If you own a commercial space, you may have been through the headache of an AC breakdown already. They too often come on fast, with the air failing just when you need it most, and result in expensive repair bills. You can vastly lessen the chances of this happening if you upgrade your system to a more modern one. The benefits are myriad, and some of them directly impact what you can expect if your HVAC system is having problems. The big difference is that you might not even have to wait for those problems to manifest before you figure out that something is wrong.
It’s About Control
Some of the latest systems on the market have what are called Building Automation Systems (BAS) built into them that can make a huge difference in how your HVAC performs and how you find out it isn’t performing if that happens to be the case.
These systems are often marketed as “smart” and that’s an accurate way to describe them. According to Buildings.com, there are multiple ways that these improvements can vastly increase the efficiency of an HVAC system.
One of the primary ways is that they can actually detect whether or not there’s somebody in a space at any given time. Given that there isn’t any reason to keep cooling a space if there’s nobody in it, these systems can de-prioritize those areas of the building that are unoccupied, allowing energy to be sent to the areas that need it and to not be wasted on areas of the building that do not.
There are other, even simpler ways, that these advanced HVAC systems can save money. As the same material points out, variable speed motors on fans are a huge advantage in HVAC systems.
Essentially, rather than just having an on or off mode, these fans can push more air when it is needed and be backed off when an area does not need to be cooled quite so thoroughly. This can end up saving quite a bit of money and, of course, it means that the entire system is functioning more efficiently, and that means that there are environmental benefits, as well.
Know Your Contractor
Another way you can save money on your HVAC is by making certain you understand which services your contractor offers you as part of their maintenance contract. Experience does matter here.
While any HVAC contractor that cares about the quality of the service that they render to their clients will let you know if you have a problem, well-trained, very experienced HVAC technicians are more likely to notice a problem that might not have manifested into an issue that occupants in the building notice quite yet. This allows them to help their customers by letting them know what needs to be fixed or replaced before it becomes a huge financial burden.
Go over the terms of your maintenance contract with your HVAC technicians. In some cases, HVAC technicians that work mostly with commercial businesses may have different levels of service that they can offer in this regard.
The thing to make certain of is that they inspect your system when they do maintenance. Rather than just pulling out a filter and changing it or getting in and out of the building as quickly as they can, you want to look for a contractor who goes the extra mile, makes certain that everything in the system is working correctly and, that way, you can have confidence that your system is in good repair.
There are a lot of ways you can improve on your HVAC system. Some of them employ new technology and some of them are just about good old-fashioned customer service.
http://www.buildings.com/article-details/articleid/15925/title/smart-sensor-options-for-hvac.aspx
http://www.ecova.com/Ecova/blog/2013/june/keeping-your-building-efficient-during-the-summer.aspx