Learn the Risk of Ignoring Regular HVAC Maintenance for Your Commercial Building
Whether it’s summer humidity or winter snow storms, the Delaware and New Jersey area’s weather puts a heavy demand on our heating and cooling systems. That means if you expect to maintain a comfortable, healthy indoor environment in your business, your system needs to be well maintained at all times. Skipping HVAC maintenance for commercial buildings has several costly consequences.
Wasted Energy and Higher Utility Bills
A commercial HVAC system has a lot more riding on it than the average residential system does. This system affects the comfort, health and productivity of your employees and influences the opinion of your customers and guests. That means you can’t simply let the building get a little too chilly or stuffy to save money on utilities and expect everyone to put up with it. If your system’s efficiency falls, you’ll end up adjusting the thermostat to compensate and raising your energy bills in the process.
Without routine maintenance, a drop in efficiency is exactly what will happen. Normal use brings dust and debris into your system and leads to wear that prevents the components from operating as designed, causing them to use more energy.
In most commercial buildings, the HVAC system is responsible for around 40 percent of the total energy used. Any change in efficiency here has a noticeable effect on your expenses. This makes HVAC maintenance for commercial buildings one of the most effective ways to reduce the cost of doing business.
An HVAC professional experienced with commercial systems can clean and tune up your entire system so it can achieve its maximum efficiency.
More Frequent Breakdowns
Debris and normal wear do more than reduce your system’s energy efficiency. They also stress the components, causing them to wear out faster and possibly fail before reaching their full lifespan. This means you could end up having to shell out for a new A/C compressor or other expensive component, or even replace your entire heating or air conditioning system, when you should have been able to get years more use out of it.
Some malfunctions also pose safety risks. Loose wires or electrical connections can arc and start a fire. A furnace or boiler with a cracked heat exchanger or blocked flue can leak carbon monoxide (CO) gas. While your CO detectors will pick up on the major leaks, they may not alert you to low-level leaks, which can cause headaches, fatigue and other symptoms that cause lost productivity and complaints from employees. Routine HVAC maintenance for commercial buildings protects both employees and customers from these threats.
Reduced Productivity, More Frequent Interruptions
As if higher energy bills and maintenance costs weren’t bad enough, also consider that neglecting regular care for your heating and cooling system can interfere with your ability to do business. Some research shows workers are less efficient at certain tasks when the ventilation is poor and when temperatures are uncomfortably high. Poor ventilation is particularly likely to go unnoticed until it’s been causing problems for some time. Just having a professional inspect and clean your ventilation system on schedule helps maximize your company’s productivity.
A neglected HVAC system is most likely to fail during extreme weather. If this happens to your business, there’s a chance your facilities will end up so uncomfortable you’ll have to close until a repair crew can get your system working again. The better you maintain your system, the less likely you are to lose time to breakdowns.
Our goal is to help educate our customers about Plumbing, HVACR, Fire Protection and Alarm Systems in Mechanical, Commercial and Residential settings. For more information about HVAC maintenance for commercial buildings and to view projects we’ve worked on, visit our website!
