipment options
required an absorption chiller, chilled-
water pumps, hot-water pumps, cooling towers, and connection to the

central chilled and heating hot-water
systems. The absorption chiller capacity was sized to operate with both the
initial 500-kW cogeneration plant
and the final 1,000-kW cogeneration
plant, so a future chiller would not be
required.
An economic analysis was performed
to compare the cost of purchasing
power to the cost of generating power
for each cogeneration system option.
The annual run time was used to calculate the annual gross power generation for each option. Parasitic loads
for pumps, gas compressors, etc. were
subtracted to arrive at the net power
generation. Fuel costs were calculated
based on the gross power generation.
The chilled-water savings was calculated based on a minimum process
cooling load of 50 tons. In the event
this did not use all of the available
heat recovery, the remaining energy
was assumed to be used by the heating
hot-water system, resulting in heating
hot-water savings. Costs for manufacturer maintenance and monitoring
agreements were included. The cost
to generate power ranged from 6 to 8
cents/kWh, depending on the type of
generation equipment.
AMR elected to install three 333kW microturbines with built-in hotwater heat-recovery capabilities and a
240-ton absorption chiller. The chiller
trims load by reducing the chilledwater return temperature to the electric
chiller plant. The system is piped
t o a l l ow t h e ab s or pt i on c h i l l e r
alone to be used when it can meet
Process cooling-water load
Tons (trended)
Tons (5-year
projection)
Minimum
Average
Maximum
56.1
65.7
72.0
90
105
116
Table 1: This shows measured and projected process cooling-water loads in tons for
the existing manufacturing facility. Data was used as worst-case minimum chilledwater loads when selecting an absorption chiller. Courtesy: P2S Engineering Inc.
www.csemag.com
the facility chilled-water load. In

the e vent all of the heat recovery is not used to produce chilled
water, the cogeneration hot-water
system is connected to the secondary
side of the heating hot-water plant.
This ensures that the cogeneration hotwater inlet temperature to the microturbines is as designed to maximize
heat recovery and associated absorption chiller capacity.
A chilled-water 100% outside-air
variable-speed air handler was provided to serve the microturbine room. It
provides the turbine air requirements
as well as the cogeneration package
cooling-air requirements. The chilledwater coil is used only when the outside air temperature is above 70 F. This
minimizes reduced power production
from the microturbines during periods
of high outside air temperature.
Additional design considerations
included:
Minimize the space-temperature
impact of the cogeneration packages exhaust by capturing this air
as it leaves the unit. (This typically requires a fan, as the cogeneration units residual pressure is
not designed for duct losses.)
The three-way hot-water valve
provided with the absorber is
normally set to bypass on loss of
power and has a spring return.
The chiller controls this valve and
typically opens it gradually, but
closes it by removing the power
to it. When this valve closes in
such a rapid manner, the microturbine exhaust damper cant
react fast enough to divert the
exhaust to the atmosphere instead
of to heat recovery, causing the
microturbine to shut off on a
high leaving water temperature
safety. The exhaust damper is normally set to atmosphere and has a
spring return. This situation was
addressed by integrating a normally open relay into the damper
www.csemag.com
Power
Exhaust
Heat
Combined heat and power
(CHP) heat exchanger
CHP
Recuperator
Combustor
Gearbox
Generator
ressor
Compressor
Turbine
Fuel
Air inlet
Figure 2: This cogeneration process diagram shows how fuelin this case, natural
gasis converted into power and heat. Courtesy: CFE Media
circuit and opening the relay

when the chiller is commanded
on and the three-way hot-water
valve closes.
The manufacturers microturbine
control module required a static
IP address and remote access by
the manufacturer for system monitoring and service. This must be
coordinated with the clients information technology staff, especially if they typically reset remote
access on a set time schedule.
through the utility application

process, however, the design team
found that generator nameplate
data was required to be on the
application in addition to the overall microturbine nameplate data.
The total of the generator nameplate data exceeded the 1 MW, and
the utility required telemetry. This
required another static IP address
and space for the telemetry equipment specified by the utility in an
existing data room.
Space, access, and utilities are

required for auxiliary microturbine equipment, such as generating breaking resistors, black-start
cabinets, and control cabinets.
The cogeneration system has been

operational since March 2016. With the
manufacturing building at 60% to 70%
of full capacity, the cogeneration system is saving AMR $50,000 to $60,000/
month.
The electric utility requires telemetry when self-generation systems

are over a minimum size. For this
project, the threshold was 1 MW.
Initially, it appeared that the system was just under the threshold
at 999 kW. As the project went
Cynthia A. Callaway was the project

manager and engineer of record for the
AMR cogeneration project. She is with
P2S Engineering and has more than 30
years of experience designing mechanical
systems for commercial, industrial, and
institutional clients.
31
Maximizing a
manufacturers combined
heat and power plant
A Midwestern manufacturing facility opted for a hybrid combined-cycle
steam turbine generator solution.
By Andrew Price, PE, and Aaron Wickersham, PE, Affiliated Engineers Inc., Madison, Wis.
Learning
objectives
Demonstrate the obstacles
a manufacturing facility
overcame as a combined heat
and power (CHP) central plant
mission changed.
Examine the efficiency benefits of a hybrid combinedcycle steam turbine generator.
ollowing a scale-down in manufacturing production, a Midwestern manufacturers combined heat and power (CHP)
central plant mission changed.
Identifying opportunities to optimize
existing generating assets, the owner is
increasing system efficiency with a hybrid
combined-cycle steam turbine generator
solution.
Totaling 2.5 million sq ft of conditioned space, the owners manufacturing
and technical center complex has been
served by a central plant that generates
steam for heating and chilled water for
cooling the complex. The central plant
facility originally included:
A CHP system consisting of three
nominal 15-MW combustion turbine (CT) prime movers and associated heat-recovery equipment
A nominal 5-MW backpressure
steam turbine generator (STG)
A 3-MW backpressure STG.
The electrical power generated by the

CHP system was indirectly used by the
manufacturers campuses and other adjacent facilities. Steam was used at a pressure of 250 psig by industrial production
32
facilities and space-heating needs, and at

15 psig by absorption chillers.
The real-time costs of electricity and
gas are very dynamic and depend on
many factors. Assuming a static cost of
electricity of 6 cents/kWh and a fixed cost
of natural gas of $6/decatherm (purchased
utility heat rate of 10,000 Btu/kWh), the
original operations of the central plant
reduced fuel costs by approximately $3
million annually. CHP is the most costeffective approach to generate electricity
and has the least impact on regional air
emissions. The CHP process is approximately 70% efficient as compared with
utility-generated power at 35%.
As the owner reduced manufacturing
production output at the complex, facility steam and chilled-water use declined
and fewer central-plant-generated utilities
were required. Because central-plant-generated chilled water was no longer needed
by the complex, the absorption chillers
were deactivated.
Although the dispatch of the CHP portion of the plant has changed significantly
from the original intent, the central plant
has been operated well and remains in good
condition. Following the manufacturing
scaledown, the central plant correctly operated in a temporary hybrid CHP mode of
traditional CHP operation with the steam
generated being used for heating purposes.
www.csemag.com
Figure 1: The steam- and electric-load duration curves for a Midwestern manufacturers central plant following a reduction in
steam and chilled-water loads. The area above the steam-production curve up to the level of current transformer/heater-recovery
steam generator No. 3 capacity represents lost savings opportunity when equipment is sitting idle. All graphics courtesy:
Affiliated Engineers Inc.
When there hasnt been adequate heating demand and the electric costs were
favorable as compared with natural gas
costs (spark spread), the recovered steam
has been condensed to cost-effectively
generate additional electrical power with
the existing steam turbine generators. The
present operation of the plant within the
limits of the existing equipment has been
excellent with the proper staging and loading of the various generating components.
The ability to operate in this temporary hybrid mode has been reduced with
the elimination of the absorption chiller
usage and the 5-MW backpressure STG.
These limitations led the owner to examine the replacement of the existing steam
turbine generators.
an independent campus planning effort,

and compared multiple options to replace
the existing steam turbine generators.
Theoretical CHP dispatch models were
developed and compared against present
operating strategies.
The electric output of the plant is used
in a commercial pricing node (CPN). The
use of a CPN allows for cost-effective purchase of electricity for the complex as well
as the owners adjacent installations. The
purchase of electricity is based on the optimum mix of the following components:
Correcting capacity/load imbalance
Superheated steam (600 psig/750F)

is produced in the heat-recovery steam
generators (HRSG). This steam is passed
through two existing backpressure steam
turbine generators to produce additional
electric power. STG No. 1 exhausts steam
at a pressure of 15 psig with a peak
The Affiliated Engineers Inc. team

examined multiple options to replace
the existing steam turbine generators.
The study evaluated the current systems operation efficiency and capacity,
calculated future steam loads based on
www.csemag.com
Self-generation
Block purchases
Day-ahead pricing
Real-time pricing.
electric generation of approximately 5.2

