California Title 24 Regulation has mandated for the first time that all new laboratories in the state have variable air volume (VAV) exhausts. This provides a wide variety of experiences from owners, engineers, contractors and commissioning agents. This forum confidentially discusses real world results in California for VAV lab exhausts and discusses the upcoming 2018-2019 revisions to California Title 24 for VAV lab exhausts.

Engineers, manufacturers, contractors and architects have different and valuable ideas on what constitutes a good specification. This forum addresses the needs from each discipline and helps communicate what makes the document valuable for the whole project team.

Graduates from engineering and engineering technology programs, both two-year and four-year, comprise the next generation of ASHRAE members and HVAC&R practitioners. The purpose of this forum is to guide ASHRAE’s input on accrediting these programs. What do we expect graduates to know? What do we expect them to be able to do? What are the differences in expectations between engineering and engineering technology graduates? What are the differences in expectations between two-year and four-year graduates? What is the role of program accreditation to ensure the desired outcomes?

Methods for commissioning building projects with traditional design-bid-build delivery methods are well established. However, projects using the design build delivery method have become more popular and require a different approach for implementing the commissioning process on these types of projects. This forum opens the discussion between engineers, architects, contractors and owners on how design build projects should be commissioned. The goals after the forum are to develop a guideline on commissioning for design build projects and to conduct a seminar / workshop on the guideline at a future ASHRAE conference.

The future of smart buildings and smart homes face challenges of integrating data from multiple sources and systems for smart decisions to achieve better comfort and energy/cost savings. Future buildings also should be able to communicate and transact with the smart grid. What data should be collected and how should they be integrated using a common communication platform? This forum discusses the state of the industry (smart meters, smart thermostats, connected appliances, IoT, BEMOSS, VOLTTRON...) and determines a path that the ASHRAE community can contribute towards moving forward.

ASHRAE Associate Society Alliance (AASA) has members from over 50 global HVAC&R societies. AASA also has a large representation from Developing Countries where due to rapid urbanization, the demand for homes is growing exponentially (India alone will add 50 billion sq. ft. of constructed space in next two decades). The Forum discusses the case studies and best practices followed in design of cost effective homes. This Forum has international flavor with representatives from more than 20 countries and provides an opportunity to the attendees to interact & learn from each other.