PE (always learning)
Senior Member
- Location
- Saint Louis
- Occupation
- Professional Engineer
The IECC has always been a thorn in my side to begin with, but now with the 2021 IECC my rage grows even more. The IECC in my opinion has good intentions, but promotes bad design and in the end I think is mostly fruitless in it's ideals to conserve energy. Several points I wanted to make below:
1) How much energy savings are we really getting with all of the occupancy sensors and daylight sensing controls being added on our projects when compared to the production cost and energy it takes to create them? I understand that for large facilities this makes sense, but it just feels like a lobbyist got into the codes and went crazy with trying to promote sensing controls on every little thing we design.
2) Now with the IECC 2021, we have to provide special metering on any new building over 25,000 square feet. These meters have to be placed so that they can measure each type of load on a project. For instance, we have to parcel out our loads on panels so that HVAC, lighting, process loads, receptacle loads, ect. are separated. What If I want to use a panel for mixed use and I have no other close panel to pull from? I think the IECC is promoting bad design and actually adding unnecessary cost to the project. Why can't the utility give us the same information from their metering?
3) I think that the IECC sometimes even conflicts with life safety issues. There was a dental office I was working on where we had a surgery room and the authority having jurisdiction forced me to put occupancy sensors in the surgery room. This felt like a major life safety issue in the fact that if the occupancy sensor shut off while the doctor was mid surgery it could cause some serious issues. I argued with the authority having jurisdiction, but they still made me put in the occupancy sensors.
I think that the IECC was written by bureaucrats who don't understand design and lobbyist who just want to promote the sales of their controls to everyone, which again, how much money and energy are we really saving when every building has to have special building control systems that take time and energy to create and design.
Vent over.
1) How much energy savings are we really getting with all of the occupancy sensors and daylight sensing controls being added on our projects when compared to the production cost and energy it takes to create them? I understand that for large facilities this makes sense, but it just feels like a lobbyist got into the codes and went crazy with trying to promote sensing controls on every little thing we design.
2) Now with the IECC 2021, we have to provide special metering on any new building over 25,000 square feet. These meters have to be placed so that they can measure each type of load on a project. For instance, we have to parcel out our loads on panels so that HVAC, lighting, process loads, receptacle loads, ect. are separated. What If I want to use a panel for mixed use and I have no other close panel to pull from? I think the IECC is promoting bad design and actually adding unnecessary cost to the project. Why can't the utility give us the same information from their metering?
3) I think that the IECC sometimes even conflicts with life safety issues. There was a dental office I was working on where we had a surgery room and the authority having jurisdiction forced me to put occupancy sensors in the surgery room. This felt like a major life safety issue in the fact that if the occupancy sensor shut off while the doctor was mid surgery it could cause some serious issues. I argued with the authority having jurisdiction, but they still made me put in the occupancy sensors.
I think that the IECC was written by bureaucrats who don't understand design and lobbyist who just want to promote the sales of their controls to everyone, which again, how much money and energy are we really saving when every building has to have special building control systems that take time and energy to create and design.
Vent over.