MW. STG No. 2 exhausts steam at a pressure of 250 psig for facility heating and
was designed to generate approximately
3 MW of electric power. STG No. 2 is no
longer in operation.
STG No. 1 exhaust was originally used
in low-pressure steam-absorption chillers
to supply cooling to the facility. The original plant configuration included an aircooled condenser to condense a portion
of the 15-psig steam. Due to the reduction in chilled-water demand, the absorption chillers are no longer in operation.
A supplemental water-cooled condenser
was installed when the absorption chillers
were decommissioned. The condensing of
15-psig steam is not the most cost-effective
manner to generate electric power. Most
STGs used in a condensing mode operate
in the range of 2 psia (vacuum).
Figure 1 indicates the steam-and
electric-load duration curves for the central plant, given the reduced steam and
chilled-water loads. The area above the
steam-production curve to CT HRSG
33
Manufacturing facility CHP plant
Figure 2: This Midwestern manufacturer

added a new nominal
12-MW condensing
steam turbine generator with extraction
capabilities and an
exhaust pressure of
2.0 psia to provide lost
capacity and more
efficiently condense
steam than with an
existing steam turbine
generator.
No. 3 capacity represents lost savings

opportunity where
equipment is sitting idle.
Because STG No. 1 operates at 15-psig
exhaust and STG No. 2 is no longer
operational, it was recommended that a
new nominal 12-MW condensing STG
with extraction capabilities be installed
with an exhaust pressure of 2.0 psia. This
new STG would provide the lost capacity
of STG No. 2 and more efficiently condenses steam than STG No. 1. Figure 2
indicates the proposed range of operating configurations.
A new surface condenser is required to
serve the proposed STG. The surface condenser would use the existing condenserwater system in a similar manner as the
existing water-cooled condenser. The
new STG and surface condenser would
be installed within the existing plant.
The HRSG systems are provided with
two flue gas economizers. The first stage
unit is a traditional feedwater economizer
that elevates boiler feedwater temperature
to above 228F. The second-stage downstream economizer elevates the water temperature between the hot well and deaerator. By using the proposed condensing
STG, the entering water temperature of
the second-stage economizer is reduced,
allowing for increased heat recovery.
The present average stack temperature
34
Figure 3: The cost of onsite electric generation is shown when condensing to maximize power output. A 1 cent/kWh operation and maintenance (O&M) allowance is
included in the fuel-cost differential.
is approximately 300 to 325F. With the

new STG, the stack temperature should
be 275F or lower, resulting in fewer stack
losses and higher cycle efficiency.
Cost-reduction strategies
Figure 3 shows the cost of onsite

electric generation when condensing to
maximize power output. A 1 cent/kWh
operation and maintenance allowance
is included in the fuel-cost differential.
The proposed new water-cooled STG

will reduce the cost of electric generation
by 2 cents/kWh when the plant is operated in a combined-power cycle.
The initial cost of the proposed installation is approximately $5 million and
will result in a simple amortization
period of approximately 8 years.
In addition to the replacement STG,
the study examined inlet cooling. The
capacity and efficiency of a combustion
www.csemag.com
turbine are inversely proportional to the

entering air temperature of the unit. Precooling of combustion air to the turbine
is a cost-effective method to increase
generating capacity and efficiency during periods of elevated ambient conditions generally occurring during the
summer. The precooling of the combustion turbines at the central plant would
increase electric output by approximately
2,000 kW/unit and increase summer
efficiency by approximately 8%.
The combustion turbine precooling
system would consist of installing a cooling coil in each unit intake and using the
plant-chilled water to indirectly cool the
combustion air to approximately 60F. It
is strongly recommended that a separate
glycol water system is installed to minimize operational impacts and prevent
precooling coils from freezing.
The simple amortization period of the
precooling depends on the value of the
additional electric output that will be generated when grid electric prices are the
highest. If a nominal value of $100/kW/
year is applied, the simple amortization
period is approximately 4 years.
coal to gas operations, self-generated

electric power will become even more
cost-effective.
Andrew Price is a market leader at Affiliated Engineers. He specializes in the evaluation and design of efficient and reliable
energy and utility infrastructure. Aaron

Wickersham is a senior project manager
at Affiliated Engineers. Recent project
experience includes CwHP evaluations for
the Architect of the Capitol, Pennsylvania
State University, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The steam storage water heater

designed for hospitals
of the 21st century.
ENGINEERED DUPLEX ALLOY
Double-wall,
copper and brass exchanger
Single-pass, counter-flow
Up to 7,000,000 Btu
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The results of the study led the owner

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As the cost of electricity continues to
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Assessing replacement
of electrical systems
A comprehensive cost-benefit analysis study for each electrical subsystem
will allow facilities to plan short- and long-term expenditures for maintenance
and upgrade programs.
BY THEODORE FOWLER, PE, PEng, LEED AP, CannonDesign, Grand Island, N.Y.
Learning
objectives
Illustrate the reasons that electrical engineers should conduct studies of electrical and power systems.
Summarize the types of electrical
equipment that should be reviewed
for replacement.
Analyze the codes and standards
that dictate equipment design.
acilities needs and their aging

electrical systems change over
time. Aging systems and newer
technologies constantly challenge facilities managers in
repair and replacement considerations.
Systems retro-commissioning, assessments, and master planning analyses
are all methods to understand whether
electrical systems are safe and operating
correctly and efficiently to meet performance goals.
Such studies can indicate if systems can

put the facility at risk, how systems are
currently performing, can provide measurements, and set priorities for improvements. Balance scope, schedule, and cost of
these improvements so business budgets,
operations, and schedules can then be prudently planned.
Why and when to analyze
The performance of systems, operation,

and users tend to drive the economy of the
business world. Goals drive performance
metrics that, in turn, will drive programs
and action as well as associated operating costs. Performance measures must be
communicated to deliver expected results
and drive the systems analyses. Typical goals of an electrical system analysis
may include age and condition, safety
and security, code compliance, capacity
for growth, reliability and redundancy,
energy efficiency, physical distribution,
ease of operation, and maintainability.
Facilities and their systems should be
evaluated every 10 years to realign with
current business strategies. Planning may
include spaces to be repurposed, technology changes, and systems that operate less
Figure 1: In this main switchboard room,

