Building and Operations

Building operations consists of the activities necessary to operate, maintain, and manage
buildings. This includes maintaining the HVAC systems, plumbing, electrical, and building
system configuration.

Why it’s Important

Because building operations cover so many areas, many real estate companies have separate
departments for operations, utilities, sustainability, and engineering. Here are the most important
areas to address in building operations:

 Maintenance Techniques - Maintenance strategy and control, transitioning from

reactive to proactive maintenance, maintenance contracts, establishing a minimum
standard for inspection and maintenance of equipment, operating and maintenance
documentation, and maintenance technician training.
 Owning and Operating Costs - First costs of building ownership, new building
construction project delivery methods, estimating costs, service life, depreciation,
recurring cost, maintenance costs, utility costs, regulatory costs, utility billing analysis,
and economic analysis
 Heating, Ventilating, and Air-Conditioning Controls - Control components,
specifying control systems and writing control sequences, effective use of control
technology, using the control system for energy management, impact of controls of
operating costs, emerging control technologies and strategies.
 Contractor Start-Up and Handover Procedures - Pre-start-up procedures, equipment
and system start-up and testing, operator training, substantial completion and occupancy
permit, handover procedures, record drawings, operating and maintenance documents,
warranty, and post warranty operation.
 Commissioning and Testing - Commissioning process and benefits; functional
acceptance testing; testing, adjusting, and balancing (TAB); and existing building
commissioning
 Risk Assessment Procedures - Defining risk, emergency response plans, activating an
emergency response plan, types of risk and what to do during an emergency, and what to
do after an emergency.
 Greening Your Facility - Utilizing a building monitoring system to understand the
energy costs related to each piece of equipment in real time. In addition, tenant sub
metering helps ensure that tenants are incentivized to reduce costs.
 Health and Safety - Health and safety regulations and policies, organizational health and
safety programs, safe work practices, and building operating regulations.
Operations Best Practices
 In large building portfolios, seek opportunities that leverage the scale and diversity of
buildings as well as the depth and breadth of experience and operational expertise
 Test promising sustainable technologies in real-life circumstances to implement
innovative products, services, and ideas that offer the broadest possible value to your
organization, industry, communities, and the environment
 Incorporate preventive, predictive, and reliability centered maintenance, rather than
reactive maintenance, on all building systems to ensure reliable service and prevent the
costly failure of basic building functions. See DOE’s Operations and Maintenance
Guide for more information on maintenance types.
 Organize the management of maintenance activities to optimize portfolio performance
 Ensure the building maintenance staff is conducting the preventive maintenance on all
building exhaust systems (restrooms, garage exhaust fans, etc).
 Adjust occupancy based systems like HVAC and ventilation to actual occupancy times of
the building or use occupancy-based controls
 Retrofit existing cooling systems to run on environmentally friendly refrigerants
 Train building occupants, facilities managers, and maintenance staff in sustainable design
principles and methods that will minimize system failures;
 Purchase cleaning products and supplies that are resource-efficient, bio-degradable and as
safe as possible for both janitorial staff and building occupants, and thereby ensure good
indoor air quality;
 Test sensor control points on a regular basis to ensure energy efficiency is not
compromised;
 Use automated monitors and controls for energy, water, waste, temperature, moisture,
and ventilation;
 Reduce waste through source reduction, reuse, recycling and/or composting to eliminate
disposal of reusable materials at landfills and incinerators;
 Minimize travel by supporting telecommuting programs and enabling a mobile work
environment;
 Perform scheduled energy audits and re-commissioning of systems; and
 When updating a facility or its systems, choose higher efficiency equipment and durable
materials that will withstand storms and other natural events, and improve the tightness of
the building envelope if feasible.