Did you know that as much as 50% of your building’s energy consumption is used by your HVAC system? Any day now, the temperatures will start to soar into the 80’s and 90’s, and your electricity bills will rise along with the temperatures. You need to keep your building cool, so how can you save money? The good news is, there are smart ways to help your air conditioning system use less energy.Read More
Preventive Maintenance Agreements
Top 10 Questions Facility Managers Should Ask NYC HVAC Contractors
If you’ve been with your current HVAC vendor for years (even if it was a happy marriage at first) your relationship can unravel to the point where it’s time to move on. When you’re waiting for a repair, are they MIA for hours with no phone call? Do they send untrained technicians who don’t understand your system? Are they negligent about doing preventative maintenance? Do they leave a mess behind?
If you’re experiencing lousy response times and sub-par service from your HVAC vendor, you may be putting off “breaking it off” because it’s such a daunting task to find someone better. How can you tell which of the thousands of HVAC contractors in the New York City area can be counted on to provide great service?Read More
Top 6 Frequently Asked Questions about Air Conditioning Systems
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
Could Your New York HVAC System Be Making You Sick?
Yesterday was Earth Day, and here at Arista we work hard to be environmental leaders in the HVAC&R industry, both in our offices and in the field. We created our Blue Sky Initiative to inform our community about currently available clean and green practices. We believe that we can all be comfortable without sacrificing air quality or overtaxing our natural resources. In honor of Earth Day, this post is dedicated to one of the key ways regular HVAC maintenance can actually help promote a healthy environment!
Rooftop HVAC Units: Out of Sight Shouldn’t Mean Out of Mind
You probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the roof of your building. Why should you? It’s just there to keep you sheltered, safe and comfortable. As long as it’s not leaking, there’s not much to think about, right? Wrong. There’s something up there that desperately needs your attention: your HVAC rooftop unit.
An HVAC rooftop unit (known as an RTU) provides the heating, cooling and most of the ventilation for light commercial spaces, such as office buildings, stores and shopping centers, restaurants and schools. An RTU is a single assembled unit that includes a condenser and an evaporator coil for cooling, a heat source and a fan for forced air heating, and an opening for the intake of outside air.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