switchboards targeted for replacement
are shown. All graphics courtesy:
CannonDesign
36
www.csemag.com
efficiently as they age. As most electrical mechanical wear of circuit breaker con- highest electrical current the equipment
distribution equipment have a 20-year tacts and contactors, weakening of oper- can withstand in the event of a shortexpected life, 10-year status investiga- ating springs, deterioration of insulating circuit condition. Calculating the faulttion increments are adequate to cover materials, and rusting enclosures. The current rating entails identifying the availnew, mid-life, and end-of-life evaluation. industry life expectancy for commercial- able fault current, which originates from
It also becomes time to analyze electrical grade electrical systems in buildings is the utility, generators, and running motors.
systems when facility growth or renovation generally 20 to 30 years, if maintained If the available fault current exceeds the
equipments rating and a fault occurs in the
is anticipated, associated affecting systems properly, as outlined in Table 1.
system, then a catastrophic failure
are due for replacement, failures
of the equipment could occur. A
begin to regularly occur, operat- Table 1: Electrical component service life
system can become unsafe due to
ing or energy costs unexpectedly
Type of
Expected service
remodeling and expansion projects
rise, or when third-party funding
equipment
life (years)
that add additional fault current
opportunities (e.g., energy grants,
Fused equipment
30
without updating or maintaining
utility incentives) become available
Medium-voltage feeders
30
an accurate fault current study.
for a known upgrade or need.
Medium-voltage switchgear
30
Selective coordination: Electrical
system coordination is required
What to analyze
Liquid-filled transformers
30
by
NFPA 70: National Electrical
Professional design, service,
Dry-type transformers
30
Code, Articles 517, 700, and 701,
and contracting organizations
Standby engine-generators
25
and NFPA 99: Health Care Facilioffer varying methods and analyMolded case and power
ties Code. It assures that each oversis tools. Firms with the wide or
20
circuit breakers
current device trips in sequential
narrow focus of systems expertise
Interior lighting systems
20
order, isolates the problem condispecific to the needs of the facilElectrical and motor controls
20
tion, and does not cause unnecesity assessment should be chosen.
sary disruption of power upstream.
For instance, infrared electrical
Uninterruptible power
20
supply (UPS)
Many times, interpretation pruinspections quickly find hot spots
dently enforces the same coordinacaused by defects in connections
Branch circuits and wiring
20
devices
tion on normal power systems and
and components. Specific overall
is considered good practice.
assessment personnel should have
Motors
15
Ground-fault protection is
a minimum of 15 to 20 years of
Electrical equipment ages at different handled similarly in larger health care
expertise and are knowledgeable in longterm building systems care and applica- rates based upon the quality of equip- facilities. These facilities require two
ble codes and standards. They must be ment, maintenance, and environment. levels of protection, the main service
knowledgeable in the nuances of older Enhanced preventive maintenance care, overcurrent protective device (OCPD)
and newer technologies, retrofits, and regular duty-cycle operation, and lower and the second level OCPD to assure a
lifecycle costs and be sensitive to the operating temperatures will extend the feeder breaker opens on a fault condition
overall goals of the facility such that they equipments useful life. Aging electri- prior to tripping the main circuit breaker.
can help to prioritize any needs of these cal components are potential hazards, Large health care emergency systems also
systems. The facilitys own staff will tend as their failure is unpredictable and can are required to have ground-fault alarm
to focus on what they are used to or what cause arcing, fires, failures, and associated indication, not tripping, as the system is
a facilitys last opportunity to maintain
is in need of repair; therefore, they may human-safety issues.
Low-voltage cabling materials that power in an emergency.
lack the flexibility for change or global
Arc flash hazard: Arc flash ratings are
insight necessary in both short- and long- should be considered for replacement
include pre-1960s conductors having based on the equipments ability under a
term cost-benefit solutions.
Many factors come into play when ana- asbestos insulation and pre-2000 alumi- fault condition to cause an explosion, or
lyzing and prioritizing electrical equip- num compression lugs, which may be sub- arc fault. The rating defines the equipment needs. Life safety hazards should ject to arcing conditions. Aging equipment ments ability to deliver energy and correbe prioritized first to maximize human will eventually reach a condition in which lates to the personal protective equipment
(PPE) gear an electrician is required to
safety and minimize potential high legal its reliability becomes questionable.
wear to be safe when working on or around
and operational risks.
energized equipment. Safety parameters
Electrical equipment deteriora- Code and safety issues
tion may be due to daily temperature
Fault-current rating: Electrical equip- are defined in NFPA 70E: Standard for
cycles, collection of dust, condensation, ment fault-current ratings are based on the Electrical Safety in the Workplace.
www.csemag.com
37
Replacing electrical systems

The incident energy level is directly
proportional to the available fault current level available at the equipment and
the time it takes to clear a fault condition.
Older equipment may take more time to
clear, which makes for increased concern.
Although the arc-flash-hazard level of
electrical equipment is not a specific code
requirement, except to OSHA, it is often
a determining factor in the decision to
replace existing equipment. The electrical
system of many occupancies must remain
energized during maintenance procedures, and the lower the arc flash hazard
of the equipment, the safer the personnel
who are working on that equipment.
Seismic provisions: Essential electrical equipment bracing is now required
in seismic zones for essential buildings,
such as health care facilities. Essential
buildings, themselves, are also now similarly required to be structurally seismically braced.
Grounding and bonding: Bonding of

metallic components and earth grounding for electrical systems is commonly
misunderstood, and human safety and
equipment protection may be compromised if not properly accomplished.
Independent-source grounding methods
at services, transformers and generator
systems, exposed equipment grounding,
corrosion of grounding electrodes, and
patient-care grounding systems should be
properly evaluated.
Harmonics ratings: Overheating of
electrical equipment may be caused by
nonlinear electronic sources. Proper harmonic equipment ratings or harmonicmitigation techniques should be reviewed.
Testing reports: Equipment testing
reports per the InterNational Electrical
Testing Associations acceptance testing
specifications are valuable for outlining equipment conditions, duty cycles,
and loading. Frequency and time-of-day
parameters of the testing
provide additional insights
on the validity of the data.
Vulnerability
assessment
Prolonged utility-loss
impacts: The likelihood
and impact of a prolonged
outage to the safety and
operation should be considered in an assessment.
Standby systems, if available, should be reviewed
as to their ratings and
capabilities to sustain
Figure 2: At a heart centers generator plant, the generators
life safety and businessare slated to be tied to new paralleling generator plant.
critical functions. A utility
Lightning protection: A lightning- outage report should be reviewed for the
protection risk analyses should be per- frequency of their outages.
formed per NFPA 780: Standard for
Component weak links: Critical and
the Installation of Lightning Protection aging electrical components that are key
Systems to evaluate the need for build- to system operation must be analyzed for
ing protection. Older systems should be reliability. Bypass or backup opportunities
reviewed for condition and connectivity should be considered. Critical equipment
conformance with this standard. Protec- may consider N+1 redundancies as a minition of buildings electronic equipment mum. Ratings of older equipment should
and associated insurance carrier require- be reviewed as to their adequacy given
ments and rates also should be integral to system adjustments or renovations over
the evaluation.
the years of operation and facility updates.
38
Physical locations: Critical electrical

equipment should not be located where
susceptible to floods, moisture, other
natural disasters, or impediments caused
by normal operations. Backup systems
equipment should not be co-located so an
incident could potentially take out both.
Power quality: Power sources, distribution systems, and loads should be
analyzed as to voltage drop, voltage regulation, surges, spikes, brownouts, and
harmonics. Utility-voltage regulation
and the need for service tap changers or
power conditioning should be reviewed.
Sensitive electronic equipment should
be reviewed for power quality needs
including uninterruptible power supply
(UPS) systems abilities to ride through
or provide proper power conditioning.
Harmonic impacts from nonlinear loads
may require harmonic mitigation or more
robust distribution systems to accommodate their inherent system heating effects.
Elevator regeneration into the electrical distribution system also may cause
power-quality issues.
Growth assessment
Capacity: The ability of the electrical

systems to handle the existing or potential
increased load, perhaps for building expansion, should be reviewed. Normal power,
generator backup, and UPS systems should
be studied. Generator systems should be
evaluated for block-load capacity and
under loading conditions that cause diesel generator wet stack, which can reduce
generator performance and life.
Ratings: Existing electrical equipment
backfed from new higher-capacity sources
may require additional costs for installation of current-limiting protective devices,
higher-impedance transformers, or highresistance grounding systems to minimize
energy let-through due to the older equipments lower fault-current ratings.
Equipment expansion capability:
Though the ratings of the existing equipment are capable of handling additional
loading, physical limitations may prevent
the systems ability to service new loads.
Physical distribution: Voltage-drop
limitations may impede system expansion
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and require the additional cost of highervoltage distribution equipment.
Code compliance: Older electrical
systems were installed under less stringent code requirements. Touching these
systems for growth or renovation may
require updating to meet the current
authority having jurisdictions (AHJ)
code requirements, such as generator
distribution branch separations, protective device coordination updates,
clearances around electrical equipment,
disconnects, etc.
Energy assessment
Efficiency: High-efficiency LED lighting, motors, and transformers should be

evaluated on a cost-benefit basis for replacement. Similar analyses should be performed
for the installation of power factor correction capacitors on older systems to reduce
operation and utility cost.
Controls: The best way to save
energy is to turn electrical equipment off.
Evaluation of lighting, generator, and

HVAC systems controls to reduce energy
usage should be considered. New energy
guidelines and codes also focus on receptacle and phantom loads that are left on
when not required (e.g., computers, copiers, water coolers, etc.).
Fuel sources: Generator systems
fuel sources should be evaluated to
minimize energy costs. Capital-cost
replacement of generators may be overcome by reduced long-term fuel costs.
Electrical power management (digital
monitoring and control) systems may
be used to minimize operating costs by
switching to the lowest-cost alternative automatically. Optimizing mixes
of demand-response and onsite supply
or renewable generation in response to
electric-utility company contract/rate
obligations can be achieved while minimizing fuel costs and providing proactive measurement and verification of
system efficiencies.
Ease of operation and maintenance
An assessment and subsequent repairs

of electrical distribution equipment should
assure a reliable infrastructure that is less
costly to maintain, easier to operate, and
offers enhanced safety to personnel. A
well-structured power-monitoring system provides real-time values, trending,
diagnostic, and alarms to proactively manage the system. Barcoding systems labeling also have become useful by providing
quick field access to associated equipment
maintenance and operating data.
As systems age, equipment becomes
obsolete, workarounds and multiple manufacturers come into play, maintenance
data and rating nameplates are lost, electrical drawings are lost or not updated,
equipment IDs become inconsistent
or missing, and design intent becomes
unknown. Reliability determination,
available capacities, planning for phased
updates, and safety conditions, therefore, become hard to analyze. Electrician
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interviews, testing, and detailed surveys
may need to be performed to ensure
existing conditions are known, documented, and properly evaluated.
How to analyze and prioritize
Building facility groups struggle to

prioritize their maintenance and upgrade
budgets. They are constantly challenged
to minimize expenditures and equipment
downtime while maximizing human
safety and system reliability. Once the
conditions of the distribution system are
documented, the prioritization and phasing of potential corrective measures must
be systematically evaluated, categorized,
and sequenced, and the costs estimated
in conjunction with the overall facility
goals. The electrical systems should be
categorized for each facility building or
area as follows:
Service equipment
Medium-voltage distribution
Low-voltage distribution
Electromechanical and Solid State Relays,

