Choosing A Variable Refrigerant Flow System For Your Building

A variable refrigerant flow system consists of multiple evaporators of varying capacity, each connected to one central variable capacity heat pump. These systems feature a heat recovery mode what allows energy to be transferred from zone to zone, depending on needs, with minimal compressor use. Because each zone has its own unique air unit, it can control the temperature while operating at peak efficiency.

What makes variable refrigerant flow systems unique is the ability to control heating and cooling efficiently through its load diversification features. A building is set up into zones. You can heat one zone, while cooling another. You can use the waste energy from the cooling process to further enhance the efficiency of the heating process.

The benefits of a variable refrigerant flow system are many:

•   Offer variable speeds
• Offer customizable heating and cooling solutions
• Improve temperature controls
•  Improve occupant comfort
• Offer stronger energy efficiencies
• Reduce operating costs

Using refrigerant to move air around the building is far more efficient than other conventional systems. By having variable speeds, you can match the energy level to the needs of the zone, and only provide heating or cooling as needed within that area.

Moving away from a “one setting for all” approach to HVAC reduces conflicts among tenants that have different needs, and can reduce complaints about changes to indoor climate.

Overall, the systems are often smaller than what a building will currently have installed. Outdoor units units are often small enough that they won’t require a dedicated equipment room, and indoor units can often be concealed in ceilings or retrofitted into existing space.

There are two basic types of systems; one that is air cooled, and one that is water cooled.

If an air cooled system is used, exterior space is required for installation of the condenser unit. The space used for installation has to be away from window, be strong enough to support the weight of the unit, and be accessible for maintenance.

If a water cooled system is used, the system can be placed inside in a small closet. With both systems, a clear path to route the refrigerant pipes must be identified.

While a variable refrigerant flow system isn’t an off-the-shelf solution, and will take careful planning to ensure the load profile of the building offers the proper requirements for setting up the system, it is a viable solution for buildings looking to improve their efficiencies, and have a large number of tenants with different energy demands.

Have questions about installing a variable refrigerant flow system in your building? We’d be happy to provide you with the answers; just give us a call. 

What Makes A HVAC Project Go Well?

If you own or manage a commercial building, you know the HVAC system is a never ending project. As long as it remains in good condition, and repairs are made on a timely basis, everything works well. If an unplanned disruption happens, it can send everyone in the building into a state of panic.

In many ways, a major HVAC project can be easier than a smaller one. Major projects are usually carefully planned, and bring the entire building’s schedule into review. They may be performed on weekends or at non-peak time frames. And they are usually well coordinated and well communicated – two things that bring every person impacted into the process.

Smaller repairs and common maintenance problems usually have the opposite effect. Because they are smaller in nature, management usually schedules them without thinking twice about the consequences. Or worse, they simply “happen” and are dealt with on an as-needed basis. Staff and tenants can get annoyed, complaining about temperature or air quality, and increase potential work processes due to the rising level of complaints.

Although its been eluded to, what makes a project go well? Communication. Communication truly is the key to successfully managing any project you are about to undertake. While you may still have questions and complaints, if people are forewarned, they are usually more tolerant of the process.

Communicate about your projects in three ways:

Provide clear communication about the process, its time tables, and what to expect

A quick email with a phrase or two stating “the HVAC system will be worked on today” can leave people apprehensive and wary. A well thought out memo explaining the process, how long its expected to take, and what disruptions could occur will put people at ease. If you issue a memo days or even weeks in advance, they will know to reschedule major presentations or appointments that could be impacted by unplanned disruptions. That gives you more time to recover, even when the unexpected occurs.

Talk about the exceptions as well as the process

A fire alarm may be inadvertently tripped. Chemical smells may occur. Air conditioning systems may be turned off for periods of time. Certain areas of the building may be inaccessible. All of this and more may be potential problems, depending on the amount of work required. Who will this impact most? If certain repairs will impact certain places of the building more, make sure you address the problems ahead of time to keep everyone safe and secure.

Have a clear way to communicate throughout the process

If people have questions, give them a clear understanding of the process to take if they need answers. You can request emails before a certain date for scheduling conflicts in the event it’s a major project. You can provide mobile phone numbers for immediate assistance. The clearer you make the process, the easier it will be to solve the problem quickly and efficiently. And not have irate people on you hand throughout the process.

How Increased HVAC System Maintenance Increases Energy Savings

Want to know the one thing that can increase your energy savings by up to 40 percent, and decrease your overall equipment and system costs throughout the years? Simple preventative maintenance on your building’s HVAC system.

