Coil Cleaners Don’t Have To Be Harsh, Caustic or Corrosive

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency | Click Here To Add Your Comment Now

As you all know, we at Just Venting are big fans (pun intended) of keeping your HVAC system in tip-top condition. We never waste a chance to tell you how proper maintenance and cleaning will give you better performance at a lower cost. › Continue reading

Tags: coil cleaning, energy savings, HVAC Maintenance, HVAC systems

How To Hire An Outside Contractor For Your HVAC System

Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency | Click Here To Add Your Comment Now

If you have ever considered hiring an outside contractor, you know that there is no shortage of companies out there that are willing to separate you from your budget dollars.

When when you must decide whether to perform a maintenance or repair job in-house or bring in an outside vendor to work on your HVAC system, how do you decide which makes more sense?  Sometimes it is a fairly straightforward decision, as when a supplier has specific expertise or equipment that you and your employees don’t have.  But sometimes it is hard to tell if it would be smarter to farm it out or keep it in-house.

› Continue reading

Tags: coil cleaning, energy efficiency, hvac, HVAC efficiency, HVAC equipment

New Technologies Will Require Old Maintenance

Monday, March 1st, 2010
Green Buildings & Green Technology | Click Here To Add Your Comment Now

The media have been reporting a great deal about new clean, green and sustainable means of power generation. Whether it is solar, wind, geothermal or biomass, there is a tremendous amount of effort, time and money being poured into those technologies. › Continue reading

Tags: energy efficiency, green buildings, Green Buildings & Green Technology, power generation

Maintenance Is Critical To Maintain Chiller Performance and Efficiency

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
Building Management Systems (BMS), HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency | Click Here To Add Your Comment Now

A properly planned and executed maintenance program is critical to both extend the life of your investment in your chillers and operate them at peak efficiency. Critical aspects include reducing fouling and scale, inspecting refrigerants and keeping a daily log. › Continue reading

Tags: chillers, energy efficiency, HVAC Maintenance, HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency, U.S. Department of Energy

Ductwork Cleaning Is A Two-Step Process

Monday, February 22nd, 2010
Building Energy Performance | Click Here To Add Your Comment Now

Once you have made the decision to clean your ductwork, the next question is, what is the best way to go about it? Cleaning ductwork is basically a two-step operation. One step involves using a rotating brush or some other mechanical means to dislodge and loosen any dirt, mold or dust that is attached to the metal of your ductwork. The other step is removing the loosened dirt and mold from the system. › Continue reading

Tags: air conditioning systems, energy efficiency, energy savings, HVAC Maintenance

The More Chillers Change The More They Stay The Same – And Need The Same Maintenance

Monday, February 15th, 2010
HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency | Click Here To Add Your Comment Now

A new Canadian company is marketing chillers with some pretty cutting edge technologies, and it is making significant inroads into the international markets. › Continue reading

Tags: chillers, HVAC Maintenance, HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency, HVAC system

To Clean Or Not To Clean – Your Ductwork — That Is The Question

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010
Energy Saving Tips, HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency | Click Here To Add Your Comment Now

To clean or not to clean – your ductwork – that is the question. Well, at least it used to be the question. Now it has been answered – clean it. Most experts agree you should clean your ductwork at the very least on an as-needed basis, and some say even more often. › Continue reading

Tags: energy efficiency, Energy Saving Tips, HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency, indoor air quality

Proper Filter Maintenance Cuts Coil Cleaning Costs

Monday, February 8th, 2010
HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency | 1 Comment So Far Add Yours

Among the many factors that influence the overall condition of your HVAC system, filtration is right up there at the top. And while they might not seem directly related, your choice of filter and the frequency of filter changes has a direct bearing on how often you will need to perform other maintenance functions such as coil cleaning. › Continue reading

Tags: coil cleaning, filter maintenance, HVAC filters, iaq, indoor air quality, MERV filter efficiency

New Laws Create New Challenges – LEED V3, ASHRAE 189.1 and CalGreen

Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010
Energy Saving Legislation, Green Building Codes, HVAC Regulations and Standards, LEED | Click Here To Add Your Comment Now

We at Just Venting have always kept you posted on key developments in the industry – especially about all the new regulations that will affect you in the future. LEED V3, ASHRAE 189.1 and CalGreen are all important pieces of legislation, and they will affect the way we do business for years to come. And while they may approach it from different directions – and they may from time to time come into conflict with one another – the one thing that all these new laws have in common is that they want us to use less energy. › Continue reading

Tags: ASHRAE 189.1, building management, CalGreen, energy efficiency, HVAC expenses, LEED V3

Deferred Chiller Maintenance Comes With Hidden Costs

Monday, February 1st, 2010
HVAC Deferred Maintenance, HVAC Maintenance and Efficiency | Click Here To Add Your Comment Now

Chiller maintenance deferred is chiller maintenance denied. We’ve all heard stories about delaying or rescheduling maintenance procedures that we once did without a second thought when the economy wasn’t…well, lousy. You probably dismiss as urban legend the horror stories about failed chillers and clogged coils leading to catastrophic incidents. Sadly, they are true.

There are lots of reasons why important tasks like chiller maintenance might be put off .  They range from “We don’t have the manpower right now because we’re all busy with project X,” to “I really hate that job because I can’t stand wearing a respirator and rubber gloves,” to the ever popular “We just can’t afford it this quarter, we’re already over our budget.”

Our reply is “You can’t afford not to do it”.

A too-little-used term in this business is “first-level failure”. In general, this is when a mechanical system begins operating outside of normal parameters. A good example would be a chiller with just a little bit of fouling in its coils. First-level failure in this case, according to process-cooling.com, will be characterized by several subtle and unnoticed, conditions:

• elevated compressor head pressure
• poor airflow through the coils
• increased power consumption
• reduction in true cooling tonnage capacity
• Increased compressor cycling

None of these are good. They start out slow and their effect on your overall system may be negligible. But as time goes on, the effect becomes more and more pronounced. If you keep daily maintenance logs – and you should be – you’ll see the trends in your figures on power consumption and operating pressures.

Sooner or later, if you put off maintenance long enough, you will have a failure. If you are lucky only the chiller will fail, causing you to incur the costs of repairing it and whatever it costs you in lost production time. If you are unlucky, whatever your chiller was keeping cool will also fail. Deferring maintenance doesn’t make the need for it go away. All it means is that your chiller expenses will rise and the chiller will chill less as the likelihood of a failure increases.

For what it’s worth, the way to look at the question of chiller – or any building system – maintenance is not what it will cost to do it, but rather what it will cost if you don’t.

Rich Silverman
Goodway Blogging Team

Image by Dieder Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons Under a Creative Commons Generic License

Tags: chiller coil fouling, chiller expense, chiller maintenance, daily maintenance logs, deferred maintenance, first level failure