Current-, Voltage- and 3-Phase Monitors, Branch
Circuit and Supplementary Protectors, Denite
Purpose Contactors and Energy Meters
Generator power and distribution

Diagnostics, metering, and
monitoring
Branch wiring and wiring devices
Grounding, bonding, and lightning
protection.
Each system should be scored with a
good, satisfactory, or marginal rating (or
numerically weighed) in each of the following system issues to come up with an
overall rating:
Code/safety/security
Remaining life
Capacity
Reliability/redundancy
Flexibility
Physical distribution
Energy efficiency
Ease of operation
Maintainability
Expansion capability.
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This approach will provide areas of

focus for systems in need for each designated building area as well as provide a
snapshot of potential risks. The risks will
vary for each facility situation; however,
they can generally be prioritized by:
Life safety/code compliance: Assessing the replacement of electrical systems
must start with the identification of life
safety and code-compliance issues, with
associated potential failure points that
affect risk and facility operation as first
priority. Compliance with local code, as
indicated by the AHJ, is required.
L itigation exposure: Electrical
upgrades must take into account legal
and business consequences that may
far outweigh the financial cost of the
upgrades, themselves. Any cost-benefit
prioritization must start here.
Facility-operation vulnerability/
occurrence likelihood: The desired electrical systems reliability and flexibility to
cost-effectively react and adapt may have
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been unknowingly sacrificed due to the

day-to-day changes associated with the
operational needs of the facility. Reliability and probability calculations may be
required for critical equipment subjected
to high operational stress along with an
evaluation of the facilitys preparedness
in dealing with unscheduled events.
Life expectancy need: Defining the
life expectancy of electrical equipment
will indicate how ongoing facility maintenance, growth, and master planning will
affect the associated electrical systems life
extension or replacement needs.
Potential updates should be outlined
to a level so they can be cost-estimated to
obtain a realistic budgetary number for
each need to weigh its associated update
cost-benefit and priority. Use of in-house
resources versus construction contractors should be included in the evaluation. There is no straight-line approach
in the assessment of electrical systems,
as each facilitys conditions resources
and priorities are different; therefore,

the facilities administration, engineering, and maintenance staff should be
included in the ranking process and
evaluation. Their input on concepts,
design, installation, commissioning,
operation, and maintenance of facility
systems allows for good documentation
and maintenance with sound assessment
and investment approaches.
Insightful planning, management,
and maintenance will create a strategic
road map for safe and reliable electrical system management. Achieving
a proper assessment must start with
a clear understanding of the existing
system and potential facility enhancements. Only then can identification of
risks, key weaknesses and limitations,
what financing is available, and what
balance can be achieved can be weighed
in a cost-benefit financial approach to
prioritization and scheduling of required
improvements.
The replacement of electrical systems has become a study of economics and risk. Factors such as age, safety,
reliability, efficiency, and energy costs
must be weighed in conjunction with
replacement costs and liability risk to
formulate and prioritize upgrade plans.
A comprehensive cost-benefit analysis
study for each electrical subsystem will
allow facilities to plan short- and longterm expenditures for maintenance and
upgrade programs for prudent facility reinvestments, replacements, and
growth. This is essential for all corporate
facilities and institutions in their financial and business planning.
Theodore Fowler is an electrical engineering principal at CannonDesign. He
leads the firm-wide engineering practice strategies team, which guides how
CannonDesign works collaboratively to
provide integrated, high-quality solutions
to meet design challenges.
Understanding
the fan-efficiency rules
Fan efficiency is critical in HVAC and process air systems. The new
proposed Department of Energy standard will drive changes in how
engineers design air systems to minimize fan energy.
BY WADE W. SMITH, PE, Wade W. Smith Consulting LLC, Chetek, Wis.
Learning
objectives
Summarize the consensus
recommendation that will
guide the Department of
Energy fan-efficiency rule.
Explain the proposed efficiency metrics of fan electrical power (FEP) and the fan
energy index (FEI).
Discuss how FEI is deterministically linked to projected energy savings, and how it
can be used in specifications,
codes, standards, and utility
programs.
44
ans consume about 18% of electricity purchased in commercial

and industrial buildings. Most
commercial fans also consume
their initial cost in energy
expense in less than 1 year. While fan
efficiency varies with aerodynamic shape,
under-sizing fans to reduce first cost has
a stronger negative influence on fan efficiency. That is why the U.S. Department
of Energy (DOE) is considering a novel
approach, which would reward rightsizing fans in addition to improved aerodynamic design.
Consulting-Specifying Engineer published the first part in this series in June
(see page 80), which explained the peakbased metrics called fan-efficiency grade
and fan motor efficiency grade (FEG and
FMEG). These are documented in ISO
12759 and the Air Movement and Control Association International (AMCA)
standard 205, but were not chosen by
fan manufacturers in their consensus
recommendation to the DOE. Under
the terms sheet resulting from a public
DOE-sponsored Appliance Standards
Rulemaking Federal Advisory Committee (ASRAC) negotiation, the DOE is
expected to adopt a new fan-efficiency
metric called a fan energy index, or
FEI. FEI is the ratio of the maximum
power allowed by the DOE standard to
the actual power of the fan selection at
every (any) combination of airflow and

pressure rise, rather than at a defined test
point or points (such as peak efficiency
used by FEG and FMEG or some other
defined flow and pressure).
The FEI metric, which applies to fans
alone and fan/motor or fan/motor/drive
combinations, effectively extends the
conventional DOE regulatory approach
beyond the fan design to address motor,
transmission, variable speed drive, and
fan selection. This new approach will
be transformational to model codes and
standards for energy efficiency including ASHRAE Standard 90.1: Energy
Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise
Residential Buildings, ASHRAE Standard
189.1: Standard for the Design of HighPerformance Green Buildings, and the
International Energy Conservation Code.
Status and timing of the DOE rule
DOE announced its intention to regulate commercial and industrial fan efficiency on June 30, 2011. Since then, the
AMCA worked to develop a consensus
that was acceptable to fan manufacturers
and efficiency advocates, which include
the National Resource Defense Council, American Council for an EnergyEfficient Economy, Appliance Standards
Awareness Project, Northeast Energy
Efficiency Association, Southern California utilities, and others. For efficiency
www.csemag.com
Figure 1: Distributed electricity represents only retail electricity sales and does not include self-generation. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports consumption of renewable resources (i.e., hydro, wind, geothermal, and solar) for electricity in
Btu-equivalent values by assuming a typical fossil fuel plant heat rate. The efficiency of electricity production is calculated as
the total retail electricity delivered divided by the primary energy input into electricity generation. End-use efficiency is estimated
as 65% for the residential and commercial sectors, 80% for the industrial sector, and 21% for the transportation sector. Totals
may not equal the sum of components due to independent rounding. Courtesy: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the
Department of Energy
advocates, the objective was to save as

much energy as possible. For fan manufacturers, the strategic intent became:
Drive the market to more
efficient fans
Minimize the negative financial
impact on small-business manufacturers and customers
Facilitate prescriptive efficiency
rebates that are effective and easy
to administer
Save as much energy as possible.
Ten AMCA members, seven HVAC
manufacturers (members and staff of the
Air-Conditioning, Heating & Refrigeration Institute), four efficiency advocates,
and representatives from the National
Environmental Balancing Bureau, Coolwww.csemag.com
ing Technology Institute, National Electrical Manufacturers Association, and

