How Do Seasonal Changes Affect Building Health?

Seasonal Changes and Building Health

As we transition from dry, cool winter months to hot, humid summer, you may be saying, “Woohoo! Bring on the heat!”. However, seasonal changes can affect building health. Specifically, the summer season presents major problems for facility managers and building owner. This is because their buildings’ HVAC systems struggle keeping up with increasing cooling loads and extremely humid outdoor air.

Just as spring plant life sprouts, HVAC mechanical issues can pop up with warmer temperatures. Poor indoor conditions, like high indoor relative humidity, negative building pressure, CO2 buildup, and temperature fluctuations are some examples.

Staying ahead of these issues before they become noticeable, costly problems is crucial when considering the overall health of your building and its HVAC systems.

 

 

Humidity: A Common Seasonal Issue

At various facilities, a common issue that comes with changing seasons is humidity. Specifically, humidity can be difficult to maintain at a comfortable level.

 

 

Condensation on building window, a seasonal building health issue.
Condensation in office building

 

In the winter, the heating mode on air handling equipment can heat or evaporate the existing moisture in the air to reduce the overall relative humidity as outdoor air is brought into the building. However, in the summer, the opposite occurs: the air handling equipment cools the building space and doesn’t heat or evaporate the moisture out of incoming air. This combination of high relative humidity and indoor dew point ultimately creates conditions that promote condensation or organic growth within the facility.

 

 

A Year-Round Solution for Indoor Building Health

The most cost-effective solution to verifying and ensuring long-term indoor building health is with a sensor capable of measuring key building health metrics like differential pressure, relative humidity, dew point, temperature, and CO2.

 

 

Components of building health

 

By gathering data on building health metrics, the facility manager can quickly verify on-site conditions in real-time. As a result, they gain peace of mind knowing their buildings meet engineering specifications per design. In addition to these benefits, sensor data gathering gives users the ability to track and trend building health over a long-term period.

 

 

Using Data to Plan for Seasonal Building Health Changes

Getting and staying ahead of maintenance doesn’t need to start with expensive truck rolls and frequent site visits. Instead, sensor solutions provide inexpensive, effective avenues to implement proactive mindsets. Collected data can be aggregated into easy-to-use online portals, capable of summarizing, visualizing, and diagnosing issues on site. Allowing users, the ability to predict HVAC performance for a lasting solution.

Get ahead of the changing seasons by verifying your building is healthy today!

When Should My Building Be Balanced?

A proper air balance within a building is an important factor for providing a healthy and comfortable indoor environment for occupants.  Like many other critical building systems, the air balance must be maintained over time, and isn’t something that you can simply “set and forget”.  So then, when should a building be balanced?  Here are some common events that would trigger the need to perform an air balance.

New Construction:

Every building that has some form of HVAC system (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) should be balanced when it is first constructed. By this, I mean that the HVAC systems should be inspected, tested, and adjusted to ensure that they are operating correctly, efficiently, and as intended by the design engineer and as expected by the building owner. A balanced building will provide a comfortable and healthy indoor environment for the occupants, delivered in an energy efficient manner, and will have a proper positive pressure. Select a TAB professional to perform the air balance who is objective, meaning that they are hired directly by the building owner and are independent of the installing contractors and equipment manufacturers, who is experienced in your particular type of building and HVAC systems, and who is certified by an industry-recognized accrediting agency, like NEBB or AABC.

Remodel:

The building should be rebalanced during any major remodel event, such as expanding the building or changing the functional use of a space within the building. This is important because the HVAC system was originally designed and balanced for specific use conditions, and when those conditions change, the system will need to be readjusted. Be sure to consult with your mechanical design engineer prior to the remodel to verify that the existing HVAC system can handle the new demands. The building should also be rebalanced anytime elements of the HVAC system are modified or replaced, such as when ductwork is rerouted or when aged equipment is upgraded. This is important for verifying that the new equipment is installed correctly, operates properly, and is adjusted for the design conditions. For a building that has cooking operations, it is important to also rebalance whenever the cooking appliances are relocated or replaced with equipment of different use or heat load, such as replacing an oven with a fryer. This is significant because a kitchen ventilation system is designed for a specific bank of appliances. When the appliances and cooking operations change, the ventilation system will need to be adjusted to ensure it correctly captures and contains the heat and effluent produced.

Periodic Tune-up:

Even if a building has been balanced during the original construction, and it is not undergoing any remodels or equipment replacements, it should still be rebalanced periodically. This is because the performance of the HVAC system can change over time due to normal use and wear and also due to adjustments made by operations and maintenance personnel. Examples of this are when an operator switches the fan mode of the thermostats from ON to AUTO or when a service technician closes the outside air dampers in a rooftop unit in an attempt to fix a comfort complaint. For the complete building HVAC system, I would recommend a proactive rebalance frequency of every two to three years. This will ensure that the systems operate effectively and efficiently throughout their lifecycle and will help prevent the very costly issues created by having a building out of balance for a prolonged period of time.