Studies consistently show that a good maintenance schedule can cut HVAC costs, while also extending equipment life, increasing the uptime of your equipment, and overall making your building’s occupants more comfortable (which means fewer complaints). In spite of all these studies, and a host of marketing strategies to get the word out about how cost effective it can be, most commercial business owners still operate in a reactive mode. Though owners and management teams will often say they understand it is by far more effective to utilize resources to keep things running smoothly all year long, they rarely take their own advice to heart.

Why?

In many cases, it comes down to budgeting. Most organizations underfund maintenance, making reactive maintenance the norm, not the exception. So maintenance is deferred. When budgets are formed and goals aren’t met, the budget is looked at and cutbacks are made. Its nearly impossible to cut back things that are of the utmost importance – a furnace that has stopped working altogether can’t be ignored. But when an executive needs money, and he sees a maintenance line as a part of the overhead costs of running the building, it’s the first place to look when chopping.

So the maintenance contract is cancelled. The equipment does its thing. And everybody is happy … for a while, until a major event occurs and brings the HVAC system to a grinding halt.

Yes, the round-robin process is one almost every building manager can relate to because he lives with it every day.

But how do you get that through to the executive management holding the budget over your head?

Start with a log

Logging costs can show repeat behavior and patterns of problems over time. When they are all lumped together with the monthly maintenance bills, its easy to overlook their true costs. Instead, keep a building log showcasing every problem and every maintenance issue that is handled throughout the year.

While you should track the entire HVAC system as a whole, also track areas individually that you know will give you problems more than others. For instance, a building’s chiller is typically one of the largest users of electricity in a building, and therefore a key target area for maintenance issues to impact the system. By tracking actually costs and maintenance required over a year, including new equipment and replacement charges, compared to the cost a regular maintenance plan would require to catch the same mistakes, it can quickly prove to management where potential savings may be in the long term.

Track failures

As a building ages, the HVAC system is rarely replaced as an entire unit. Instead, pieces are repaired and parts are replaced on an as needed basis. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” can be the motto of those who pay the bills, which can quickly turn into “if its working okay, wait until it doesn’t work before you do anything about it”.

When equipment begins to cause problems, it’s never a one time event. There are always warning signs along the way. A service call here, a repair there, and the maintenance continues time after time trying to keep the whole system working on a budget deemed affordable by the powers that be.

As the head of building maintenance, instead of being reactionary and approaching management with problems, collect all service receipts and show patterns instead. Management makes decisions based on facts. When you can show pieces are being repaired over and over again, and that problems often escalate quickly because maintenance isn’t being performed as a service provider suggests, its easier for them to see where the true problems lies. And to understand how a monthly maintenance plan can benefit them in the long term, protecting their investment from repeated problems, over and over again.

If you’re ready to talk about putting your own maintenance plan into place, we would be happy to provide you with more information on the benefits, and how it can quickly add up to savings overall. 

Finding The Best Commercial HVAC Contractor In Boise

Want to know the secret to saving money? It starts by having the best commercial HVAC contractor in Boise on your side.

If you own commercial property, there is one thing that you probably know for sure: your heating and cooling system will occasionally have problems. Its simply a fact that anything mechanical, anything that operates on a regular basis, will eventually need repair in order to keep it in good working condition.

It’s also true that by maintaining your equipment on a regular schedule, and repairing parts as they first show signs of wear, you can catch things early and reduce the likelihood of more extensive and costly repairs down the road.

But in order to create a regular maintenance structure into your normal routine, you have to have a quality HVAC contractor you can trust to do the job right the first time. How do you find that contractor?

Look For Expertise

Have you done a little research on HVAC contractors? Chances are you’ve discovered that most of them consider themselves to be residential contractors. They may have a small paragraph towards the end of their services page that states “we offer commercial HVAC services too”, but rarely will you find a company dedicated to the needs of commercial accounts.

Here at Total System Services, that’s all we do. We provide commercial HVAC and facility maintenance services here in Boise  and across the Pacific Northwest, and have done so for 30 years.

Why is that important? Because we understand the needs of commercial accounts, and spend our time learning how to offer you the best products and services in the industry. We have been recognized by GSA for our energy savings practices. We’ve become an approved Federal Contractor, and regularly provide O&M services to more than 50 government buildings in the Pacific Northwest. We work hard to maintain compliance with federal, state and local laws and regulations.

Look For Reliability

Reliability is a word that often isn’t synonymous with working with a contractor. In fact, you’ve probably heard horror stories from other business owners when attempting to find a great HVAC contractor to work with.

