C26 -- Essential Lessons from Decarbonization Projects at Congregations and Community Centers

Heat pump retrofits are a well-known solution to decarbonize fossil fuel usage in buildings for space and hot water heating, reducing carbon emissions by consuming renewably generated electricity. To achieve net zero emissions by 2050, every home and building must switch from fossil fuels to heat pumps. Urgent actions are necessary, but achieving quality outcomes of heat pump installations must also be a priority. Every installed heat pump has to encourage further adoption to meet decarbonization goals. In short, vigilance is necessary to minimize adverse outcomes of heat pump retrofit projects to not slow down progress in decarbonizing the built environment. This paper highlights the importance of an owner's representative (owner’s rep) for decarbonization projects at congregations and community centers. Such projects involve enhancing the HVAC system, replacing fossil combusting comfort heating equipment with heat pump systems, and improving the building envelope, windows, doors, roof, ventilation system, electrical system, and domestic hot water. The singular goal of the owner's rep is delivering an outcome that satisfies the owner's interests. Consequently, the author suggests hiring an owner’s rep early in the project’s inception to document the Owner's Project Requirements (OPR) and keep them involved throughout the construction process. This includes selecting the right type of heat pump systems and evaluating the impacts of envelope improvements all the way through successful installation, commissioning, functional testing, and handover. The paper contains a list of recommended tasks to guide hiring the owner's rep. After experimenting with incentivizing an owner's rep in community center pilot projects, it was learned that an owner’s rep is also relevant to other properties where there are vulnerable owners, many of those involving small to medium properties.