Want to understand more about air balances? Read about air balance basics for existing facilities, watch our video on how an air balance works, or contact us to learn more!

 

The 3 Most Common HVAC Problems During Winter

To quote a critically acclaimed HBO television series, “winter is coming, and we know what’s coming with it.” While it may not be as bad as the army of the dead, we can expect winter to bring about a variety of HVAC issues that can cost more pennies than shivers. Here are the top three most preventable winter mishaps, and how they can be avoided with a little DIY maintenance.

  1. Frozen Pipes

Besides fire, a building’s biggest enemy is water. Only this time of year, unwelcomed water doesn’t come in the form of humidity or a leaky roof, rather, in the form of solid icy pipes. Many building owners will try to cut costs by not heating their buildings at all times while completely unaware that above ceiling and sub-floor spaces can fall below zero in extreme cold weather. These spaces are home to water pipes that can freeze and burst causing un-flushable toilets, compromised showers, inaccessible tap water, and not mention, outrageous repair costs. The residual heat from the livable spaces above or below these pipes help to keep temperatures above freezing, so setting the thermostat to at least 65 °F throughout the day and night should keep the water flowing. In addition, be particularly aware of areas that are unheated or are constantly exposed to the elements like garages, loading docks, and basement storage rooms. Insulated pipes and walls will help to seal the deal.

  1. Uneven Airflow and Temperatures

Depending on the season, air is circulated throughout a building in different ways. Cold air falls which is why in the summer months, closing floor vents to allow more air to diffuse from ceiling vents is most effective in cooling a space. The opposite is true in the winter months where rising warm air is best circulated from floor diffusers and baseboard radiators. Knowing these trivial properties about air temperature can best optimize how your building is heated or cooled, so let the cool air fall and the warm air rise!

  1. Dirty Furnace Filters

While problems that arise from dirty or clogged filters are not unique to the winter, it’s still one of the most common culprits for defective air conditioning. A unit’s air filter removes particulates from the pre-conditioned air and allows the clean air to be conditioned and distributed. If a filter is clogged, airflow is reduced, and the terminal units will have to run longer to achieve desirable space temperatures. In the colder months, the air becomes dry which can dehydrate a person’s skin as a result. With dead skin cells making up 70 to 80 percent of dust content, it’s no wonder that the winter sees some pretty dirty filters. Changing an air filter is one of the easiest, cheapest, and most effective way to ensure maximum heating outputs which is why new filters should be installed before every season.

These winter mishaps are snow laughing matter, but just like bad puns, they’re easy to spot. Keeping these three common maintenance issues in mind will allow you to brave the cold and keep cozy all winter long.

3 Steps to Troubleshooting Your Facility’s HVAC With Onsite Staff

HVAC Troubleshooting

Have you identified that your facility is experiencing a potential air balance problem?  You might be experiencing hard to open doors, uncomfortable temperatures, poor smoke capture, odors, drafty areas, or any combination of the other common sick building symptoms.  The inevitable question now is, “Who can resolve this best?” Bringing in your facility’s mechanical contractor may be your first instinct but troubleshooting with your onsite managers is actually the best place to start. Work through the following questions with your facility’s day-to-day manager:  

1.  Is the equipment running?

As basic as this may come across, it is absolutely crucial to check if all HVAC equipment is operating. Check grilles to see if air is being blown out or sucked in. Check roof equipment, can you hear the fans from the RTU, MUA, or EF units spinning? Have the manager record and communicate findings.

2. Check the Thermostats

Navigate to the wall mounted thermostats and ensure they have the proper set points. Often, a thermostat is installed and connected to the system and then left alone. When this occurs the thermostat is left at factory settings which is often set at a random temperature. Your staff can follow the directions on this thermostat to program it for the desired temperatures.  As well, check the thermostats for “Fan ON.”

Thermostat

3.  Check the Circuit Breakers

Check indoor and outdoor circuit breakers. Observe tripped or “Off” breakers. DO NOT flip the breaker on. If tripped or left off, there’s likely a reason for it and you don’t want to risk frying the electrical systems. We recommend calling an electrician for this type of deficiency.

 

Armed with your findings from these simple tests, you can save some money with a Do-It-Yourself fix.  It’s possible that the journey back to a healthy building ends here.  But if the problem persists, it’s time for the level of technical know-how. Call the mechanical contractor. With your observations to these preliminary steps above, you can approach your mechanical contractor with information that will help them to better understand your situation and get you closer to achieving a healthy building.

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

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