HVAC Sensors | Garrison Mechancial

Increasing Your Building’s Energy Efficiency With HVAC Sensors

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Today, as businesses worry more about their environmental impact, energy efficiency is more important than ever. So how can you make your HVAC system more efficient? Yes, you can seal your heating and cooling ducts, change your air filter, and get a programmable thermostat. However, commercial HVAC sensor controls are a great investment if you want to make your commercial building more energy efficient.
HVAC sensors conserve energy by sensing the environment of a given room or space so you can make operational decisions about the heating, cooling, and ventilating in that space. This enables you to conserve energy based on what you learn from the sensors’ readings. When you’re more informed about how your building consumes energy, you can make smarter choices to help it become more energy efficient.

Types of HVAC Sensors

These are the three types of sensors we install in commercial buildings:
Occupancy Sensors – Occupancy sensors measure the number of people in a room to determine heating, ventilating, and air conditioning needs. These sensors are used to control an HVAC system automatically by measuring the room’s occupancy.
HVAC Temperature Sensors – Commercial temperature sensors use a room’s occupancy readings to control the temperature. This sensor measures a room’s temperature and either increases or decreases its heating, air conditioning, or ventilation.
Pressure Sensors – Pressure sensors are used in variable air volume systems and coolers. This type of sensor monitors rooms and checks for drops in pressure that may indicate the measured space needs maintenance.

Benefits of Using HVAC Sensors

Sensors are one of the HVAC applications that yield many benefits. By measuring the occupancy and temperature of a room and adjusting heating and air conditioning, occupancy and temperature sensors can help lower your energy bills and make your business more energy efficient. The measurements these sensors take allow your HVAC system to adjust immediately and raise or lower the air temperature so your business isn’t heating or cooling a given space more than it requires, which prevents your system from wasting energy. You can also use the data sensors provide to learn about a room’s air flow and air quality. Additionally, using sensors in your building can reduce wear and tear on your HVAC system because the sensors prevent the system from running harder than the building requires.

Trust South Florida’s HVAC Experts With Your Sensors

If you are interested in installing HVAC sensors in your building, contact us today. At Garrison Mechanical, we install sensors from companies including Honeywell and Siemens, and all of the manufacturers that we work with specialize in building automation systems or large energy management systems. We can install and work with the sensors in your building to make sure your South Florida business stays cool all year long.

South Florida HVAC

Commercial HVAC Repair vs. Replacement

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Determining whether to repair an HVAC system or replace it with a new one is a common dilemma. Sometimes in the HVAC industry, customers feel a technician has pressured them into buying a new system because they presented no other options. Conversely, technicians sometimes find themselves repairing an ancient system many times because business owners don’t realize replacement is an option. It’s important to weigh the decision to repair or replace your commercial HVAC system and to make sure you consider the following factors:

Age of Your System

Most commercial HVAC systems have a lifespan of 15-20 years, so if your system’s age falls into that range, you may want to consider commercial HVAC replacement rather than repairs. Of course, your business’s repair budget should be taken into consideration as well, as should the way your heating and air conditioning currently operates. If you have a 16-year-old system that needs relatively inexpensive repairs every once in a while, you may opt to stick with repairs for now and wait a few more years before you have a new HVAC system installed.

Maintenance Costs

Take stock of how much time you or the commercial HVAC company you partner with spend on reactive maintenance, such as equipment repairs, versus preventative maintenance, such as routine maintenance checks. If you’re spending more time on reactive than preventative maintenance, it’s probably time to consider replacing your system.

Repair vs. Replacement Costs

When considering HVAC repair or replacement, you can remember a simple rule of thumb: If your repairs cost more than 50% of the cost of a new HVAC installation, you’re probably due for a replacement. Other repair vs. replacement calculations include getting a replacement if the repair costs more than $5,000, and whether the cost of your repair multiplied by your system’s age is higher than the cost of a new system. Whichever calculation you decide to use, following the numbers is definitely a solid basis for your decision.

Signs of Deterioration

Does your duct system leak often? Does your HVAC unit make a lot of noise when it runs, or do does it randomly shut off? Does the system suffer frequent breakdowns? These are just some of the signs that may tell you it’s time to replace your HVAC system. If you want to stick with repairs, your system may need them more frequently, and that may interrupt its operation and maintenance. This could interfere with the heating and cooling in your office, and in your facilities, which could affect your products as well as your employees and customers.

Consider System Upgrades

Before you invest in commissioning a new system, you should consider upgrading specific parts of your system that have problems. At Garrison Mechanical, we can replace your system with a new one, but we can also replace individual parts, which will save you time and money on repairs, and could help extend the lifespan of your current HVAC system. The parts we can replace include air handlers, evaporator and condenser coils, pumps, motors, fan coils, chillers, and cooling towers. Upgrades give you a third option so your repair or replace decision isn’t so limited.

Let Us Help You With Your Decision

When you partner with Garrison Mechanical, we do our best to meet your needs every step of the way, and that includes when you’re considering replacing your HVAC system. We can work with you to understand your business’s HVAC system, and we provide a wide range of services, including commercial HVAC installation and replacement. Contact us today, and our team of experts will help you determine whether you should repair or replace your system.

