Energy Saving Tips To Improve HVAC

Older Roof Top unit.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the average commercial building wastes around 30 percent of the energy it consumes. That means that as a property manager, if you haven’t taken any steps to improve your building’s efficiency in the last few years, it may be wasting even more. If that’s the case, you’ll find many opportunities to improve, some that you can implement immediately and will have lasting impact well into the future.

Tip #1 Start With An Energy Audit and Inspection

Its hard to know where you can make improvements and save energy if you have no idea what shape your current equipment is in. So the best place to start is by calling and having a HVAC contractor come out and perform an inspection on your existing equipment. Before the inspection, perform your own audit by collecting the utility bills from the past year. Also pull any records for service, repair or maintenance. These can show trends that have been happening throughout your building, and help the contractor understand where potential problems may lie. Equipment that is breaking down regularly is probably in poor condition, meaning its also wasting energy. You may be surprised to learn how much you can save by upgrading to a new, more efficient unit.

Tip #2 Educate Building Occupants About Energy Savings

One of the best ways to increase your buildings efficiency is to bring all building occupants on board. Training sessions can help employees or tenants learn more about how to best use the equipment in the building, how much savings little things can make (such as powering down computers at night), and can provide tips for reporting problems in a quicker manner. Is it easy for employees/tenants to report a leaky faucet or a running toilet? Many people understand the importance of energy efficiency, and have taken steps to make their homes more efficient; they will care about where they work too if you give them the opportunity.

New Roof Top Unit. 

Tip #3 Timers and Program Controls

Why heat or cool your building when its not in use? One of the easiest ways to save energy is to control the temperature when the building is empty. Depending on the size of your building, you can use a programmable thermostat for a smaller operation, or a timing automation system for larger buildings, and have the air conditioning, heat and lights turned down during off hours.

Tip #4 Upgrade Your Insulation

Depending on the age of your building, the insulation may not be up to par. This goes beyond upgrading your windows. Adding insulation around pipes, HVAC duct work, and around electrical outlets reduces the amount of energy lost during normal every day function. If your building is older, it may be time to clean and inspect the ducts. Over time, ducts can wear down, with leaks or holes forming in the system. As these form, cool air from air conditioning and warm air from heating seep out into the walls and utility space of the building. This can further break down insulation in these areas. By fixing the duct work and upgrading insulation, the energy efficiency of your building can be increased dramatically.

Tip #5 Set Up A Maintenance Schedule For Your HVAC Equipment

Chillers, boilers, heating and cooling equipment all lose efficiency over time when they aren’t cleaned regularly and operate at a less than optimal level. For example, if dust and debris accumulates on the coils of your air conditioning system, the heat transfer is compromised and the unit will not cool effectively. As it works harder, it loses its efficiency levels. Regular maintenance means changing air filters to keep dust and contaminants out of the system. It means checking and cleaning all parts to make sure they are in good working condition. Changing little things along the way not only helps your system work better, it helps you avoid large emergency costs too that can come with larger, more unexpected breakdowns.

 If you’re ready to improve the efficiency of your commercial building, give us a call today. 

6 Mistakes You Shouldn’t Make While Heating Your Home This Year

1.   TURNING UP A THERMOSTAT TOO HIGH TO HEAT A COLD HOUSE- Thermostats don’t work like an accelerator on a car… turning the heat up to blistering levels won’t warm your house any faster. BE PATIENT!
2. TURNING THE THERMOSTAT WAY DOWN AT NIGHT- Avoided extremes with your thermostat… don’t require your heating system to do a lot of work to warm the house in the morning.
3.  OVERWORKING A THERMOSTAT THAT HAS ITS LIMITS- Do not force your furnace to work beyond its capability. Instead, find out what’s causing the problem and fix it.
4. HEATING AN EMPTY HOUSE – Heating an empty house is one of the easiest ways to ways your money…. A programmable thermostat can save hundreds of dollars every year.
5. LEAVING CURTAINS CLOSED ON SUNNY DAYS- Open the curtains to allow as much heating sunlight in to your dwelling as possible.
6.  KEEP WINDOWS UNLOCKED- if you forget to lock those windows up before the cold weather arrive, take the time now to ensure all windows are locked and sealed to keep warm are for escaping. 

