If you are a facility manager or building owner, chances are you’ve had questions about your air conditioning system. You may hesitate to ask your service technician (whom you’re probably paying by the hour) in the middle of a repair visit. It can be frustrating to try and find straightforward answers when you’re not an expert, so we have put together a handy guide with answers to the most common questions we hear every day.Read More
Commercial HVAC
Does Your HVAC Service Provider Have a Disaster Recovery Plan?
It seems like every day we wake up to find that another natural disaster or emergency has wreaked havoc on cities, businesses and countless lives. It’s enough to keep a business owner up at night, wondering if your business could survive such a situation. What would you do if it happened to you?
It’s no secret that having a disaster recovery plan can make the difference between getting back up and running after a catastrophe and losing your business permanently. You probably have plans in place for evacuation, communication with employees and customers, power supply and data access. But there is an equally important aspect of emergency planning that many fail to consider: are your service providers prepared for disasters, and will they be able to respond when you need them most?Read More
Clean HVAC System Condenser Coils = Lower Energy Bills
New York City air is rough on air conditioners. Especially on those hot days when your air conditioner needs to work at peak capacity, it’s easy to see the air quality problems in the brown haze that hangs over the city. The high levels of airborne soot and debris cause buildup on the outdoor components of your air conditioning unit, most notably the condenser coil.
Did you know that only 1/100th of an inch of dirt buildup on your air conditioner’s condenser coil reduces its efficiency by 5 percent? Buildup on the coils means your equipment has to work harder to cool your building, and when it works harder, it uses more energy. That means higher energy costs for you. If your air conditioner has not been serviced in a while, the buildup of dirt and debris on the condenser coils could be increasing your electric bill by as much as 20 to 30 percent.Read More
Go Mobile or Go Home: Why Your HVAC Vendor Should Be Using Mobile Technology
Does your HVAC service technician show up with a paper work order in hand? Does he continuously have to go out to the truck to call the office for information? When you want to pay with a credit card, does he scribble down the information on a piece of paper?
If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then you should consider switching to a provider that uses more efficient hand held mobile devices to support the work order process. Devices can include smart phones, tablet computers, and dedicated wireless devices. Use of the latest communication technology is not just easier for the provider, but results in quicker response times, better security and more reliable service for you.Read More
Facility Management, Your Commercial HVAC System and the Most Effective Choice You’ll Make All Week
If you could delegate half of your job, which half would it be? If you manage a large enterprise facility, it’s probably the hours you spend on the phone scheduling service calls, ordering parts, and handling stacks of invoices.
Believe it or not, you can delegate this half of your job while also saving your company money and improving the performance and lifespan of your equipment. But how? Hiring someone is out of the question, and unfortunately cloning yourself is not possible quite yet.
This is a job for a facilities management software system.Read More
HVAC System Maintenance: Why Your Mechanical Contractor Can’t Get the Job Done
It’s 92 degrees in the shade, and the temperature hovers at a tropical 85 in your building. Your employees are calling in sick and your customers are walking out the door. You’ve put in three calls to your air conditioning service provider, with no response.
This frustrating situation is probably all too familiar if the mechanical contractor that installed your HVAC system is still servicing it. If this is the case, chances are you have experienced these warning signs that your mechanical contractor is providing sub-par service:Read More