DOE participated in 19 days of meetings between May and September 2015.
The final consensus vote showed support
for a comprehensive terms sheet from
all except two participants. We expect
that the consensus terms sheet will guide
DOEs draft of fan-efficiency regulation,
to be published very soon.
The final rule will become mandatory 5 years after the final version is
published However, DOE will invite
manufacturers to use the DOE metric
and test standard sooner and will accept
certifications early (probably in 2017), so
the engineers and utility rebate programs
may begin to specify DOE-certified efficiency levels 3 to 4 years early.
Calculating compliance
All fans offered for sale at operating

conditions that require 1 to nominally
200 brake horsepower will be covered

by the rule unless they are on an exclusion list. The terms sheet recommends
a long list of exclusions, either because
fan energy is already part of another
DOE regulation, the fan application
requires a design that compromises
efficiency, or because the fan type is so
rarely used that its aggregate energy use
is trivial.
The D OE st andard wil l est ablish a maximum input power (called
FEPstd, or fan electrical-input power)
that varies with flow and pressure at
the fan design point. That means that
the regulation applies to an infinite set
of conditions that define the particular
design/selection points (airflows and
pressure rises) offered for sale. The
maximum fan shaft power allowed by
DOE at the design point will be calculated in accordance with the following
equation:
45
Fan-efficiency rules
FEPSTD,i = (Qi+Q0)(Pi+P0) + motor and drive losses
6346 * target
FEPSTD,i = maximum fan electrical power
at operating point i
Qi = flow (cfm) at operating point i
Pi = pressure differential at operating point i (total pressure
for fans that are normally ducted, and static pressure
for fans that free discharge)
Qo = flow constant of 250 cfm
Po = pressure constant of 0.4 in. of pressure
target = target efficiency levels to be set by DOE.
No other DOE regulation is applied

at all conceivable operating conditions.
Other rules choose representative test
conditions, which provide a fair indicator of a products relative efficiency during operation.
Unfortunately, a fans efficiency does
not behave like the efficiency of other
products. Every fan can be both very
efficient and very inefficient, depending on what flow and pressure at which
it operates. This renders the traditional
regulatory approach ineffective. That is
why the DOE regulatory standard must
be applied to any and all operating conditions. Certification of fan performance
also must be done at any and all operating conditions offered for sale in the
regulated range.
For those outside the fan industry, this
may seem like an unreasonable regulatory burden, but not so for those who
make, rate, and sell fans. Fans are ruled
by well-ordered laws of physics, collectively called the fan laws, which enable
one to run a 20-minute fan lab test at
one speed and accurately rate that fan
and other larger fans at untested speeds.
So, the peculiar nature of fan efficiency (which can be nearly anything,
depending on conditions) comes with
the blessing of fan laws that provide a
means to deal with the challenge. Regulating to raise actual fan operating efficiency would not be practical without
these laws.
46
Fan energy index
While DOE will judge compliance

strictly based on FEP (fan electrical
power; electrical power supplied to the
fan assembly), the DOE test standard
will describe FEI as the ratio of the
FEP standard (maximum power input
allowed, as described above) over the
FEP (actual power input) of the fan at its
design point. This ratio is 1.0 or greater
for all compliant fan selections. AMCA
expects that FEI ratings will become the
most common description of fan efficiency in the marketplace, because FEI
uses this FEP standard as defined in the
first DOE rule as the benchmark against
which fan efficiency will be compared
Target efficiency
Efficiency advocates and AMCA

jointly recommended that DOE establish target efficiencies such that the
Basic fan curve

Maximum rpm
Peak efficiency
FER 1.1
Unstable region
Static pressure
Unprecedented, but not a precedent
forever. We expect that the DOE regulation will require that FEI ratings must
tie to FEP levels that are certified by the
manufacturer to DOE.
Details of the FEI metric are documented in an AMCA white paper, downloadable from its website. DOEs nomenclature is slightly different than in the
white paperDOE refers to FEI, which
includes motor and drive losses, while
the AMCA paper refers to fan-efficiency
ratio (FER), which considers the fan only.
A fan with variable speed must still
comply with the design-point FEP
requirements. In other words, the DOE
will regulate based on FEP at the design
point only (full speed), but may authorize
the use of an inflated FEI in marketing
materials and product labels that benefit
from variable-speed control.
FEI requirements also will appear in
engineer specifications, rebate programs,
in stretch codes, and in ASHRAE standards before the DOE rule goes into
effect. Rebate programs are likely to
require DOE certification of FEP and
compliance with the DOE test standard
requirements.
FER 1.2
Compliant range
FER 1.0
Air flow
Noncompliant
range
Figure 2: An illustration of a fans compliant operating range shows peak fan

efficiency. Courtesy: Wade Smith Consulting LLC
www.csemag.com
While low-pressure fans use less power as they

increase in diameter, it is impractical to drive
low-pressure fans to become too large.
weighted average noncompliance rate of
fan selections sold in 2012 is no greater
than 25%, and the noncompliance rate
of selections in the following categories
does not exceed the values listed below:
Belt-drive centrifugal-powered roof
ventilators: 35% of selections
Belt-drive axial-powered roof
ventilators: 50% of selections
Belt-drive in-line centrifugal and
mixed-flow fans: 40% of selections
Belt-drive forward-curved fans:
45% of selections.
AMCA provided the Lawrence Berkeley National Labwhich analyzed data
for the DOEwith a database of 1.3
million fan selections that were sold in
2012. This represented 46% of the United
States market in the regulated range. This
database enabled analysis of a statistically significant confidential sample of
the market.
AMCA also used this database to estimate what target efficiency levels match
with the 25% average noncompliance rate
and determine the higher limits on the
least efficient categories described above.
The best forecast is that the target static
efficiency for non-ducted fans will be
62% at the fan shaft, and the target total
efficiency for ducted fans will be 68% at
the fan shaft.
Note that the flow and pressure constants in the FEP formula (250 cfm and
0.4-in. pressure differential, respectively)
effectively raise the power input allowed
at lower flows and pressures. The flow
constant produces a result that is similar to the FEG curves, recognizing that
very small fans (and low flows) are less
efficient due to the physics of airflow.
FEGs are detailed in AMCA 205 and ISO
12749. The pressure constant increases
the allowable power at lower pressure

levels, recognizing the practical limitation of zero efficiency at zero differential pressure. While low-pressure fans use
less power as they increase in diameter, it
is impractical to drive low-pressure fans
to become too large. The pressure constant solves this issue.
Here is another way to think of this:
A fan running at 0.2-in. of static pressure will be fan-power limited at a level
that is three times greater than the target
efficiency would indicate. (Note that 0.2
plus a pressure constant of 0.4 equals 0.6,
which is three times greater than 0.2.) In
other words, if the target efficiency in the
DOE formula were 63%, the operating
efficiency requirement for this selection at 0.2-in. would be only 21%. This
may seem like an unreasonable gift for
smaller fans and lower pressures, but
higher losses at low flows, low pressures,
and in small fans are inescapable. The
pressure and flow constants in the FEP
formula correctly represent the actual
map of efficiency degradation exhibited
by the most efficient aerodynamic fans
available as flows and pressures decline.
Curing a noncompliant selection can
be done with either a larger fan or a more
aerodynamic design. Both a larger fan
and a better aerodynamic shape have
cost and strategic implications to fan
manufacturers and their customers.
The good news is that compliant fans
are available in production today. This
means the marketplace will determine
what fan competitors do to boost efficiency while DOE will dictate the maximum power allowed, driving engineer
specifications to demand higher efficiency either with a larger fan or a more
aerodynamic shape.
Wade W. Smith led the DOEs rulemaking
negotiations for the fan industry. He now
consults on related questions with HVAC
manufacturers and component suppliers.
$POTVMUJOH4QFDJGZJOH&OHJOFFSt/07&.#&3
47
2016 SALARY SURVEY
How does your
salary stack up?

