You realize how important the building envelope is to maintaining a building's energy efficiency, and the next step is getting help. But how do you know when your building needs attention? And where do you go for trusted advice and solutions? When you're investing in reducing your building's energy expenses, you want to be sure you're making the right decisions.

As a general rule, we know the building envelope accounts for 35 to 40 percent of a typical building's energy consumption. Using this as a guide, we can roughly determine the amount of money our envelope is costing us by dividing our total annual energy costs by the number 3. If the amount is insignificant, obviously we are doing better than average. If, however, the amount is significant, we need to do some investigation.

Envelope inspection begins with a thoughtful, careful inspection of the existing condition. As you walk the building do you see old, cracked sealant joints; cracks in the masonry; openings in the siding; spaces in the joints and corners of the building? Are windows and doors difficult to operate? Is the weather stripping old and drafty? Do residents complain about drafts and cold when the wind blows? Alternatively, is the property quiet and without drafts, whistling wind or cold areas near the doors? Are the walls always cold in winter and warm in summer? The answers to these questions may clearly indicate what needs to be done.

Normally, managers look at the parts comprising the building envelope - the windows, the side walls, the caulking, the doors -- and deal with each individual item as it requires attention. This has been the least-cost method of maintaining a building: Defer costs as long as possible, make repairs when they can no longer be delayed, and make the minimum repairs necessary to support responsible maintenance. In today's environment, this approach now has an added cost - that of the continuing increase in energy costs to keep the property operating. Depending on the building, this rising energy cost may be borne by the occupant, the owner or by management. In each scenario, someone is paying higher costs and is probably not very happy about it. To find success in reducing the building's energy consumption, the envelope must be treated as an entire system, not as the parts the make up the whole.

Where to Go for Help

This area of investigation, the building envelope, has a large group of specialists who have expertise in all the specialties that comprise the envelope. Masonry contractors know the masonry, window contractors know the windows, door specialists know the doors, siding companies know the siding, caulking contractors know the caulking; but these groups normally do not extend their knowledge beyond their area of expertise. As a result, there is a dearth of envelope specialists who can offer the integration of all these envelope components into a single source of expertise to handle the variety of tasks necessary for an effective envelope solution.

In response, several professional groups have taken action. SWRI, RCI, ICRI and other professional contractor organizations have expanded their approach to buildings to include the entire envelope rather than the specific trade they originally represented. ASHRAE, ASTM and AIA have also expanded their training, specification and design requirements to respond to the energy implications for building envelopes and the resultant technical innovation that is necessary to maximize the efficiency of envelopes. Additionally, the advent of modeling simulations is slowly becoming available to allow specialized investigation to provide inputs in the models which offer some guide to the net benefit of various remedies.

Finding an organization to work with to help you resolve these issues is a key to having a successful result. Many owners and managers have resources in place, such as maintenance staff, in-house engineering teams, or consulting engineers with which to attempt to begin dealing with these issues. Additionally, professional organizations are responding to the challenge. The U.S. Department of Energy offers extensive information about building envelopes.

Even with the support base being assembled, it often becomes the interaction between the people who know what the problem is and the people who fix the problem. This interaction often works best when the people with the problem can identify what the problem is and the people who do the work can explain what the solution is. More specifically, the owner or manager should be able to thoroughly explain all the items that seem to be contributing to the complaints that the building is drafty, or that occupants complain about window noise and cold, or that an on-site inspection has shown cracks and openings in the exterior walls, or that the residents are angry about the costs of operating the building. The vendor or contractor should be able to explain the envelope construction of the building; what common failures have been observed for that type of construction; what previous work they have done to resolve such issues; and what the likely outcome of the work will be.

Options should be discussed, and a prospective resolution should be planned. Typically, the contractor or vendor should perform a test section to verify the efficacy of the solution and prove that the recommended course of action works. Commonly called a "mock-up," this test section helps avoid a situation where money is spent on an ineffective solution.

In an era of high energy costs, mistakes can be especially costly. Given the current lack of certitude of the tools available to forecast what impact various activities may have on the consumption of energy in any large building, we still must do something besides continuing to pay the rising costs associated with building energy use. And that something begins with approaching the envelope as a system and working with a trusted partner.