We take the reliability factor seriously. We know what it means to earn the respect within our community, but more importantly, we understand what it means to provide you with 100 percent customer service. We use the best brands within the heating and air conditioning industries. We are there to service your equipment and answer any questions you may have, regardless of the complexity or size of the problem. We also believe that our ultimate goal is to provide you with a quality service, regardless of how many hours it takes to complete the job. Which is why you’ll never find us charging by the hour, and in fact, you’ll be able to reference our Straightforward Pricing 

Guide to know exactly the fee you’ll be paying.

Reliability means being dependable, consistent, and trustworthy when you need us most.

Look For Quality

Quality comes into play in two ways.

First, find a commercial HVAC contractor that uses only quality parts. A repair does little good if you have to keep repairing it over and over again.

Second, find a commercial HVAC contractor that provides quality services they are willing to stand behind. Nothing is more frustrating than spending the time and money on a repair, only to find out it was a waste of time a short time down the road. Part of a contractors services should be to give you options, let you know how effective a repair will be, and what the implications of that repair will have on your overall system. It also means trusting their advice, and moving forward quickly to keep things running as smooth as possible.

If you have questions about your HVAC system, and are ready to take control over how effectively its managed on a day to day basis, we would appreciate the opportunity to sit down  and speak with you. 

Strategies To Make Your HVAC Projects Run Smoothly

As a manager of a building or property, you quickly learn the art of mediation. One minute you may be working with a vendor to keep the building’s operating system running efficient and smooth; the next moment you may be calming a tenant down after finding the change in the system disrupted his office’s workflow. Give and take; it’s the only way to make sure every day runs perfectly.

Overall, you have two goals to strive for in everything you do.

1. Keep the building running properly, upgrading systems as appropriate, and striving to do all you can on a pre-established budget.

2. Keep the building occupants happy, with as little disruption as possible.

While some changes are minor, barely registering on a building occupant’s mind, with HVAC challenges, that’s rarely the case. If a HVAC contractor is replacing an air handler, for instance, and disconnects one and moves to the next unit, it may cause major disruptions to sensitive areas of a building. And if the occupant wasn’t prepared for the disruption, you can have a mighty unhappy customer on your hand.

Anytime you are working on HVAC projects throughout your building, there are strategies you can put into place to keep things running smooth.

Communicate with occupants

Communication is key to any good relationship, and as a property manager, this rule is a great place to start. If you will be working with the HVAC equipment, block out the timeframe for work to be done, and understand the potential consequences of the process. Then communicate this process with every point of contact you have throughout the building. The more detail you can provide, the less surprises you’ll have throughout the process. You can also work with your building’s occupants before the process begins, finding out if there are better timeframes than others.

Establish a realistic schedule

As a property manager, its easy to provide your expectations for the HVAC project at hand, and request that the proposal be written in such a way that work is completed on your timeframe. Unfortunately, many contractors want your business and will agree to anything upfront in order to win the bid, knowing full well the work will take longer than specified. Instead of projecting your timeframes into the proposal process, ask for HVAC project bids to establish realistic schedules of how long the process will take, and what areas of your property will be most effected throughout the schedule. This will help you avoid crises between you and the contractor, and you and your tenants.

Plan for the whole system

If one small piece of your HVAC system is weak, its easy to fix that one small piece. But how will that impact your overall system? Will it cause weak spots in different parts of the building – maybe a corner office will have reduced air flow, and therefore be colder in the winter and warmer in the summer? When retrofitting new pieces with older existing systems, its easy to reduce the efficiency of your entire system. Before agreeing to certain repairs, make sure you understand how it will impact your entire system overall. An easy way of handling this problem is by working with the same HVAC contractor again and again, He will understand your system’s potential, and know when to make repairs, and when to replace.

Have points of contact available for immediate assistance

In many cases, problems arise because connections can’t be made. Can the HVAC contractor get a hold or you or another person that can make decisions at a moments notice if a problem arises? Do you have access to decision makers throughout the building that may be impacted by this change? Many projects have been put on hold simply because a person in authority can’t be found to give the go-ahead to move forward. If you have access to these people during the time of the project, you’ll be able to complete the project in record time.

Test

Finally, if you can test things in stages, or test when the potential for problems is the smallest, you reduce the chances of bigger emergency issues falling into your lap. If you’ll be installing a new terminal unit, can you make the switch on a Saturday morning when the building is largely unoccupied? If you’re replacing a large system, can you replace and test in phases so the entire project isn’t released at once?

Most issues can be avoided with just a little strategy from the beginning. If you’ve never had a HVAC maintenance team to help you stay on track with your building’s heating and cooling, now may be the time to find out how easy a team approach makes the process. 

