Well, we saw the sun today, and since it was for more than 10 minutes we figure it must be spring!
Spring comes with decisions to make about your air conditioning and HVAC equipment – and how to get it ready for another hot summer (we hope!). Along with the general maintenance and filter changes on your equipment, we also recommend an inspection of your condensing coils. What’s that? Basically, the most common types of air conditioners use an ‘air to air’ system which involves pulling outside air over a coil to a fan, and that cools the unit. Over time dirt and dust build up on the coil, reducing efficiency and costing you money.
We get asked a lot how often a coil should be cleaned, and should it be done every year? The short answer is that it very much depends on how much the equipment is used, and how much dirt is in the air where you are located. Most equipment running on a normal work week, without any major pollutants around will probably be okay for two or even three years. Of course, the best judge of this will be your HVAC provider who will be able to let you know how dirty the coil is, and whether it needs cleaned.
One last tip for this month – with spring comes cottonwood! Depending on your location, some days it can even look as though it’s snowing. These are the cottonwood seeds, and they are a menace to all your equipment! If you are in an area with a lot of cottonwood it’s best to wait until after the worst of it is over to clean your coils, otherwise you’ll just end up having to clean it twice.
Caledonia Integrated Services is an Energy Management, HVAC and Electrical company, serving Vancouver and BC area. We actively encourage feedback, comments and questions. You can leave a message here, or look us up on Facebook and Twitter. Of course, you can always e- mail us too!
What does a water leak have to do with a bird? Well, sometimes we get call outs to a water leak where the ceiling is full of water and it’s right below the air conditioner. All air conditioners have what’s called a ‘P’ trap and this is there to let the water drain away from the unit. It has a trapped bit of water so that air can’t come in or out of the unit (similar to the ‘U’ pipe under your sink).
Roof top air conditioning units tend to have the ‘P’ trap on the side so that it can just drain onto the roof and then use the existing drainage system. BUT, on a hot summers day, when water is in short supply, birds know that there is water in the trap. Being highly intelligent, they go collect rocks and drop them into the trap, raising the water level so they can take a drink! Over time your drain trap becomes clogged with these rocks to the point that the water can no longer drain, causing the air conditioner to fill with water and leak into your building.
A good maintenance program is essential for roof top units, and another easy fix is to put a 90 degree fitting on the end of the trap so the birds can no longer reach the water.
Caledonia Integrated Services is an Energy Management, HVAC and Electrical company serving Vancouver and the BC area. Always putting customer needs first, we constantly look for ways for you to save energy and money.
When doing a Energy Management building assessment for a client this becomes my number one question. Most times I am met with a blank look, or they have been told never to touch the equipment, or it’s always just been left on since they started. With the rising price of energy and the cost of equipment repair and replacement, the days of ‘just letting it run’ are behind us. HVAC equipment, heaters, A/C, exhaust fans, ceiling fans, lights, furnaces, and other equipment specific to the building or business should all be turned off if and when possible.
A good example of how this can save you money is a walk around I did recently. I noticed the building was running a gas dehumidifier and asked ‘the’ question. Well, it turned out that it ran 24/7 so we put a simple controller on it so it would turn off at night when it was not needed. When they got their next gas bill in the mail they were saving almost $5000 A MONTH (yes, I did say $5000 – that’s $60,000 a year!) just by implementing this simple step.
So, spend some time walking around your building asking ‘the’ question – you and your business will be glad you did.
Caledonia Integrated Services is an Energy Management, HVAC and Electrical company, serving Vancouver and BC area. Our focus is Energy Management – saving you money whilst saving the environment.
You’ve probably heard this phrase banded about – but do you know what it means? Well, ‘high’ efficiency basically means that it is over 90% efficient (to compare; a ‘mid’ efficiency runs at under 80%). To achieve this the equipment must take more heat out of the gas, which is done by adding a heat exchanger designed to pull the very last bit of heat, before it is exhausted out of the building. In doing this, the gas is cooled so much that some of the water in the gas is condensed, which is why newer heating systems need to have a drainage system. The cooler temperatures in the gas also mean that venting can be plastic PVC and, instead of needing a chimney, can now be expelled out the side of the building.
Due to the water that’s produced by these systems special care needs to be taken during installation (for example, all vent piping must be sloped back to the furnace so the water can drain away). As you can see from the attached video (taken on a cold day) the exhaust from a high efficiency furnace is very similar to a dryer vent.
Caledonia Integrated Services is an Energy Management, HVAC and Electrical company, serving Vancouver and BC area. We actively encourage feedback, comments and questions. You can leave a message here, or look us up on Facebook and Twitter. Of course, you can always e- mail us too!
It probably does if my experience is anything to go by! I can’t tell you how many businesses, offices, and even warehouses I have gone to and seen a thermostat like this photo. It starts simply enough….someone is cold and turns the thermostat up a bit, and then someone else is too hot and turns it down. Then a note gets added, and then another. Soon the boss is getting tired of this and sticks on a note saying “DO NOT TOUCH’, so then everyone starts sneaking in to change the stat!
In the end this does not lead to a happy work place, staff fighting staff and management against staff. One solution is that no-one touches the stat except management or the HVAC tech, which can work if the rules are followed (there are still the sneaky people though!). Other options are that the thermostat’s settings can be ‘locked’, or you can install a thermostat guard which is a clear plastic box that needs a key to open.
