Kt Chan

Operation and maintenance: The perception of Hong Kong's general public about building services

Purpose – The survey reported here is intended to obtain an understanding of the general publics perception about building services and building services practitioners in Hong Kong. Design/methodology/approach – Targeting a sampling error of within ±1 per cent at a confidence level of 95 per cent, a team of six surveyors conducted face‐to‐face interviews with 751 laypersons at places around 11 residential estates. Findings – Over 90 per cent of the general public know the presence of various building services installations in buildings and 12 per cent know that building services is the collective name of such installations. The general public are satisfied with the operability and reliability of building services installations but are just marginally satisfied with their performance at higher levels, such as energy conservation and indoor air quality control. Research limitations/implications – A paucity of teenagers know about building services, which is a concern to the future development of both the building services profession and the facilities management (FM) industry in Hong Kong. Future work may investigate the situation in other regimes with a similar FM setting and study on how the profession is perceived for buildings with restricted access to the general public. Operation and maintenance personnel of the FM offices, who are approached by most people when problems with building services installations arise, are the key on the perceived image of building services professionals. Originality/value – In addition to informing higher educational institutes the need to reinforcing promotion of building services engineering to school leavers, the findings can help professional institutions in formulating how the social status of building services engineers may be raised.

A Delphi study on building services engineers' core competence and statutory role in Hong Kong

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to narrow the diverse views of the industry stakeholders on two controversial issues, namely the scope of core competence of building services engineers (BSEs) and the statutory role that they should play, which were encountered in an extensive research study on the building services profession of Hong Kong.Design/methodology/approach – An expert panel was formed and the Delphi method was applied to resolve the controversies. In the Delphi process, every panel member was provided with complete opinions expressed by all other panel members in each round of the deliberation.Findings – Sufficient support was found for the proposition that professional BSEs should be competent in handling air‐conditioning, electrical, fire services, and plumbing & drainage works, and that the government authorities should mandate the design and compliance certification of electrical and fire services installations by BSEs.Research limitations/implications – Although the Delphi method has...

A portrait of building services engineers in Hong Kong

Purpose – As part of a study that aimed at enhancing the future roles and functions of building services (BS) engineers in Hong Kong, a survey was carried out to obtain demographic information about BS practitioners as well as their views and opinions on a range of issues which affect professional practices of BS engineers and recognition of their contributions by others. The purpose of this paper is to give a portrait of BS engineers in Hong Kong.Design/methodology/approach – A series of statistical analyses were conducted based on the responses given by the BS practitioners, which included their qualifications, experience, job field, annual income and the number of trades of BS systems that they are competent in and responsible for.Findings – The statistics show that: competence gap exists in that BS engineers are required to handle more trades of BS systems than those they are competent in; and the academic and professional qualifications, years of experience and job position are the key influential fa...

Experience of using a chilled water circuit design to expedite in situ chiller performance measurement

A chilled water circuit design that can facilitate expeditious in situ chiller performance measurement has been adopted in a chiller plant and its effectiveness has been demonstrated. Before chiller tests commenced, the measurement accuracies of the sensors in the plant were checked by simple measurements and an analysis of the plant operation records. The analysis unveiled that the chilled water flow rate through the chillers was lower than the design flow rate and the chilled water return temperature often stayed below the design level due to excessive flow rate demand, which would hinder full load tests on the chillers. After the causes of the problems were diagnosed and the problems resolved as far as possible, measurement of the full- and part-load performance of the newly installed chillers was successfully conducted. This work demonstrated that the chilled water circuit design is effective in facilitating expeditious in situ chiller performance measurement but its use requires a properly functioning chilled water system. Practical applications: As the results presented in the paper show, the proposed chilled water circuit design is effective in reducing the time and effort required for measurement and verification of the full- and part-load performance of water chillers. This, in turn, allows more frequent chiller performance measurements to be made for detecting system or sensor faults and deterioration in chiller performance, which would help upkeep chiller energy efficiency and reliability. Described in the paper includes also several practical methods for verification of sensor accuracy and some common problems with chilled water systems where fan-coil units with on/off control are adopted.