When it comes to providing a quality work environment and protecting a building’s occupants against indoor air pollutants, an air filter becomes one of the most important components of a HVAC system.

Today’s facility managers have a wide variety of concerns to keep a building operational. Increasingly, clean air is topping the list. Studies have come out showing poor indoor air quality can cause nasal congestion, headaches, nausea, fatigue, serious infections, asthma, and even chronic conditions such as lung disease. Those with compromised immune systems, especially infants and the elderly, are at a greater risk of developing symptoms due to inadequate air quality.

But its not just health that is at stake. Poor indoor air quality costs the US economy around $160 billion annually in increased medical costs and in reduced productivity. Adults are missing around 24.5 million days of work every year just for symptoms attributed to poor indoor air quality.

The first line of defense is preventing pollutants from entering a building’s air supply is ensuring the incoming air flow is unobstructed. Which means one of the most important jobs an HVAC system has to do is protect the air through an effective air filtration system, which will reduce microorganisms, dust, allergens and other pollutants.

Selecting an appropriate air filter is one of the first steps in achieving quality air. Most filters on the market today have a Minimum Efficiency Reporting Value (MERV) rating. A MERV 1 is the lowest level, which means it’s the least efficient type of filter. The highest level is a MERV 16, and is the most efficient. Most filtration experts agree that if you install an air filter within the MERV 14-16 range, you’ll be providing the best for the system. Also select a filter that offers a balance of mechanical and electret efficiency.

Using a proper air filter is only the starting point for cleaner air. To keep an HVAC system running properly, its important to maintain the overall system as well. A dirty HVAC system is a breeding ground for mold, bacteria and viruses. Its important to remove debris on a regular basis, both by vacuuming and blowing out dirt and dust from the area.

Air filters also only work as well as the quality of the air filter. If its old and dirty, it can’t do its job effectively. Make sure your air filters are routinely cleaned and changed for optimal performance.

If you have any questions about the quality of your indoor air, or don’t have a regular maintenance schedule in place for your HVAC system, isn’t it time for a change?

How To Avoid Office Temperature Fluctuations With Your Commercial HVAC System

Fall is a difficult time of the year. From one day to the next, you can experience 10, 20, even 30 degrees or more of fluctuation in the temperature. Add in rain and humidity, and its easy to see why a building’s HVAC system can have a difficult time keeping up with the demands. The environment changes from one moment to the next, and your HVAC system doesn't know whether to keep it hot or keep it cold.

The result? Throughout your building, there will be spots that many consider overheated, or simply not warm enough. High humidity may start causing condensation buildup, and mold and mildew may quickly start contaminating the air. And when the air isn't as clean as it should be, it can quickly have an impact on your employees or tenants.

Your job as the property manager or building owner is to provide a comfortable atmosphere for all that reside there. But if its an uncomfortable environment, they are already taking matters into their own hands.

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     They bring in personal fans and space heaters to keep underneath their desks. This continues to impact your building’s hot and cold zones by misleading the sensors that are trying to keep individual areas of the building at certain temperatures.

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     They block air vents. Nobody likes a cold stream of air blowing down on them as they sit at their desk, especially if they run cold anyway. Walk around the building and you’ll probably find a vent or two with paper or cardboard taped over the vent, attempting to control the situation on their own.

The only thing these do-it-yourself strategies do is cause more problems with the efficiency of your HVAC system, and compromise the safety guidelines of your work-space. Personal heaters, for instance, can be a fire hazard and can even lead to power outages throughout your building.

In many cases, employees begin to assume that working in a building means they’ll consistently be combating the hot/cold problem, and will more often than not have to take matters into their own hands. But as a property manager or building owner, realize that there are many things you can do, and it all starts with a phone call to your local HVAC contractor.

Regular maintenance with an HVAC system can often find and fix the little problems before they even begin. Your hot/cold zones may be caused by something as simple as a clogged duct or a dirty air filter.

There’s also a chance your system hasn’t been changed or updated to keep up with demand. If the building layout has changed and usage has increased, the duct work should be configured to keep up with the demand. Even something as simple as changing the layout of cubicles could have a major impact on the efficiency of the HVAC system.