HVAC Maintenance | Air Comfort Corporation

How Preventive HVAC Maintenance Benefits Your Business

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Your HVAC system is one of the most important aspects of your facilities. It makes up a large portion of your energy bills and keeps your offices comfortable. Depending on your industry, it also may keep products and machinery at usable temperatures. If your HVAC system breaks down, it can result in downtime—and significant losses for your company. That’s why you should consider HVAC preventive maintenance for your system. This post discusses what it is, and how hiring a commercial HVAC company to perform it can benefit your business.

What Is Preventive Maintenance?

Preventive maintenance (PM) is the process of identifying potential problems in an HVAC system before they cause breakdowns that lead to downtime and losses for your business. It is the opposite of reactive maintenance, which is waiting until a machine or system breaks down to have it serviced. While reactive maintenance may seem like a cost-effective form of maintenance management at first, it ends up costing much more money in the long run. Relying on reactive maintenance measures can lead to higher utility bills and breakdowns that stem from easily avoidable problems, such as dirty air filters or broken fan belts. By using preventive maintenance, such as changing your HVAC’s air filter every month, you can help increase your HVAC system’s energy efficiency and lifespan.

What Is an HVAC Preventive Maintenance Contract and How Does It Work?

A preventive maintenance contract is an agreement between your business and a commercial HVAC company stating that they can performance routine maintenance checks on your system. When you enter into a preventive maintenance agreement with an HVAC company, it should be customized to fit your business’s needs, how the system heats, cools, and ventilates the building, and whether products or machines in the building require specific heating and cooling maintenance plans in their storage or operation areas.

What Do Regular Maintenance Checks Look Like? How Do They Help My Business?

Ideally, maintenance visits should occur once a month, but, again, their frequency can be modified to meet your needs. During a maintenance visit, a technician should perform system checks, check your thermostat’s operation, change the air filters, and check drip pans and drain lines.
However, those are just the bare essentials of an HVAC maintenance check. When a client joins Garrison Mechanical’s HVAC PM program, we perform a variety of checks that go beyond the most basic ones. For example, we check the evaporator and condenser coils for corrosion and cleanliness, inspect fan and motor bearings, lubricate all of the system’s moving parts, and take temperature measurements across the coil—and those are just a handful of the checks we run. The more thorough a maintenance visit is, the more potential problems it can prevent.
When your system receives routine maintenance checks, it is always receiving the attention it needs so it can work properly. Also, when you have a technician visiting regularly, you can keep a preventive maintenance checklist so they know what your concerns are and which parts of your system need the most attention at different times of year.

Start Your Preventive Maintenance Program Today

If you’re interested in exploring an HVAC PM contract or if you have additional questions about the process, contact Garrison Mechanical today. We’ll work with you to determine your system’s infrastructure and its maximum energy efficiency.
We’ll also determine where your system’s problem areas are and how to fix them. When you enter into a PM contract with us, we also offer emergency HVAC services, so you’ll always know whom to call when you have any trouble with your HVAC system. However, our preventive maintenance program should keep your HVAC system running well for a long time by taking care of problems before they reach their peak.

South Florida HVAC

Preparing Your South Florida HVAC System for Summer

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As temperatures rise and humidity thickens the air, it’s time to start preparing your HVAC system for summer. What steps should you take to do that? In this post, we’ll outline some tips you can add to your preventative maintenance checklist.

Change Out Air Filters

This is one of the most cost-effective steps you can take to prepare your cooling system for summer. Changing your air filters monthly, or at least at the beginning of every season, will prevent dust and dirty air from building up in your HVAC system, which will save you money on service fees and energy bills in the long run. Taking this HVAC preventive maintenance step will improve the building’s air quality and your system’s energy efficiency. Cleaning out the air filters also can reduce allergens, so you won’t have to suffer through allergic reactions all spring and summer.

Install a Programmable Thermostat

A programmable thermostat, such as Sensi or NEST, can learn your building’s cooling patterns and adjust your HVAC system accordingly. This means the thermostat will customize the way it runs so your HVAC system doesn’t waste energy trying to cool your building in a way that doesn’t fit.

Insulate and Seal Air Ducts

Checking your air ducts can become part of your annual maintenance, and it definitely should become part of your summer preparation maintenance. If your air ducts are leaking, that could be costing you extra in your energy bills and your cooling and heating system service costs. Sealing and insulating your air ducts will help your HVAC system run more efficiently over longer periods of time.

Schedule an Air Conditioning Maintenance Appointment

While you can take your own steps to keep your system working well, some tasks are best left to the professionals. Scheduling a maintenance visit will give you a chance to find out if your HVAC system has critical problems that need fixing before temperatures really soar. The maintenance appointment should include specific HVAC maintenance measures, such as inspecting machine parts and checking refrigerant levels.
This is the summer preparation step where your system would most benefit from an HVAC preventive maintenance program. At Garrison Mechanical, we perform monthly HVAC service checks as part of our HVAC preventive maintenance contracts. Regular maintenance keeps your HVAC system from developing preventable problems, which is why having a preventative maintenance plan in place is always a good idea. With a preventative maintenance agreement in place, you can have peace of mind knowing your system will be ready for summer and won’t experience any breakdowns when you need cool air the most.

Prepare for Summer with Garrison Mechanical

If you’re ready to prepare your HVAC system for summer or you have questions about the preparation process, contact us today. Centrally located in Pembroke Pines, we perform commercial and residential preventive maintenance. We can work with you to customize an HVAC program that will fit your business’s or your home’s needs.