Retrofitting Existing Commercial HVAC Equipment For Better Response

When was the last time you updated your HVAC system? If you are like many property managers, your answer may be “that depends”. Unless you have a brand new building, chances are your HVAC equipment was originally installed, and over the years has had significant changes and upgrades. A new piece of equipment here, a new piece of equipment there, and pretty soon your system is a hodge-podge of pieces that all work together to provide you the best service possible.

HVAC equipment can be one of the most expensive systems within your building, and with good reason. Not only does it provide the climate controls to keep building occupants warm in the winter and cool in the summer, it also works to maintain overall air quality, keeping occupants healthy and safe year round as well.

That’s a lot of demands out of one system.

And because of the expense, why change out a piece of equipment if it still has life left in it? As you deal with replacing certain pieces, and repairing others, your system will be retrofitted with new and modified parts that allow your system to continue functioning without complete replacement. In some cases, pieces may need to be changed due to industry standards, or availability issues with parts from the original system.

A common retrofit that is easy to do and is necessary as the industry standards have changed is with a system’s refrigerant. Freon has been phased out in the use of heating and cooling systems, making some building owners choose to retrofit their existing AC units or heat pumps to accommodate alternative refrigerants. New lines may be required based on the refrigerant used and the equipment needed to keep the system in place. While the old system may work just fine, it needs slight modifications to ensure it runs efficiently with the new refrigerant in place.

Another easy change that can have long lasting effects is with a building’s thermostat. Studies show that up to 70 percent of commercial buildings still use standard pneumatic HVAC control systems. By retrofitting the system with a wireless control system, you can easily make your entire building’s energy system more energy efficient, right from day one. By retrofitting with today’s technology, you can easily have the capabilities to:

• Monitor temperature and pressure through a wireless device
• Have immediate notification of deviations
•  Program temperature setbacks for various times throughout the week
•  Provide diagnostics
•  Automatically self-calibrate the system

Even with these few, simple changes, the effects can be long lasting, having the potential of lowering your overall energy costs substantially.

If your HVAC is a hodge-podge of working pieces that all provide you with a system you’ve used for years, you may be able to increase your efficiency simply through regular maintenance and retrofitting a few new parts here and there. To keep your building’s HVAC system running strong doesn’t have to mean costly upgrades and replacing the entire system; it simply means knowing what the right pieces are to replace to give you the efficiency you demand. Let’s get started with an energy audit today. 

Is Your HVAC System In Need Of Repair?

According to several studies, one in three commercial HVAC systems are broken and not operating correctly. One in three.

And while that number may seem unbelievably high, there are other studies that put the problem in more dire straights. Roof top units have a high rate of improper refrigerant charge, low airflow, and problems with the air economizer system, with estimates as great as one in two facing one of these problems.

How can that be?

Commercial HVAC systems are often larger, have more working parts, and therefore often make it more difficult to notice when a problem is occurring. For example, if a building has six roof top units and one fails, it may not be readily noticeable. Yet overall, the efficiency drops significantly.

The broken unit may still try to heat or cool the air; it may pump unconditioned air into the space. It will still use horsepower to run the fan, and turn the motor to continue the flow into the air stream.  But just as much as its sending unconditioned air into the air stream, the other units have to work that much harder to produce the effect that is being called for.

While its easy to see how this can happen, it should be just as easy to see how to prevent it. In today’s world, two things can stop this situation from happening, and allow your HVAC system to run as efficiently as possible every day of its working life:

    1. Schedule regular maintenance to check on the overall efficiency of your HVAC system

    2. Use today’s technology to pinpoint where problems occur

As a building owner or property manager, you realize that there is one common truth when it comes to the physical assets in your building; they will all fail at some point in time. The question becomes when, and how can you prevent it from happening at the most inopportune time?

If you use both tasks regularly, you can quickly spot a problem almost as fast as it occurs, and repair it and maintain it immediately to help prevent even more problems down the road.

Today’s technology can offer you may ways to digitize, track and analyze your system from afar. With today’s energy management systems, you can quickly check to see if your HVAC equipment is running at its optimal level. When you notice even small problems, you can hone in on where the problem originates from, and connect with your HVAC company to determine the best way to proceed. Sometimes it might be determine that immediate repair is needed. Or sometimes it can be fixed on the next regularly schedules maintenance appointment.

In either case, clear records can help you see the track record of your HVAC equipment, and help you maintain it at its optimal level. Not something that’s possible with older units, or systems that aren’t being maintained on a regular basis.

If you’re interested in learning more about how today’s technology is helping run commercial HVAC equipment more effectively, or how a regular maintenance schedule can help you keep problems at bay, give us a call today.