If you've noticed more space heaters making their way into your building, or have received more than one complaint from tenants this fall as the weather turns colder, it might be time for your HVAC system to be evaluated. With hundreds of components and thousands of working parts, your HVAC system may be costing you more than you realize. Find out today how you can make your system more efficient, and keep your tenants and employees happy all season long. 

How HVAC Impacts Your Building’s Clean Air

The term HVAC is fairly straightforward and easy for most to understand. It consists of three parts: heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, all necessary for keeping the environment within your building comfortable all year through. However there is another part to the HVAC system that few building owners think about – the control. Control determines how effective your HVAC system is during operation, and how well it meets the goals of comfort, safety and cost effectiveness.

Heating can be accomplished in different ways. It can be supplied by heating the air within a space through a supply air system, or by using radiant heat through equipment like radiant panels.

Ventilation controls the delivery system. It can be accomplished passively through natural ventilation, or through active methods of distribution powered with fans. Ventilation mixes gases with the air we breathe in order to provide the proper balance for breathing, controlling odors, and even removing contaminants from the air supply.

Air conditioning is the process of controlling both the air temperature and the humidity levels within a room. Cool air is not comfortable if it is too humid. Therefore its important to have a proper cooling system in place that removes moisture while cooling, leaving you comfortable in the process.

With all three in place, the control ensures a variety of things. Above all, it provides comfort and safety for the building occupants. It also ensures equipment safety, helping you maintain your investment at optimal levels for long periods of time. It can even provide you with effective ways to conserve energy, and therefore help you save money over time. An HVAC system accounts for nearly 40 percent of the energy used within a commercial building, meaning its one of the most important systems to monitor and improve to realize significant savings.  

Within most building environments, a property owner assumes that if the heat works in the winter, and the cooling works in the summer, the proper equipment is in place. But that isn’t always the case. The best heating or cooling system in the world will not be effective and run at its optimal level if the ventilation system isn't adequate for the surrounding area.

And if the ventilation system doesn't allow the proper heating or cooling to take place, it can also be deficient in other ways, all of which can impact the quality of the air supply you and the building occupants take in every day.

If you've ever heard of the term Sick Building Syndrome, keep in mind that this condition is real. This is a condition where medical symptoms are worse in a particular building or room, then subside when the person moves away from that location. If the ventilation system isn’t doing its job, it can allow a buildup of a variety of things within that building or room. Mold, mildew, bacteria, viruses, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, etc can all come into play and be a part of the indoor air quality problem. 

While there can be a variety of reasons why air quality is bad within a building, one of the most predominant reasons starts with the HVAC system. HVAC systems for commercial buildings draw in air from the outside, and condition it to adjust to the proper temperature requested for the inside of the building. If the ventilation isn’t adequate for the job, the process will be compromised. By upgrading and improving the ventilation system, it will be able to pull in more fresh air while expelling more “dirty” indoor air back to the outside before it can do harm.

While in writing, it’s a simple solution, it takes a professional commercial HVAC contractor to evaluate your system and determine what controls are in place. He can find where deficiencies exist and make recommendations on the best way to improve your system, both to keep your building’s air clean and breathable, and to save you energy and money overall.

Call us today if you would like a complete evaluation of your system, to determine if its truly adequate for your needs and requirements.

Dealing With The Most Common HVAC Problem: Mold

As an HVAC contractor, we clean, repair and maintain a lot of HVAC systems over the course of a year. And one of the most common problems we see is the presence of mold. Let’s face it, mold grows quickly in wet environments. And when a building uses a forced-air HVAC system, mold will definitely be a part of the picture more often than not.

But that doesn't mean it can’t be dealt with in an efficient way. Mold is always present in your building’s HVAC system. Which means its always present in your building’s environment. They key is reaching it and maintaining it before it can grow and flourish and begin effecting the occupants sick.

According to the EPA, a routine check of the HVAC system should be made throughout the year not just to look for mold, but to look for moisture as well.

HVAC systems produce condensation in a variety of ways. Which is why HVAC systems have both condensation pans and drainage systems to carry the water away. If they are plugged or not flowing freely, moisture accumulates and mold begins.

Yet its not just these areas that are prone to moisture. Moisture can quickly accumulate anywhere – air handlers, blowers, filters. Because the surrounding area is always changing, any piece of the system can be at risk in certain situations. If we receive several weeks of moisture, for instance, and the roof has a leak, that water supply can travel all over your building, and quickly get into unintended spots, including your HVAC system.

