Benefits of Smart Buildings Service

I find we are frequently being asked:

“Can you give me a few quick bullet points on the benefits of Smart Buildings?”

I thought I would share one of my recent responses to a customer as it turned out to be about as concise a response I have recently shared.

Enhance Traditional Preventative Maintenance

Traditional Quarterly Maintenance is essential to keeping HVAC Equipment and associated Controls Systems running properly and extending their life.?In the 3 months between maintenance visits, systems drift from optimal performance and components fail.?Many components of a Mechanical system are not maintainable such as damper and valve actuators for example.?Connecting a building via a Smart Buildings platform allows our HVAC Service team to see system faults before they become comfort issues felt by the building occupants allowing them to take action to mitigate.?Most of our emergency service calls are driven by comfort issues that pop up between maintenance visits and the repairs cost a premium as they are unplanned.?Some minor issues highlighted by the Smart Buildings team can be put off to the next maintenance interval and prioritized by the Maintenance technician.

Continuous Commissioning

On complex mechanical systems, maintaining the major equipment alone doesn’t necessarily address how well this equipment is working in concert with one another.?Smart Building Service is a form of Monitoring Based Commissioning (MBCx) that monitors the performance of the entire system alerting us to faults when the system is not operating as designed even if the major equipment is operating properly.?A great real-life example of this is a failing heating water control valve that is slightly open on an air handling unit during the cooling season causing simultaneous heating and cooling.?This is not something that can easily be seen by a Service technician but can be seem through the fault analytics of Smart Buildings.?Monitoring Based Comissiong is also way to meet the Washington State Clean Building standards taking effect over the next few years.?Many utiltities such as Seattle City Light are offering rebates for buildings that implement Monitoring Based Commissioning.

Reduce Operations Costs and Capital Expenditures

The overall outcome of the Smart Building Service vs traditional preventative maintenance alone is a reduction in operational cost.?In some cases, the onsite preventative maintenance frequency can be reduced thus lowering fixed costs.?Less emergency service calls and unplanned repairs leads to a more predictable repair budget.?Systems running at peak performance use less energy annually.?Equipment that is not being overworked lasts longer, thus extending the replacement intervals and reducing capital expense over time.

Learn more: Smart Building Services