Stephen Ward, AECOM

Regional Director

Michelle Agha-Hossein, BSRIA

Sustainable Building Engineer

Post Occupancy

Evaluation (POE) #SoftLandingsConference

What is POE?

Techniques and Methods

The Benefits of POE

Issues and pitfalls to be aware of for a successful POE campaign

"... the process of evaluating buildings in a systematic and rigorous manner after they have

been built and occupied for some time“ Preiser et al. (1988)

Post Occupancy : evaluate project success

Pre- and Post-Project: set benchmarks (baselines)

Regular intervals: identify potential areas for improvements.

Initial Aftercare (0-6 months after occupancy, within the first 12 months)

Long term Aftercare and POE (12-36 months after occupancy)

• Fine tuning • Checking and getting all the

metering to work properly • Checking the energy and

environmental data • Informing any seasonal

commissioning activities

• Conducting review meetings

• Assessing the operational performance of the building against the design metrics

• Assessing how well the building meets the client/end users’ needs

• Additional fine tuning (if needed)

Which technique to use?

It depends on the:

Complexity and size of the project

Budget and time available

Metrics set at the design stage

Specific and clear

Measurable

Achievable

Realistic

Timely

Examples:

Economic: capital cost, operational cost

Environmental: electricity, fossil fuels, water, waste, emissions

Social: occupant satisfaction, IEQ factors

• AUDE (Association of University Directors of Estates) guide for existing available POE methods, for example: Design Quality Indicators BUS Survey CIBSE TM22: Energy Assessment and

Reporting Methodology

• BREEAM In-Use

To provide feedback on how buildings perform

To help building operators to manage their building effectively

To provide the end users the opportunity to express their views

To be fed back into the design brief for the future projects

To help to reduce the “performance gap”

To help to achieve BREEAM credits for minimum Excellent rating

General points

Planning for POE is key – making sure it forms part of procurement and roles and responsibilities

Will you get an independent view?

Have to look beyond the standard 12 month defects period

Try to avoid POE being too “energy focussed” – occupant and FM team experience also critical – all feed into each other

How will you information be fed back to client – what does client need, how quickly and how to keep them engaged?

Operational Performance

What are you measuring against?

Need some realistic prediction of operational energy performance – NOT PART L!

Ideally, should break down into different end uses – e.g. lighting, heating, cooling, pumps and fans, etc

Use of CIBSE TM54 is ideal

Use as diagnostic tool if measured use for system or end use is different

Operational Performance

Metering, metering, metering

Need clear metering strategy from design stage – metering hierarchy set out in log book

Pay close attention to detail of specification, installation (especially heat meters), and commissioning of meters and data transmission and storage

Be careful with meters that only feed into BMS, and don’t have separate AMR system

Allow time after handover for thorough review and sense check of meter data, and data reconciliation

Occupant satisfaction

Maximising response rate is key (e.g. 50-66%)

Suggest use of paper forms rather than on-line – use coloured paper!

Physically hand survey to people and say when will collect

Keep it brief – no more than 10-15 minutes to complete

Need minimum of two people for survey

Incentives – sweets!

Communications prior to survey day are key

IEQ (air quality, thermal comfort, noise and lighting)

Check that BMS will store data

Check sensors are properly located

Can use data to check operation of building ventilation strategy, and inform seasonal commissioning

Can use “tiny tag” sensors to sense check BMS data and get finer grained picture of conditions

Don’t forget people can be the best sensors!!!

Survey responses and discussion with building manager can identify specific areas for review of IEQ

Thank you!

Any Questions