This is where regular inspection comes into play.

If you see mold or even suspect mold, its important to act right away. Mold can grow in as little as 48 hours, so the sooner you act the better.

Start by turning off your HVAC system. The more it spreads, the more damage you will have, the more clean up will be required. If you can contain it to certain areas, the easier clean up will be.

If anyone on your staff – maintenance or janitorial staff – is involved in the cleanup, remember all involved should take precautions and wear at least an N-95 respirator.

There are specific steps to take when mold is in play. If your staff isn't trained in mold removal, don’t attempt to do it on your own. As a reputable HVAC contractor, we have the skills and the resources necessary to ensure cleanup is performed in a safe way.

Do you have further questions about mold? You can visit the EPA website,. http://epa.gov/mold/, and learn more than you ever wanted to know about mold

Then give us a call. Remember, regular maintenance and inspection will help your HVAC system perform its best and run efficiently as possible all year long. And when you have special circumstances, we’ll help you recover in the shortest amount of time possible. We’re here for all of your HVAC needs. 

HVAC Repair or Replace?

Installing a new roof top unit in Walla Walla, WA. 

The most common question in the HVAC industry: Should I repair my HVAC equipment or replace it? If you can get a few more years out of your current equipment simply by fixing it, it may be worth the effort. Yet if you’ll have to keep putting money into it in the coming months, it may be time to reap the benefits of installing new. But how do you know?

One reason its such a common question is there isn’t a right or wrong answer. Many factors go into making the final decision, and more than often its left to a gut decision by the property owner. Consider the following.

How old is your equipment?

Most light commercial equipment has a useful life of around 15 to 20 years under optimal conditions. The more stress equipment has been under, the shorter the time span. For instance, if the HVAC equipment is outside on the roof, it will experience harsher conditions than if its located in the basement of a building. The closer your equipment is to the useful life of 15 to 20 years, the harsher the conditions your equipment faces every day, the more you should consider investing in new equipment when a problem comes along.

What’s the service history of your equipment?

How well the HVAC equipment has been cared for has a major impact on the lifespan. Has it been cleaned and serviced regularly by trained HVAC professionals? If so, then many of the parts may be in good shape and you can expect a longer life out of your equipment. It also helps if you are under a HVAC service contract in which the same company routinely checks and maintains your equipment. They will have a running track record of what’s been done, what’s changed, and any problems or concerns that may be in place.

What’s the current problem?

Some problems are easier to

fix and aren’t as impactful as others. If it’s a simple fix, like an electrical connection for instance, a repair is probably the way to go. If, however, the compressor goes and its an older unit, it may be time to replace. When a key component of a system breaks down and the equipment has reached a certain age, you’re almost always better off replacing beca
use of the increase in technology and the energy savings you’ll gain.

Is it time to go green?

Let’s face it, as business owners, we’re all trying to do our part when it comes to making our properties more energy efficient. And if you read any industry publication, you’ll find many ways to accomplish your goals. If its been more than a few years since you’ve replaced old technology, updating it can provide you with a wealth of savings. Today’s units use more environmentally friendly refrigerants that don’t deplete the ozone layer. They also have energy savings technology built in to make them run more efficiently and provide the savings on to you through your energy bills. Environmental issues also come into play when replacing a unit – ask your HVAC contractor about recycling old equipment to keep it out of the landfill.

Newly installed  roof top unit in Walla Walla, WA. 

Is it time to improve comfort levels?

In the property management world, nothing stays the same. The tenants you had in place and the structure of the building at the time you installed your original HVAC equipment have all changed many times over. With those changes comes reconfiguration of ventilation, and in some cases your system’s capacity might not be adequate for your current space. If you’ve noticed temperature variances in the building, air quality problems, hot or cold spots, humidity issues, odors, or even “sick building” symptoms from your occupants, it may be time to replace your HVAC equipment with new technology. Your contractor can evaluate your current situation, usage and capacity needs, and increase the comfort level of the building by providing proper equipment throughout.

If you are in a repair or replace situation, the best place to start is by calling a HVAC company like Total Systems Services Inc. We have been providing commercial HVAC services to the Pacific Northwest for over 25 years, and we’d be happy to assist you with all of your needs.