ASHRAE Level 1 Audits are supposed to be quick and relatively inexpensive: walk the building, benchmark energy use, and flag whether a deeper study is worth the money. It’s easy to treat as a mechanical exercise, checking RTUs, lighting and BAS setpoints.
However, for most commercial buildings, energy performance is driven just as much by the enclosure, the roof, walls, windows, and air barrier, as it is by the equipment. Audits that skip the enclosure miss potential savings and yield a report that points to solutions that only solve part of the problem.
Ultimately, the enclosure is what the HVAC system is fighting. Every ton of cooling and every BTU of heating exists to overcome loads created by the building’s skin: conductive losses through walls and roof, air leaking through bad penetrations and worn sealants, solar gain through glass.
You’re not living or working inside a perfectly sealed Tupperware box. It leaks all over the place! Tuning the mechanical system to perfect is vitally important, but if your building enclosure is still happily conducting those tons and BTU’s straight outside, you haven’t really solved the primary issue.
Moisture makes the problems created by conductivity even worse. Wet insulation can lose more than half its R-value, and water intrusion drives up humidity loads on the cooling system while it steadily rots the structure behind the wall.
A Level 1 audit that doesn’t look for staining, corrosion, or failed sealants will often chalk up the resulting energy spike to “unexplained” usage instead of catching it at the source. Sealant repairs that could have been performed today turn into a much bigger reconstruction job down the road if this key part of your building enclosure system is ignored.
Air leakage is another critical issue that gets missed. Older curtain wall and masonry buildings were rarely built with a continuous air barrier; this type of leakage is one of the biggest, and most overlooked, drivers of HVAC load in existing buildings. You can’t account for it if you never look at the wall
This matters most because of what the Level 1 audit is for: deciding what to study next. If the enclosure isn’t part of that first look, an owner might pay for an expensive mechanical-focused Level 2 or 3 study while the real problem, a failing building enclosure, never gets touched.
Mechanical systems and building enclosures work as one system, not two. Leave the enclosure out of a Level 1 audit and the report is incomplete at best and pointed in the wrong direction at worst.
BECI offers enclosure-inclusive ASHRAE Level 1 Audits at a reasonable cost. Contact us today to set up a free site walk and pricing for an audit of your building!
This guidance is informational and should be verified by qualified professionals familiar with ASHRAE Standard 211 and site-specific conditions
About BECI
BECI provides expert building enclosure consulting services for new and existing construction. With a focus on sensible spending, stakeholder collaboration, and long-term building resilience, BECI helps clients minimize risk and extend the life of their assets.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out and connect with our experts.