Consulting engineers share information about compensation,
accreditation, age, retirement goals, and business
development via a national
salary survey.
BY AMARA ROZGUS and
AMANDA PELLICCIONE,
Consulting-Specifying Engineer,
Oak Brook, Ill.
48
www.csemag.com
he second annual ConsultingSpecifying Engineer salary survey of mechanical, electrical,

plumbing (MEP), fire protection, and lighting engineers
shows that the average base annual salary in 2015 was $99,283 and the average
non-salary compensation was $14,378.
Non-salary compensation was up 13%
over 2014 numbers. These numbers are
based on the anonymous responses of
374 people from a variety of engineering
disciplines and at different levels in their
professional career.
Of these respondents, 93% are male. The
largest age groups responding include 50 to
54 years old (13%), 55 to 59 years old (13%),
and 60 to 64 years old (19%).
Younger staff, defined by the U.S. Department of Labor as 40 or younger, equate to
20% of survey respondents. On the flip side,
45% of respondents are 50 to 64 years old,
which should be a concern for several engineering firms as these seasoned engineers
move out of the workforce and retire. See
Figure 1 for the comparison of age groups
between this year and last year.
The good news is that the economy continues to grow, and total compensation has
grown for all respondents. As shown in Figure 2, compensation increased 1% to 4% for
52% of respondents, 5% to 9% for 21% of
respondents, and 27% or more for 13% of
respondents.
Respondents with professional accreditations earn the most. For instance, certified
energy managers (CEM) earned $160,278
in total compensation (salary and non-salary) in 2015. Next on the list are commissioning experts (CxA or CxP) at $138,019,
Current age
29%
29%
26%
2015
2014
22%
18%
16%
13%
14%
9% 9%
6% 6%
Younger than
30 years old
30 to 39
years old
40 to 49
years old
50 to 59
years old
60 to 69
years old
70 years
old or older
Figure 1: While the year-over-year comparison didnt shift much, the age of consulting engineers continues to skew older, with those 50 and older making up the bulk of
the workforce. All graphics courtesy: Consulting-Specifying Engineer
Total compensation change, increased

58%
52%
2014 versus 2015

2013 versus 2014
27%
19%
Increased
10% or more
21%
23%
Increased
5% to 9%
Increased
1% to 4%
Figure 2: In 2015, compensation increased for all respondents, though most of it was
in the 1% to 4% range.
Salary by system specified

Engineering system
primarily specified
Average base
annual salary
Average non-salary
compensation
TOTAL
Mechanical
(including HVAC, plumbing)
$100,279
$18,035
$118,314
Electrical/power
$98,855
$9,963
$108,818
Fire protection/life safety
$89,021
$17,028
$106,049
Lighting
$64,636
$4,556
$69,192
www.csemag.com
49
2016 SALARY SURVEY

Electrical/power compensation
Job title
Average base
annual salary
Average non-salary
compensation
TOTAL
General manager
$168,875
$28,188
$197,063
Vice president
$161,667
$26,667
$188,333
Owner
$116,818
$36,682
$153,500
Business development
$105,500
$37,500
$143,000
CEO
$120,000
$20,000
$140,000
Director
$131,024
$7,512
$138,536
Fire protection/life safety compensation

Job title
Average base
annual salary
Average non-salary
compensation
TOTAL
CEO
$100,000
$102,000
$202,000
Plumbing engineer
$110,000
$45,000
$155,000
Project/group leader
$136,000
$15,306
$151,306
Other
$135,990
$2,000
$137,990
Senior engineer
$124,500
$3,500
$128,000
President
$70,000
$30,000
$100,000
Lighting design compensation

Job title
Average base
annual salary
Average non-salary
compensation
TOTAL
Other management title
$100,000
$25,000
$125,000
Senior engineer
$99,500
$3,000
$102,500
Owner
$72,000
$0
$72,000
Design engineer
$53,727
$2,000
$55,727
Consulting engineer
$32,500
$1,500
$34,000
General manager
$20,000
$5,000
$25,000
Mechanical (including HVAC, plumbing) compensation
50
Job title
Average base
annual salary
Average non-salary
compensation
TOTAL
CEO
$200,000
$180,000
$380,000
Vice president
$153,500
$65,500
$219,000
President
$148,750
$41,250
$190,000
Owner
$145,667
$40,557
$186,223
Chief engineer
$130,667
$18,333
$149,000
Project/group leader
$122,933
$14,356
$137,289
www.csemag.com
When looking at what

people specified, those
who primarily specify
mechanical systems
had the highest salaries
in 2015, with total
compensation coming
to $118,314.
followed by fellows in professional organizations, such as ASHRAE and the Society
of Fire Protection Engineers. The highest
non-salary compensation in 2015 went to
CEMs, earning these experts an additional
$29,378 on top of their base salary.
The annual survey also records information about the sizebased on total revenueof the firms at which respondents
work. Firms with total gross revenue of
$10 million to $20 million pay the most,
with salary and non-salary compensation
equaling $148,096 for individual employees. Next are the slightly smaller firms ($5
million to $10 million), with total compensation at $128,647.
When looking at what people specified,
those who primarily specify mechanical systems had the highest salaries in
2015, with total compensation coming to
$118,314. The other core systems specified
include electrical/power systems (earning
$108,818), fire/life safety ($106,049), and
lighting ($69,192). See the compensation
tables for a more detailed breakdown.
Job satisfaction
According to the survey, the roller

coaster economy has caused 52% of engineers to shift jobs over the past 10 years.
A little more than one-third (36%) of
respondents have been working at their
company less than 5 years, with 16% at the
same company 5 to 9 years. Slightly unsettling is the fact that 37% of respondents
plan to work fewer than 10 years before
they retire. See Figure 3 for the number
of years respondents have worked in their
respective industries.
Of those who have shifted jobs in
www.csemag.com
Industry experience in years

Less than 10
40 or more
10 to 19
14%
22%
16%
28%
20%
30 to 39
20 to 29
Figure 3: Succession planningif it hasnt already been discussed at your firm

should be top of mind, as the survey results indicate that those with several years of
industry experience are likely to move on to other companies or leave the workforce
altogether.
the past 10 years, their reasons include

to obtain increased wages, additional
accreditations and training to keep up
with the industry, and additional professional development or business skills. The
most popular professional development
resources used are conferences/seminars
(68%), online webcasts/webinars (66%),
and professional organizations (57%), all
a slight increase over last year.
In an increase over last year, 51% of
respondents have a mentoring program
at their firm; 39% have an official training program in place at their company,
which is a slight decrease. A full 7 in 10
respondents personally mentor a junior
staff member at their firm.
Also, job satisfaction among respondents remains extremely high. Thirty-nine
percent are very satisfied and 53% are satisfied, for a total of 92% happy workers
(that number was 88% in the last survey).
Some of this workplace satisfaction may
be directly related to the fact that their
company is doing a good job overall keeping up with technology and the economy.
One-third (33%) of respondents feel their
company is ahead of the competition, and
36% feel their firm is just pulling ahead.
Business development
The task of developing new business

is spread across the board. According to
respondents, its a mixed bag: Principals
carry the bulk of the weight (47%), the
CEO/president falls next in line (46%),
and a dedicated business development
manager also focuses on new business
(41%).
The task of developing new clients
and projects also is a source of discomfort in the workplace. Several respondents expressed concern about a lack of
business acumen, marketing, and project management skills. That said, 69%
of respondents work come from their
firms repeat clients.
Survey methodology
A 54-question survey was e-mailed

to Consulting-Specifying Engineer audience members, and information was
collected Aug. 5 to 22, 2016. A total of
374 qualified responses were returned,
with a margin of error of +/-5.1% at a
95% confidence level. Participants frequently had the option to select more
than one response, thus totals do not
always equal 100%.
51
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DE-1 Specifying
drop-out
ceilings beneath fire
sprinklers
Fire protection engineers can specify
ceilings beneath fire sprinklers,
as identified in NFPA 13.
BY ED DAVIS, CEILUME, GRATON, CALIF.; AND
MICHAEL CHUSID, RA FCSI, ENCINO, CALIF.
Visit www.csemag.com/research for a

variety of research studies, including:
research
Electrical and power systems

Fire and life safety
HVAC, BAS
2016 MEP Giants
Salary survey.
www.csemag.com
53
Specifying drop-out ceilings

beneath fire sprinklers
Fire protection engineers can specify ceilings beneath fire sprinklers,
as identified in NFPA 13.
BY ED DAVIS, Ceilume, Graton, Calif.; and MICHAEL CHUSID, RA FCSI, Encino, Calif.
Learning
objectives
Identify the various ways in
which fire sprinklers can be
suspended below a ceiling.
Learn about NFPA 13, the
standard that identifies fire
sprinkler installation.
Review the benefits, costs,
and other issues associated
with drop-out ceilings and
fire sprinklers.
he very idea of suspending

ceilings beneath automatic
fire sprinklers sounds topsyturvy. Sprinklers, the mind
insists, must project into the
space they protect so they can release
their deluge without interferenceeven
if it means cutting holes in ceiling panels
and dropping pipes so sprinklers extend
to the underside of the ceiling.
Yet at the same time, many designers
yearn to unshackle sprinklers from ceilings. Surely, they intuit, there must be
a way to:
Simplify coordination of sprinkler
and ceiling location
Reduce sprinkler and ceiling installation costs
Satisfy architectural concerns about
the visual impact of sprinklers
Get sprinklers out of occupied
spaces where they can be damaged
or difficult to clean.
One can, of course, simplify sprinkler
and ceiling coordination by eliminating
suspended ceilings and leaving the structure exposed. Ironically, this approach
may not be the most economical if it
adds the cost of painting overhead surfaces, exercising more care in locating the
ducts, pipes, conduit, and other exposed-
DE1
to-view services, and installing soundabsorbing materials to satisfy acoustical

