There's a market opportunity that is coming that I don't see anyone talking about and that is the coming retrofit market.

So something I haven't seen a lot on LinkedIn, I haven't seen it in any of the news periodicals, is a discussion about the coming retrofit market.

Take a look around the Internet and you'll see a ton of "thought-leadership" around the topic of smart buildings. It seems like everyone has the "Skynet" of buildings, yet here you are, everyone's advancing and yet your building is still... how do I say this... stupid...

I'm an advocate of standards. In a complex world, standards make things a little bit easier. But yet, it seems outside of some of the universities and a handful of corporations standards are about as common as a purple unicorn.

Throughout my career, I've been guilty of doing the same thing everyone else does. You know what I'm talking about. It's the end of the project and there is one thing between you and getting off the job... It's the "Vendor shall provide 8 hours of training by qualified factory representative" specification language.

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was standing in the control room of one of the biggest life sciences organizations in the world and their central cooling plant had been down for three hours...

Redlines vs. as builts: Two things that seem to be exactly the same but are they?

What are Redlines? Redlines are, quite simply, original drawings that have been redlined to reflect the changes that have been made. As I mentioned in previous articles when a project is being installed the installation team uses a series of plans and specs to guide them in how to build the project.

In my blog article, What are MEP Plans, I discussed the first half of the infamous Plans and Specs. In this article I am going to take you through the most common specification format there is, the Construction Specifications Institute Master Format.

What are MEP plans? Chances are if you've been in the building automation industry for any period of time you've seen mechanical, electrical, and plumbing (MEP) plans.

These plans are the blueprints that detail out how a building should be built.

I still remember when I started my career in BAS. It was February 1st 2007 and I had no business being in the BAS world. I've told this story before so I'll keep it brief.

Essentially I was leaving the US Navy and needed a job. I had the options of interviewing at a soap factory, glass factory, or Alerton BAS dealer.

Have you ever wondered what a communication bus is? When I was starting out, I didn't know what a communication bus was. You've probably heard the term though but maybe you heard it called something else... Comm bus, Comm Trunk, Trunk. MS/TP...