Field
Building services engineering comprises mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and plumbing or public health (MEP) engineering, all of which are further sub-divided into the following:
- Communication lines, telephones and IT networks (ICT)
- Energy supply - gas, electricity and renewable sources
- Escalators and lifts
- Fire detection and protection
- Heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC)
- Lightning protection
- Low voltage (LV) systems, distribution boards and switchgear
- Natural lighting and artificial lighting, and building facades
- Security and alarm systems
- Ventilation and refrigeration
- Water, drainage and plumbing
Building services engineers work closely with other construction professionals such as architects, structural engineers and quantity surveyors. They influence the architecture of a building and play a significant role on the sustainability and energy demand of a building. Within building services engineering, new roles are emerging, for example in the areas of renewable energy, sustainability, low carbon technologies and energy management. With buildings accounting for around 50% of all carbon emissions, building services engineers play a significant role in combating climate change. As such, a typical building services engineer has a wide-ranging career path:
- Design: designing layouts and requirements for building services for residential or commercial developments.
- Construction: supervising the construction of the building services, commissioning systems and ongoing maintenance and operation of services.
- Environmental: developing new energy saving methods for construction, designing new and improved energy conservation systems for buildings.
- Heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC): specialising in the design, development, construction and operation of HVAC systems.
- Electrical technology: specialising in the design and development of electrical systems required for safe and energy sustaining operation of buildings.
In 1976 Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) was founded and received a Royal Charter in the United Kingdom, and formally recognising building services engineering as a profession. Its objectives of the Institution are to: support the Science, Art and Practice of building services engineering, by providing our members and the public with first class information and education services and promoting the spirit of fellowship which guides our work.
In recent years there has been increasing emphasis on sustainable and green design by the UK government, including in engineered building systems. Building services engineers increasingly seek BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method), CIBSE Low Carbon Consultants (LCC) and Energy Assessors (LCEA) status in addition to their Professional Engineering registration.
Read more about this topic: Building Services Engineering
Famous quotes containing the word field:
“Mine was, as it were, the connecting link between wild and cultivated fields; as some states are civilized, and others half-civilized, and others savage or barbarous, so my field was, though not in a bad sense, a half-cultivated field. They were beans cheerfully returning to their wild and primitive state that I cultivated, and my hoe played the Ranz des Vaches for them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“... no young colored person in the United States today can truthfully offer as an excuse for lack of ambition or aspiration that members of his race have accomplished so little, he is discouraged from attempting anything himself. For there is scarcely a field of human endeavor which colored people have been allowed to enter in which there is not at least one worthy representative.”
—Mary Church Terrell (1863–1954)
“Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one’s trundle-bed.”
—Eugene Field (1850–1895)