Residential Commissioning to Assess Envelope and HVAC System Performance

Residential commissioning is a new procedure to ensure that a house can perform optimally or at least meet basic safety, health, comfort, and energy intents. Many procedural elements, such as visual inspection and functional performance diagnostics, already exist in a fragmented environment. Most can be integrated into new industry guidelines for testing and tuning system performance in new and existing houses. This paper describes a consolidated set of practical diagnostics that can be used now to commission envelope and HVAC system performance. Where possible, we discuss the accuracy and usability of available diagnostics, based on recent laboratory work and field studies. We also describe areas in need of research and development, such as practical field diagnostics for envelope thermal conductance and combustion safety.