Category: HVAC Test & Balance

The #1 Air Balance Bummer: Negative Building Pressure

Posted on by Lindsey Burbee

What’s the first thing you experience when you arrive at a restaurant? You might say the delicious aromas, lighting, and possibly the smiling hostess asking how many are in your party. But the very first thing anyone experiences is the door. How many times have you found yourself struggling to open the darned restaurant door? You pull the handle, but it won’t budge. You try the other handle, to no avail. You think, “There’s no way this is locked, it’s the middle of the lunch rush and I can see people inside.” With all your strength, you finally crack it open and squeeze through. You might feel a large draft on your back and then, finally, slam! Woman pulling on door

 If this common door problem has happened to you, how many times do you think it has happened to customers entering one of your restaurants? While your first hypothesis may be that it is a door hinge problem, it is actually part of a larger problem: negative building pressure. And that is just one symptom of a sick building.

 Sick Building Syndrome is a serious situation restaurant facility managers and owners cannot afford to take lightly.

Check out these three must-know tips:

  1. Know what to look for. This simple illustration shows the most common problems related to HVAC air balance, which cause sick building syndrome.  Educate your teams as well.

Unbalanced HVAC system problem graphic

  1. Assign someone at each restaurant location – the store manager or maybe a shift leader – to watch for these sick building symptoms. Give them a process for reporting these problems so you have a record of the issues.  View our Sick Building Syndrome white paper and distribute to your teams for diagnosing comfort problems.
  1. Don’t just take it from us, read more on this important topic from expert Rob Falke, How to Measure Building Pressures, published on ContractingBusiness.com, an online industry publication.

Do Any of These 4 HVAC Issues Occur at Your Restaurant?

Posted on by Lindsey Burbee

Are you contracting out your preventative maintenance?  Unfortunately, we’ve seen a lot of restaurant managers be misled by their mechanical contractors into thinking their “building is balanced”, but still notice misreported or never- reported problems that are causing complaints from their guests.  For example, you’ve been told that air filters and screens used for the outside air intake are clean, or that belts are tight, when they are in fact loose or cracking and ready to break.  These facility problems would cost so much less if treated immediately.  For example, a $10 fan belt replacement, if not replaced by your facility management when needed can cause irreversible damage to the rooftop RTUs, along with the cost of uncomfortable guests.  These instances escalate in the summer and fall months, when outdoor weather threatens indoor comfort.

Be aware of these frequent summer sick building symptoms, so you can call out the indicators, if necessary:

  1. Humidity- Sits in the carpets or hardwood floors causing buckling, odor, and mold.  Often triggers allergies for guests.
  2. Too much exhaust and little or no fresh air-causing a negative building pressure, so anything in the outside air can come in, including bugs and pests.
  3. Condensation on windows and/or grills
  4. Entry doors hard to open- Leaving guests frustrated, or worse-assuming the restaurant is closed

All the above issues can cause a negative building pressure, allowing the outside air to infiltrate the building through every crack and crevice, causing damage that could shut a restaurant down from a health code standpoint. If you’re concerned that your building is uncomfortable or not running how it was designed to, you have the option of calling in a third party HVAC balance service who can give you an objective diagnosis of the issue, and fix it.

 

Top 5 Reasons we get called for an HVAC Test & Balance

Posted on by Lindsey Burbee

An “air balance” is a process for measuring the performance of an HVAC system, and for providing the occupants with a comfortably conditioned space according to design specifications. In other words, it is an overall health check for your HVAC systems to make sure the equipment is mechanically sound, that there is positive building pressure and that the thermostat and air flow are adjusted properly.  –Greg DuChane, Trane

A test and balance service serves the same purpose as changing the oil in a car to keep the engine running healthily.  Preventative maintenance for any vehicle or piece of equipment is understandably a best practice for avoiding high stress circumstances, such as a car break-down in the middle of a deserted road.  In the context of HVAC, a high stress circumstance could be losing your air conditioning on a hot August day and watching customers leave the building!  See our top 5 reasons we get from customers who call for us to come out and balance their stores:

To learn more and see pictures of many of these circumstances, read HVAC Test & Balance: Defined with Examples from the Field