A better solution is an Energy Management system, which means the thermostat can be locked out or even removed all together. If, for any reason, a member of staff is unhappy with the setting they can e-mail their manager and ask for the temperature to be adjusted. The manager just needs to login on-line and change the stat if required. One thing we have noticed over the years is that by just removing the thermostat and replacing it with a sensor staff seem to be happier. With no number to see and fixate on people don’t seem to get so hot and cold! One more advantage to the Energy Management System.
Caledonia Integrated Services is an Energy Management, HVAC and Electrical company, serving Vancouver and BC area. We actively encourage feedback, comments and questions. You can leave a message here, or look us up on Facebook and Twitter. Of course, you can always e- mail us too!
Program your thermostat. One of the easiest ways to save money is to control the number of operating hours, to ensure it’s only on when it’s needed! Less usage will also translate as less maintenance costs and, of course, less energy consumed. There are now internet controlled stats on the market which mean you can control settings anywhere at the touch of a button.
Changing filters. Dirty, clogged up filters will affect the efficiency of your a/c system. Ideally filters should be changed every 3 months to ensure optimum performance.
Cleaning coils and fans. Similarly, dirty coils and fans will increase energy consumption of your equipment and cost you more. Equipment should be cleaned at least once a year.
Updating equipment. The older the machine, the slower and more energy thirsty it will be! Regular maintenance will prolong the life, but eventually it will be much more cost effective to replace aging systems.
Cleaning burners. If heating burners are allowed to get dirty they will clog up and prevent proper combustion of the gas. This will affect the efficiency of the unit.
Well, you could try asking your staff to turn down the thermostat and turn off unused lighting. However, this rarely works because:
no one remembers
thermostats are too confusing to use
too many people press buttons, without knowing what they’re doing…
which ends up with some areas cooling whilst others are heating
and finally, units are left to run 24 hours a day, all of which costs you a fortune
In the past the so called solution was a building control system which costs tens of thousands of dollars. Control of this building system would be put on a computer in the basement, together with a very confusing program, which the maintenance staff were expected to run.
But now there’s new technology that makes management of energy costs and comfort levels easy — a building control system that can manage either one stat on its own or an entire building, and can be controlled from any computer in the world.
In a word – yes! The old style mercury thermostats (with the little glass tube and the blob of mercury) have become outdated by modern technology and the digital thermostat.
These days the digital thermostats are mini computers that control your heating and cooling equipment (HVAC). The newer equipment is much more sophisticated than the older systems, so modern thermostats have safe guards built in to protect the equipment. New thermostats need to be programmed specifically for your equipment and needs, and this should be done by your HVAC provider when the equipment is being set up. Programming can be complicated and you will need the manual to do it properly. If you’re not sure of the controls it’s best not to attempt it yourself, you could end up damaging your equipment. A good energy management system is useful under these circumstances as all the settings can be checked over the internet, which will save you the cost of calling out an HVAC technician.
Finally, if you are still the proud owner of a mercury thermostat – it’s time for an upgrade! Mercury thermostats can damage newer equipment as they can turn on and off too fast, or be influenced by rapid temperature changes. Some manufacturers even warn that mercury thermostats can damage the control board of new equipment. It’s not terribly expensive to change to modern thermostats, and not only will it protect your equipment, but you can also program them to ensure you’re not wasting energy when the space is not used, saving you a lot of money in the long run.
Caledonia Integrated Services is an Energy Management, HVAC and Electrical company, serving Vancouver and BC area. Our focus is Energy Management – saving you money whilst saving the environment.
Back to basics again this month, the blower wheel is the bit of your equipment that pushes air through the ducts to heat or cool your space. There are lots of different ways of pushing air, but most manufacturers have settled on the ‘squirrel cage’ fan. This is basically just like the wheel you used to have your pet hamster run around in! In this case though a motor turns the wheel, while fins on the outside of the wheel grab the air and push it down the duct work.
No matter what kind of blower you have, it will get dirt on it and decrease the efficiency of your system. If it is not cleaned over a period of time it will eventually damage your equipment. This brings us back to last month’s blog and the importance of filters. Filters help to reduce the amount of dirt reaching the blower wheel, helping to keep your equipment in top condition.
Simple things make all the difference. Getting the basics right will save you a lot of time and money down the line.
Blower wheel
Squirrel cage wheel
Caledonia Integrated Services is an Energy Management, HVAC and Electrical company, serving Vancouver and BC area. We actively encourage feedback, comments and questions. You can leave a message here, or look us up on Facebook and Twitter. Of course, you can always e- mail us too!
This month we’re going back to basics, as some of you have pointed out that you know very little about our business and the Tip of the Month has occasionally been too technical.
So, the most basic equipment of all is the filters. All forced air heating and cooling systems must have filters installed (forced air simply means that the system uses a fan to ‘force’ the air through the space). Filters can range in price from $3 to $60, depending on the size and type of filter. Some systems need to use up to 3 filters in a row, for example in a kitchen where the exhaust air must be clean or a hospital where the filters will catch micro- organisms. Let’s focus on basic filters in common usage though. You definitely get what you pay for where filters are concerned. If you want cleaner air and need to keep out dust (in a computer server room, for example) paying a little extra for a quality filter makes a lot of sense. Where there is lots of fresh air and natural air movement (a public building with open air sections), a cheaper filter works just as well.
In most cases a middle of the road filter is a good bet. It should be checked 4 times a year, and maintenance programs can be set up to include filter changes and equipment checks at these times.
Cheep Filter
Good Filter
Here is a video of what a filter should not look like.
Caledonia Integrated Services is an Energy Management, HVAC and Electrical company, serving Vancouver and BC area. We actively encourage feedback, comments and questions. You can leave a message here, or look us up on Facebook and Twitter. Of course, you can always e- mail us too!
