With the upcoming drop in temperatures as the crisp fall weather starts to roll in, is your air handling unit ready? Has your property manager or building owner scheduled a service appointment with your commercial HVAC technician to test and inspect the air handling units (AHU) / fan coil units in your buildings? If not, you could encounter problems or surprises – such as the little critter here that recently caused problems for one of our property management customers! During a recent service call by Crockett Facilities Services, Inc. (CFSI), our service technician found a mouse in the client’s fan coils – negatively impacting the performance of the HVAC unit! So save yourself from future headaches and have your air handling unit professionally serviced this month. Scheduling AHU Maintenance Now Will Avoid Headaches Later On You can prevent air distribution issues from occurring if you plan ahead and schedule an inspection of your air handling units (AHUs) now. AHUs or fan coil units channel warm or cool air to different parts of a building.

This process involves drawing air over heating or cooling coils and forcing it from a central location through ducts or AHUs. AHUs use steam or hot water to heat, or chilled water to cool the air inside the ductwork. If preventive maintenance is ignored, your business could encounter many issues, including the following: Preventive Maintenance Checklist for Air Handling Units Crockett Facilities Services, Inc. (CFSI) follows a ten-step checklist to ensure your air handling units will perform efficiently and continuously – not working harder or running longer than intended. Well-maintained HVAC systems save energy – and with HVAC systems representing 40-70% of a commercial building’s energy bill –it makes financial sense to service them on a regular basis. Here’s a list of what needs to be checked to ensure peak performance. Before the cold weather arrives, now is the best time to schedule a preventive maintenance appointment for your air handling units/fan coil units.

or complete our online form for a service quote. CFSI provides 24/7 commercial HVAC and mechanical services throughout Washington D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, targeting property managers, building owners, and facility/IT managers responsible for data centers and computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units.3 ton ac unit reviews Tags: Air Handling Units, Fall Preventive Maintenance Checklist, HVAC This entry was posted onwhat to do when ac unit is frozen Wednesday, August 21st, 2013 at4 ton complete ac unit 7:55 pm and is filed under Blog, HVAC Systems Maintenance . You can follow any responses to this entry through the You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.Hospital's Aging Core Poses Maintenance, Engineering Challenges

Building-Automation System Streamlines Preventive Maintenance Part 3: Energy-Efficient Chillers, Air-Handling Units Demand More Maintenance Organization Closes Old Hospital, Opens New Facility Same Day By Chris Matt, Managing Editor - Print & E-Media HVAC   Article Use Policy The equipment lineup that has allowed Gateway Medical Center to operate at peak efficiency and optimize IAQ includes three centrifugal chillers, 22 air-handling units featuring variable-speed drives, the BAS, and high-efficiency particulate arrestance (HEPA) filters, which remove at least 99.97 percent of airborne particles 0.3 micrometers in diameter or larger. One chiller features variable-frequency drives, while the other two load and unload as needed. The old Gateway Medical Center did feature a BAS, but it was an older version of the system monitoring the new facility. Holzkamper says the newer technology does require more PM than the chillers and BAS in the old hospital. "When you get into variable-frequency drives, you have more electronics and more electrical parts involved in the controllers," he says.

"You have more electrical PMs and maintenance there. (The BAS) needs to be tuned up and looked at by the factory at least once a year to make sure it's working as it was originally designed to do when it was installed." While technicians were unfamiliar with some of the technology in the new facility, they were able to transfer their experiences with the BAS in the old hospital to the new. "It was fairly comparable to the new technology, so it wasn't a big learning curve," Skeens says. "That first year, we took a little time to find out little tweaks and nuances of the system. Maintenance-wise, it really saves a lot of time." One of the biggest equipment changes from the old hospital to the new was the air handlers. The old hospital, though it was 200,000 square feet smaller than the new building, featured 28 more air-handling units. The HVAC landscape of the old hospital, which featured under-window units on an entire floor, required more air handlers to meet the needs of various types of systems.

Similar to the chillers and BAS, the new air handlers also demand more maintenance. "On the newer units, you have more electronic sensors on the drives," Holzkamper says. "(The sensors) tell you, if you have dirty filters, to go in and clean them. They tell you basically everything that's going on with that unit. Of course, with more sensors and more electronics, you have more stuff that can go out on you." Despite being 200,000 square feet larger than the old hospital, the new Gateway Medical Center's energy bills are about the same as those of the old facility, Holzkamper says. Energy-efficient equipment, extra insulation, and improved maintenance practices all play a role in controlling energy costs. "It was a surprise for me because I figured (utility costs) would probably double," Holzkamper says. "But we had a 1954 core in the old hospital. When you have something like that and you start building additions to it, you actually have to bring all the utilities to the addition because the core was never set up for it.