An Unfortunate Choice
A friend of ours has a very successful pizza business and was looking to open a third location. They looked around for a while and eventually found a good location that suited them, signed a lease, and set a move in date. Everything went without a hitch….which is generally when you should start to worry!
As with most small businesses the owner’s time was spread thin and he was not always at the new premises. His wife was at the new location one day to help out, when the landlord walks in with a question….
“Do you want three phase power or a new roof top unit?” A confused look crossed her face. “I need an answer now, they are going to do the work right away”
Unable to get her husband on the phone she picked the three phase power, crossing her fingers it was the right choice. Of course, it wasn’t! As they had a gas oven they didn’t need three phase, but the small space had no heating or cooling so a roof top unit would have been perfect for them. Instead they go in early in the winter to switch on the ovens for heat, and in the summer they use four large fans to make it bearable.
Don’t get caught with impossible questions. Once you find a space to lease it’s worth bringing in your HVAC or maintenance company for a quick look as soon as possible. That way you’re in the know before you have to make any unfortunate choices!

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!

Have you ever felt like the small guy?

Managers and business owners know this feeling well. Whether you have one small location or 125 stores across the country, there always seems to be someone bigger than you. This can make you question your business and yourself.

Our philosophy is to ALWAYS think big! Believe that nothing can stop you, there are no limiting factors, and you can do everything your competitors do…but better. Changes in technology and marketing tools mean that small businesses can access the same markets as the big companies. Printing costs are a fraction of the old costs. Facebook, Twitter and other social media are free. Producing videos, commercials, websites and software is within the reach of everyone. A little bit of research will almost always show you a newer way of doing something, and it’s usually easier and cheaper than the old way of doing things.

A good example of this in the HVAC/Energy Management industry is the recent changes in control systems. In the past they were large and bulky, the software needed a dedicated computer to run it (which also meant room for an extra computer), the parts in the system were proprietary, meaning you were stuck with a certain company even if you disliked the service you were receiving. All of this meant that the costs were out of reach of all but the biggest companies. Now, with recent technological advances, we can install systems for a fraction of the cost, the system is built with common parts, and everything is accessible on the web.

It may not be big, but it IS clever!

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!

The earlier the better!

When construction starts on a new building (or a reno of an old one) getting advise early on could save you a lot of trouble later on.

Don’t just rely on your architect – have  your HVAC company come to the site early on. A good HVAC contractor will be able to look over the space and let you know what will and won’t work. They should also be able to recommend the best equipment to use and advise on the prevention of future conflict with other trades. For example: where the duct will run, controls placement, electrical requirements, fresh air intake and general layout of the system. We worked on one job where they had not taken any advice. As each trade arrived on site they found the sprinklers were in their way and had to be moved. Eventually they were moved FIVE times!

With this basic info at his fingertips, the site foreman doesn’t need to be an HVAC expert. The system will be planned out from the beginning so, as each trade arrives, their part of the job is already planned out.

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.

Wake up call

Last Friday we got a call at 11pm from a restaurant. They were frantically trying to find someone to come and look at the exhaust fan which had stopped working. 5.30 on Saturday morning,  off we went….and found the exhaust fan working and the make up air pushing air into the kitchen! So, why the panic call the night before, and what had changed between then and now?

Well, closer inspection to the exhaust fan revealed that the pulleys and belt were so warm that the belt was slipping a little. Not too bad at that time in the morning, but you can imagine the heat build up after it had been running all day! When we checked the make up air it was also found to be in desperate need of attention.

Discussing all this with the manager his face fell, and he told me he has a maintenance company who come to the premises twice a year. It seems the company had been missing a lot of the equipment, but why? Well, what usually happens when you employ a new company to do your maintenance work is that a journeyman will come out and do all the work needed. He usually comes for the first few visits to sort out any major problems. Then the company will just start sending an apprentice to change the filters etc. Only sometimes are the apprentices shown what to do!

Restaurants are especially vulnerable to this, the apprentice can’t turn off the exhaust fan when the kitchen is cooking, and the make up air in this case was hidden in the ceiling. So, unless the apprentice knows to look for it or has been told its location, the equipment remains untouched. Years go by…..and then the equipment waits until a busy weekend in the middle of summer, and stops working!

It really is worth investing in an hour of someone’s time to have them check that all your equipment IS being maintained, otherwise it could cost you thousands of dollars to replace all your uncared for machines.

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!

Where’s the Breaker?

Sometimes we receive service calls where we turn up and just have  to turn the breaker on to get everything working again. This is hard on  the home owner or business owner, to pay a call out fee when it was  so easy to fix, but there are many reasons why this happens. Maybe  they couldn’t find the breaker panel, or the breaker looked switched  on, or they just didn’t think about the breaker. Of course, the  opposite can happen too, where we need to work on a circuit or  equipment and we just can’t find the breaker to switch the power off  to make it safe to work on.

There are a few ways you can save yourself money in this regard.  Make sure YOU know where your breaker is so that you can check it  before calling someone out, or you can direct someone to it if you do  need a professional (remember, most call out jobs charge by the  hour!). There is also a simple tool you can buy at any of the big DIY  stores. It’s called a circuit tracer – you can plug it into a 120v socket (or  jumper leads), hook it to the equipment and, with the power still on,  you go to the panel box with the other half of the tool. It will bleep  when you get to the appropriate breaker. Simple!

Caledonia Integrated Services is an Energy Management, HVAC and  Electrical  company serving Vancouver and BC area. “There is no knowledge  that is not  power”  – giving power to our customers.

What is energy management?

This is a phrase that you hear a lot these days….but how many people actually know what it means? We hope this helps!
Energy Management is the control of your energy usage. It can be as simple as a sticker on a light switch, telling people to turn off the light when leaving the room; to a fully computerised building control system.
Any equipment that’s running is consuming power. Anything that is not  required to run 24/7 can be controlled by a system and automatically turned off.
Alarms can be added to let you know when there is a problem that needs your  immediate attention.

Did you know….?
The Montreal Protocol is an international treaty to protect the earth’s ozone layer and phase out the production and importation of ozone depleting substances. As of January 1st 2010 the next phase out took effect, from now on, no new R-22 equipment can be manufactured or imported, and the annual allowable amount of HCFC’s is reduced by 75%.
What is R-22?
R-22 is a gas, which is the main refrigerant used in air conditioning equipment.
What does this mean to you? Does your equipment use R-22?
95% of the Air Conditioning equipment in use today is using R-22.
What can you do?
Maintain your equipment properly and professionally, use some of the many energy management ideas to cut down on run-time with, and reduce the load the best you can (i.e. keep windows and doors closed etc).

Is a tripped breaker an electrical problem?

I recently got a call from a customer who had a problem with a breaker tripping on their new heat pump unit. The breaker was changed for a new larger one but the problem persisted.

It was time to discover what was happening – so I paid them a visit to see what was going on. I put the unit onto the cooling setting and the unit went into heating mode! The current climbed till the breaker tripped. Why was the heating coming on when it was 80°F in the room?

Well, I talked to the staff and found out that they had tried to adjust the schedule and somehow the settings got lost in the stat or it had been put back to factory setting (which would not work for a heat pump). I reprogrammed the stat and unit worked fine, but the customer had no cooling for a day (in the height of summer!) and it also cost them hundreds of dollars – all because their staff were not trained in using the stat!

Are today’s thermostats too complicated? Look at our energy management page for a simpler solution.