Creating the best HVAC program starts with investigating why maintenance is so costly, examining the health of current HVAC assets and understanding what can be done to drive maintenance and energy savings. However, there is a way to understand HVAC spend by answering the following three questions.
Which locations have the highest HVAC expenses?
Managing many locations can present challenges with visibility and budget control. Without having complete insight into every work order, companies can experience confusion when tracking their HVAC spend. For instance, if a facility manager fails to keep data, including how much time the technician needed to complete the service, the products used to repair or replace the unit and the services’ cost, for every single work order, the company will lack the necessary details to identify HVAC problems within their locations.
This information allows a company to delegate where they have been exerting their budget and can help them reduce these costs in the future. By identifying the locations with the highest HVAC expenses and utilizing the correct data, it is possible for companies to take the steps toward cost savings.
How is the health of current HVAC assets being monitored and tracked?
It is easy to overlook early signs of HVAC complications with everything else going on. Consequently, when a company uses a reactive maintenance route and waits until a unit begins to malfunction or under-perform, the facility manager can experience a lot of stress when looking for a last-minute solution. Essentially, a reactive maintenance strategy puts a double bind on the facility manager, and the location suffers from the facility manager taking on too much.
When companies place sensors on their HVAC units and use an energy management system (EMS), their facility managers will not have to work on the defense. These sensors can track the energy levels of each unit and display when an asset has any spikes in energy consumption. By keeping track of these spikes, the company will have a head start on getting a technician on-site for diagnostics before the asset is completely spent. If a company continues to monitor their EMS extensively while collaborating with a facility management provider with an analytics platform, full transparency and helpful reporting capabilities, the company can benefit from the additional insight regarding their assets’ health in the end.
What Am I Currently Doing to Oversee and Drive My Savings?
HVAC units can account for a large chunk of energy consumption if companies are not paying attention. More often than not, businesses are excessively overspending on energy because they are not taking action with their energy audits or implementing HVAC best practices. Research has proven that companies can reduce commercial heating by 77 percent and commercial cooling by 78 percent with efficient HVAC processes.
By carrying out a preventative maintenance program or an HVAC unit replacement program, companies can remove units that are working past their expectation of life and save on emergency replacement costs. Preparing in advance allows companies to have a clearer sense of their costs and savings. Not to mention, outdated units are often working past their point of efficiency and can negatively affect a company’s HVAC ROI. Proactively replacing HVAC units leads to a reduction of energy consumption, and creates a significant impact on bottom lines by lowering the number of unit failures and avoiding 10-20% in HVAC costs.
A well-functioning maintenance strategy is essential to the success of any modern-day facilities portfolio. To make sure your facilities maintenance strategy is meeting your needs, request a demo to learn more about how our programs can help you.