I hear a lot about how code drives buildings to a better place, but the challenge of keeping up with State and local building codes is a big burden for architects and builders. Outside consultants who specialize in managing these codes are often brought in to ensure standards are met. However, utilizing the work of both a green consultant and a mechanical engineer on projects adds complexity and results in a duplication of effort in a lot of areas.
In today’s high performing building world, both of these particular consultants need to be housed under one roof. Architects and builders don’t have time to coordinate two separate outside consultants focused on meeting building codes while also making sure everyone is on the same page.
Every mechanical engineer has taken at least one heat transfer course and one thermodynamics course —making it virtually impossible for them to ignore fundamental principles for a building envelope. Besides that, today’s highly complex modeling software is of practical use on every engineer’s desk. Treating every building holistically simply results in better mechanical systems.
We at DMA Engineering are vertically integrated to provide all code compliance modeling and mechanical engineering under one roof—often pushing for standards that surpass minimum code requirements. (See my November blog, Code is Only a Minimum Standard.)