criteria. Plus, exposed services provide
surfaces that collect dust and grime and
may not be permitted in occupancies
requiring hygienic conditions.
Another approach is to install sprinklers above a ceiling system with 70%
minimum open area as permitted by
NFPA 13: Standard for the Installation
of Sprinkler Systems, 2016 edition, Paragraph 8.15.14. This still leaves the structure and services significantly exposed
and presents many of the same drawbacks
as having no ceiling. If the ceiling consists
of egg crate, louver, or honeycomb panels, the ceiling can restrict the sideways
travel of the sprinkler discharge. Lighting efficiency also is decreased because
at least 70% of any light impinging on the
ceiling from below is lost into the cavity
above, and at least 30% of lumens from
above-ceiling lamps are blocked if using
a luminous ceiling scheme.
This article explores a third approach
drop-out ceilings. NFPA 13, Paragraph
3.3.9, defines a drop-out ceiling as:
A suspended ceiling system, which is
installed below the sprinklers, with
listed translucent or opaque panels
that are heat-sensitive and fall from
their setting when exposed to heat.
Drop-out ceiling systems have been in
use since the development in the mid20th century of modern suspended ceiling systems and suitable plastics. Most
www.csemag.com
Figure 1: This food kiosk, in the atrium of a shopping mall,

required a roof to protect food handling areas against contaminants thrown from the upper level. An ordinary roof
would block water from sprinklers located at the mall ceiling
level. The solution was to use drop-out panels over the kiosk.
Made from translucent thermoformed material, the roof panels also allowed daylight from the malls skylight to brighten
the retail space. All graphics courtesy: Ceilume
drop-out ceilings are made from either

expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam or
are thermoformed ceiling (TFC) panels.
The thermal insulation properties of EPS
make it useful in cold-storage facilities
where they enable wet pipe fire sprinkler
systems to be installed above rooms with
freezing temperatures. EPS ceilings have
many limitations, however, that have discouraged specifiers from considering
drop-out ceilings in the past.
TFCs overcome these limitations,
justifying a re-examination of drop-out
ceilings. They are made from thermoformed vinyl just 0.013- or 0.030-in.
thick. When exposed to sufficient heat,
the vinyl panels soften, sag, and fall
out of a standard metal ceiling grid.
This exposes above-ceiling sprinklers
to rising heat and allows sprinklers to
www.csemag.com
activate without
interference. The
panels harden
when they reach
the relatively cooler floor and do not
add meaningfully to the fuel load.
Cost and construction
Installing drop-out panels beneath

sprinklers can be significantly less expensive than using mineral fiber panels with
penetrating sprinklers. For example,
drop-out ceilings eliminate the need to
extend pipes from sprinkler mains to
ceiling elevation. It becomes unnecessary
to position sprinklers at panel centers;
this means the layout of sprinklers can be
optimized, shop drawings to coordinate
sprinklers and ceiling installation can be
eliminated, and less piping is required.
Economical sprinklers styles can be used
and decorative finishes, trim rings, and
escutcheons can be eliminated. Ceiling installers do not have to cut holes
Figure 2: The drywall soffits required

sprinklers both above and below the soffit. If a drop-out ceiling had been used,
the sprinklers beneath the soffit could
have been eliminated.
DE2
Drop-out ceilings beneath fire sprinklers

for sprinklers. And sprinkler installers
do not have to return to the project to
adjust sprinkler locations after ceiling
installation.
The affordability of any installation
depends on the project conditions, products, and performance levels required.
Thermoplastic panels, for example, are
more affordable than high-performance
and decorative mineral fiber panels and
competitively priced with ordinary mineral fiber products.
While labor to install panels is similar
regardless of material, cutting individual
thermoformed panels for perimeter units
may cost slightly more than scoring and
breaking square-edged mineral fiber tiles
and about the same as trimming tegular
panels. However, waste will be reduced
because thermoformed panels do not
break easily during handling, as is common with mineral fiber panels. Thermoformed panels also nest compactly and
several panels can be cut simultaneously
with aviation snips.
As an example, an independent construction consultant prepared a detailed
construction cost estimate comparing
thermoformed and mineral-fiber ceiling
panels for a 110,000-sq-ft office building in Oklahoma City. He investigated
two scenarios and found that the drop-
ceiling approach generated savings ranging from 72 cents to $3.29/sq ft, depending on the product selection. The estimate is based on open-shop wages, and
savings are likely to be even greater in
areas with prevailing wage rates.
Other benefits
Other factors also impact the practicality of thermoformed drop-out ceilings.

For example, simplifying ceiling and
sprinkler coordination can save valuable time when scrambling to complete
a ceiling before the project completion
deadline. More, thermoformed panels
are not affected by moisture and can be
installed before a buildings humidity has
stabilized.
Thermoformed panels are washable
and easily cleaned and will not require
replacement due to sagging or mold
caused by moisture or humidity. They
are highly resistant to staining and can
simply be wiped clean if roof or plumbing
leaks occur or the sprinklers discharge.
Thermoformed panels reduce shipping
and storage costs because they are lightweight, thin, and nest for compact packaging. Light weight also makes panels
easier to handle, increases productivity,
and reduces lifting-related injuries. Handling is also simplified because thermo-
plastic panel installation does not require

the ventilation, dust respirators, and skin
protection required when working with
mineral fiber.
Unlike mineral fiber, thermoplastic
panels are robust and not easily damaged. Edges and corners, for example,
resist breakage during installation and
when panels are removed for aboveceiling access.
Installing sprinklers above a ceiling
also provides protection against accidental impact or tampering that could
discharge sprinklers and cause water
damage. It also reduces the potential that
drywall compound or paint will get on
sprinklers and require callbacks.
Building hygiene standards
Sprinklers and sprinkler piping have

surfaces upon which dirt and grime can
accumulate, creating conditions that may
not be acceptable in spaces with critical
hygiene requirements. Drop-out ceilings
solve this problem by banishing sprinkler
components from occupied spaces.
Exposed light fixtures also can be dust
collectors. Fortunately, drop-out ceilings
can be made from translucent, frosted,
and clear thermoplastics that allow light
fixtures to be exiled as well. Translucent
panels have long been used for luminous
Safety, code issues of drop-out ceilings
rop-out ceilings should have an evaluation report from an independent listing agencysuch as the International Association of
Plumbing and Mechanical Officials Uniform Evaluation Service
(IAPMO-UES), FM Global, UL, or CertMark Internationalthat is acceptable to the authority
having jurisdiction (AHJ). Because some individuals are unfamiliar with drop-out ceilings,
designers should discuss their use with the AHJ
while the project is still in design.
Thermoformed ceiling panels should be
Class A-rated (flame spread <25 and smoke
developed <450) according to ASTM E84: Standard Test Method for
Surface Burning Characteristics of Building Materials, and V0-Rated
(self-extinguishing) when tested according to UL 94: Flame Rating. The
ceiling assembly should be tested according to Uniform Building Code
(UBC) Standard 26-3 Room Fire Test Standard for Interior of Foam Plastic
Systems as modified according to appropriate acceptance criteria.
Approved drop-out panels are currently available that have been evaluated
for use in areas classified under NFPA 13: Standard for the Installation of
Sprinkler Systems as light hazard and ordinary hazard, Group 1. These are
occupancies in which combustibility or quantity of
contents is low to moderate and fires with low or
moderate heat release are expected.
All drop-out panels currently available have been
evaluated for use with standard-response (SR) sprinklers. One drop-out panel has been recently listed for
use with quick-response (QR) sprinklers (see IAPMO
Evaluation Report No. 0310). This is a significant
development, as QR sprinklers are required in light-hazard occupancies
Evaluation reports specify allowable sprinkler heights above the ceiling
panels and require identification of the report on product packaging. For
example, a 0.013-in.-thick vinyl drop-out panel used with QR sprinklers rated
at 155F or higher requires sprinklers be installed 1 in. or less from the top
of the ceiling grid. And SR sprinklers rated 165F or higher can be installed
Designers should discuss

their use with the AHJ
while the project is still
in design.
DE3
www.csemag.com
ceilings to create a diffused overhead

