FAQs

• Members may attend our Industry Advisory Board Conference, which occur in April and October. These events provide updates on our current research and special presentations for partners.
• Members direct research in areas relevant to their core business while avoiding the cost of in-house facilities and staff, or professional consultant fees. They provide feedback and guide the development of CBE’s research portfolio.
• CBE participants have the opportunity to network and build relationships with diverse sectors of the building industry.
• Members access internal reports released only to our consortium members. They may comment on draft versions of findings likely to be included in publications and industry-wide standards.
• CBE provides access to specialized design and performance tools, including occupant surveys and thermal comfort models. See a more list below.
• Many member firms have recruited graduates from our program, who have been involved in industry-relevant research as part of their education. Many of these graduates now hold positions of substantial responsibility with member firms.
• Members greatly leverage their investment with research grants from institutional and governmental sources. Member fees are often used as seed funding to procure outside co-funding, and many of our core research projects have become self-sustaining in this manner.
• Members are involved with our research, co-authoring papers and publications, and directly influencing industry-wide standards and perceptions. Our research frequently involves members’ completed projects and/or products, which provides members with rigorous, objective feedback that has a high level of credibility in the industry.

Members have access to several research tools developed by CBE for the study of building and systems performance, including:

• CBE’s Occupant IEQ Survey: Members receive two to four complimentary surveys per year (depending on membership level), with access to the survey database of over 65,000 occupant responses. The results of these surveys have been used to track facilities management, test design strategies, and for marketing purposes.
• CBE’s Advanced Human Thermal Comfort Model: Analyze comfort implications of numerous variables, including HVAC system configuration, room layout, facade configuration, and occupant variables.
• UFAD Cooling Airflow Design Tool: Determine cooling airflow requirements in interior and perimeter spaces with stratified temperatures.
• CBE’s Building Commissioning Cart: Designed and fabricated by CBE, it includes special capabilities for studying stratified temperatures in buildings with UFAD or displacement ventilation systems. Updates now enable this toolkit to comply with the new ASHRAE Performance Measurement Protocol.
• CBE’s research facilities: CBE’s controlled environment chamber, boundary layer wind tunnel, and sky simulator. Each of these facilities has extensive instrumentation and data acquisition equipment.
• Research staff and faculty that are recognized experts in building performance, thermal comfort, field study and laboratory investigations. Our faculty, staff and graduate students frequently assist industry members with urgent questions related to project design, building operations, and system diagnostics.

We welcome suggestions from our partners, and have a number of projects that were initiated by industry partners. We ask partners to contact us with their suggestions at least two months before our April or October board conference. For example:

• Taylor Engineering worked with us to develop a project focused on evaluating thermal comfort and indoor air quality of buildings with reduced minimum airflow rates. The project led to an influential report with wide ranging implications. Read the project scope here.
• A leading engineering partner asked CBE to pursue research on radiant cooling systems. We worked with them to develop a scope of work, which was approved by the industry partners. This led to a multi-part study that was completed in 2019.

Are there opportunities to have newly developed concepts and/or completed projects tested?

We have a long history of working with members to assist in the development of new research concepts, and we eagerly seek new opportunities for this type of collaboration. Some notable past projects include:

• Conducting our Occupant IEQ Survey in hundreds of buildings owned, operated, and/or designed by industry partners. We have developed specialized sets of questions for research collaborations related to green buildings, acoustics, and other IEQ topics.
• Working with Armstrong to study the effects of integrated fans and air movement on occupant personal comfort.
• Development of the new EnergyPlus model for UFAD by conducting extensive chamber tests of floor diffusers from Industry Partners Price Industries and York (now a Johnson Controls brand).

Our major annual events are CBE’s Industry Advisory Board Conference. They typically occur during the third week of April and October. There is no cost for members to attend our Board Conference. The events for each conference are as follows:

• Wednesday: Special workshop open to the public. Recent topics include UFAD, building information visualization, and zero net energy.
• Thursday: All-day Plenary Session, with each member firm bringing up to seven participants. We present project updates and findings for all of our projects with recent findings, with time for member feedback and networking. Members provide written evaluation for each project presented.
• Friday morning: Executive Session, attended by two primary representatives from each member firm. In April the members review, comment, and approve research project scopes and budgets for the fiscal year. In October the members propose and discuss research topics for the following year.

In addition to these regularly scheduled meetings, we have on-going on collaborations with a number of CBE member representatives, who meet with us to review progress, provide feedback, and/or to participate in technical advisory committee meetings.

We have a wide range of companies in the building industry, including contractors, architects, engineers, product manufacturers, government agencies, building owners, utilities and building technology innovators.

CBE provides tools and design guidance that are highly adopted in the building industry. We advocate actively in coordination with our members and with other firms and organizations to have our research results adopted into codes and standards, furthering the reach of our work.

The annual sustaining membership fee is $40,000, with a reduction of 50 percent to qualifying small businesses. We have and AEC membership level $14,000 annually, which applies to architecture, engineering, or construction firms, and a small AEC membership for qualifying firms. Membership terms may start on April 1 or October 1 to September 30. For additional info on joining, please read our page on joining CBE.