Located in the market town of Bedale, North Yorkshire, the Glebe House Surgery underwent a major renovation including a 2-story extension of the existing doctor’s surgery and full refurbishment of the existing building. The facilities were expanded to provide treatment rooms, consulting rooms, office areas, waiting rooms, and welfare facilities. Dewick and Associates provided the Mechanical O&M Manuals for the project in conjunction with the project specific CIBSE™ 31 Logbook.
CIBSE™ 31 Logbook
The CIBSE™ 31 Logbook is a legal requirement for both new-build and refurbished developments where services have been altered and contains crucial building energy information. It provides building owners and users with full design and operational details of the building to enable them to operate the building efficiently and enhance occupant comfort, satisfaction, and productivity.
The CIBSE™ 31 Logbook provides sufficient detailed information to allow the energy-efficient running and maintaining of the building services systems in line with the design intent, helping to control and minimize the energy consumption and use of fuel and power. It also provides information on the dismantling / decommissioning of the building at the end of its life.
Before construction begins, a design stage calculation must be issued to the Building Control Body (BCB), setting out the Target Emissions Rate (TER), and Building Emission Rate (BER) for the proposed building, along with details of its proposed specification. The Glebe House Surgery passed the Part L2A 2013 compliance assessment, which confirmed that the BER was less than or equivalent to the TER for carbon emissions.
The Building Emission Rate (BER)
The Building Regulations set out requirements for specific aspects of building design and construction. Regulation 26 of the building regulations states that “where a building is erected, it shall not exceed the Target CO2 Emissions Rate (TER) for the building…”,
Target CO2 Emissions Rate (TER)
The Target CO2 Emissions Rate (TER) sets a minimum allowable standard for the energy performance of a building and is defined by the annual CO2 emissions of a theoretical building of same type, size, and shape to the proposed building. TER is expressed in annual kg of CO2 per m2.
Upon project completion, a report must be issued to the Building Control Body (BCB), setting out the TER, and BER of the completed building, along with any changes that have been made to the proposed specification, and an energy performance certificate (EPC). This requires that an air permeability test is carried out to ensure that the construction of the building envelope does not allow air (plus heat) to leak through the building fabric. The energy performance and air permeability certificates were both issued for the Glebe House Surgery project and included in the handover documentation.
The CIBSE™ 31 Logbook should be available in a digital/electronic format for future updates by principal contractors. The facility manager is also encouraged to review the Logbook at least once a year to determine that no significant changes have occurred to the building services systems that require a change in the document.