light. The frosted and clear versions are
recent innovations that transmit light
more efficiently, allow special lighting
effects, and simplify visual inspection of
above-ceiling equipment.
In food processing and preparation
areas, for example, the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) Food Code
states, ceiling surfaces under conditions of normal use shall be smooth,
durable, and easily cleanable for areas
where food establishment operations
are conducted and nonabsorbent for
areas subject to moisture, such as foodpreparation areas, walk-in refrigerators,
warewashing areas, toilet rooms, mobile
food establishment servicing areas, and
areas subject to flushing or spray-cleaning methods. There are several ceiling
systems that can satisfy the above criteria.
However, FDA also mandates, Utility
service lines and pipes may not be unnecessarily exposed, and Exposed utility
service lines and pipes shall be installed
so they do not obstruct or prevent cleaning of the ... ceilings. The U.S. Department of Agricultures Title 21Food and
Drugs adds that food-processing facilities
shall, be constructed in such a manner
that ... ceilings may be adequately cleaned
and kept clean and kept in good repair;
Figure 3: While not required by NFPA standards, installation of a placard with information for firefighters, code authorities, and facility managers is recommended. The
placard should be located near fire system valves or a conspicuous location.
that drip or condensate from fixtures,

ducts, and pipes does not contaminate
food, food-contact surfaces, or foodpackaging materials and requires ...
safety-type light bulbs, fixtures, skylights,
or other glass suspended over exposed
food in any step of preparation or other-
wise protect against food contamination

in case of glass breakage.
In the pharmaceutical industry, USP
(797) Pharmaceutical Compounding
Sterile Preparations states, bluntly, that
classified and segregated compounding
areas, must not contain dust-collecting
from 1 to 60 in. above the ceiling panels. Sprinklers must be installed in

compliance with all of the NFPA 13 or NFPA 13R requirements.
Drop-out panels do not provide the concealment required with softsoldered copper pipe or combustible plastic pipe.
Depending on a products approval listing:

To avoid possible trip hazards to firefighters, drop-out panels are
prohibited in defined exit corridors, stairways, horizontal exits, pressurized enclosures, and exit passageways. They are not a trip hazard
to room occupants because they drop at an elevated temperature,
by which time occupants should be out of the room. Even if a person
comes into contact with a panel, drop-out panels are very lightweight
and unlikely to injure.
While no drop-out ceiling is approved as part of a fire-resistancerated assembly, drop-out ceilings can be installed below a rated
assembly.
While fibrous acoustical insulation is not permitted between ceiling panels and sprinklers, there is an approved thermoformed backer pan that
improves a ceilings noise-reduction coefficient and thermal insulating
properties. The backer also helps diffuse over-ceiling light sources and
reduces the shadows of detritus that might accumulate on top of panels.
www.csemag.com
The space above drop-out panels should not be used as an air

plenum.
Panels may not be installed with clips that prevent downward movement. Uplift-prevention clips are permitted but not required.
Where it is necessary to extend a sprinkler through a drop-out ceiling,
the hole through the ceiling should be oversized to assure that falling
panels do not get hung up on the sprinkler.
DE4
Drop-out ceilings
stay
informed
Stay current with
Figure 4: Drop-out panels are used in areas requiring high
levels of hygiene, such as this quality control lab. Pipes, sprinklers, light fixtures, and other services are located above the
ceiling to minimize dirt-collecting surfaces. Equally important,
the thermoformed panels do not release fibers or mineral particles as can happen when gypsum board and mineral fiber
ceiling panels are handled.
overhangs, such as utility pipes. In computer server farms,

cold-aisle containment systems incorporate clear drop-out
panels as a roof over aisles, allowing both fire protection and
lighting fixtures to be located outside of the aisles and making
the aisle feel less cramped. Health care, manufacturing, and
other industries have similar requirements for hygienic ceilings
that can be satisfied by using drop-out ceilings.
Too frequently, ceilings and sprinklers are designed as separate entities as if they do not affect each other. An engineer
optimizes the sprinkler system and a designer picks a ceiling
product and layout based on visual, acoustical, and lighting
concerns. Using drop-out ceilings ameliorates the tension
between architect and engineer by providing a nexus between
their two realms.
While the consulting engineer may not specify ceiling panels, the engineer can best serve the client by knowing when to
suggest drop-out ceilings as part of a total approach to ceilingsprinkler interface.
Ed Davis is president of Ceilume, a unit of Empire West Inc.,
and headed the research program that led to an IAPMO-UES
listing for the companys drop-out ceilings. Michael Chusid is an
architect working to develop innovative building products that
improve industry best practices.
DE5
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trends in electrical,
mechanical, lighting,
and fire/life safety.
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55
Future of Engineering
BY ANDREW MALETZ,
WD Partners, Dublin, Ohio
Evaluating the other side of BIM

Complete building information management offers a real-time guide
to strategic decision making and insight into all areas of the business.
BIM is frequently touted as the
this is an important step, it needs to be

preceded by clear alignment and articulation of goals. There are numerous
opportunities for retailers to use BIM
to enhance the store-development
processknowing where to look is the
key. By establishing clear objectives
and expectations that look beyond
construction documents or construction schedules, it is possible to realize
enterprisewide improvements that
carry a meaningful ROI.
Looking beyond BIM
Think building information

management
solution to all the challenges associated with design, construction, and

lifecycle management of a building.
Despite its dramatic growth in acceptance across design and construction
disciplines, however, perceptions
persist that BIM can fail to deliver tangible and objective return on investment (ROI). Yet when implemented
carefully, it can dramatically impact a
retailers bottom line.
The most frequently cited benefits
of BIM have been higher-quality
documents and enhanced coordination. These advantages certainly support improved schedule performance
on large, complex projects that span
months or years. But retail design and
construction occurs in a more compressed timeline, thus presents fewer
opportunities for major schedule
improvements.
For many clients, ROI is achieved
from quickly generating higher unit
sales at a lower capital expense. The
benefit is often derived from considering this impact across the scale of
multi-unit development cycles. Whatever the expectation, the goal should
always be to evaluate and optimize
the overall development process and
not limit the investigation to simply
implementing BIM.
All too often, a pilot project
becomes the mechanism for testing
the benefits of a new process. While
56
Its still BIM, but considering the

process as one of management, rather
than modeling, will allow other benefits
outside of the traditional design documentation to become part of the conversation. By shifting the focus from modeling to managing building information,
new opportunities abound. Adopting
a BIM process will yield a tremendous
amount of data about the stores and
make that information accessible to all
channels of the organization. The challenge then becomes turning that data
into actionable information.
Imagine the design documents as a
rich database of information that can be
assembled in unlimited configurations
to generate reports with ease. Move past
the idea that design and prototype documents are best represented as drawing
sets that sit on a shelf. Those documents
are simply a report generated from a
carefully constructed database. This new
approach maintains a single source of
truth, thus eliminates duplication, costly

errors, and time delays.
Under this management methodology, design variations, alternate
specifications, and regional variances
can be managed within one model,
simplifying change and reducing cost.
What may have previously been managed with dozens of prototypes can
now be managed with one. Adopting
the management methodology leads
to many benefits.
Companies should demand tools
that allow for quick and accurate adaptation and enable customer insights
and market trends to influence store
design and constructionat any point
in the process. BIM should be recognized not only as a tool that can manage that change, but one that can give
retailers the best execution of their
vision through data management at any
point in the process.
Develop an execution plan that
outlines the expected benefits of
implementing a BIM process with
clear, achievable goals. Cultivate
intelligent, interoperable building
content that will grow with each successive project, creating standards
that allow everyone to contribute to
the content-development process.
This will allow for an accelerated,
collaborative adoption of BIM.
Andrew Maletz is executive vice president at WD Partners.
Read the longer version of this online at:
www.csemag.com/archives.
www.csemag.com
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Experts you trust.

Excellence you count on.

HVAC Education Made Simple & Easy

Redefine your comfort zone. | www.titus-hvac.com

36 | Assessing replacement of electrical

Basic fan curve

ON THE COVER: At the Applied Medical Resources facility, the

23 | Codes & Standards

Building a winning team

Energy codes and lighting

What do engineers in the

Specifying drop-out ceilings

Examining medical and

Evaluating the other

48 | How does your salary stack up?

FIRE, SECURITY & LIFE SAFETY

Consulting-Specifying Engineer NOVEMBER 2016

online now csemag.com

Top 5 mostviewed articles

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Consulting-Specifying Engineer NOVEMBER 2016

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Consulting-Specifying Engineer NOVEMBER 2016

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Your questions answered: Fire/life

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Innovation and the new generation of

Next-generation lighting: The emergence

Lighting: LED specifications.