Back to School: Precautions for Building Readiness

As students are returning to schools and office buildings are being reopened, it’s important to consider the safety of the buildings after extensive closures. Proper precautions need to be taken to ensure building readiness, which introduces a critical question: 

How do you return the HVAC system back to normal operations (and continued operations)?  Continue reading “Back to School: Precautions for Building Readiness”

Outside Air Humidity

This week is Air Quality Awareness Week, which is promoted by AirNow to discuss the importance of healthy air for everyone. One vital part of air quality involves monitoring humidity and temperature, so using an accurate outside humidity and temperature sensor can have a significant impact.

Most air handling units (AHUs) use what is called an economizer cycle. This is when outside air is mixed with the return air to cool the building dependent upon the outside temperature. However, if the air is too dry and requires humidification to accomplish this process, your cost savings may have been eliminated due to the AHUs humidity control, which provides excessive steam for this humidification procedure to take place. Consequentially, sometimes based on weather conditions, your economizer may just be costing you money instead of saving it. Continue reading “Outside Air Humidity”

Solve High Duct-Static Cutout Problems with the Series 1831

High duct-static pressure creates problems during a building fire when fire dampers close. Closed fire dampers cause downstream duct sensors to detect a drop in pressure. The duct pressure sensors in turn send signals to crank the air handler even faster to get back up to normal operation. Because the fire dampers are closed, when the air handler ramps up, the duct pressure upstream of the fire dampers will increase to a point where a high static pressure switch will cut power to the VFD (variable frequency drive) and send a signal to the DDC (direct digital control). Switches in this application — by specification — are all manual reset and require two outputs: one for cutting power to the VFD and one for sending the signal to the DDC.

Traditionally, there have been three tactics to address this issue, each with its own problems. Continue reading “Solve High Duct-Static Cutout Problems with the Series 1831”

Ensuring HVAC System Safety for Reopening Schools & Office Buildings

The current COVID-19 pandemic spread and breadth is unprecedented. Because of this, it is important that precautions are taken when reopening schools and office buildings. The question we find ourselves asking as professionals in the HVAC trade is this:

How do you return the HVAC system back to normal operations (and continued operations) during this pandemic?  Continue reading “Ensuring HVAC System Safety for Reopening Schools & Office Buildings”

Gas Mass Measurement

Energy costs are rising around the world. In the United States, the cost of electricity, natural gas, and coal are all expected to increase in 2020.[1] As oil prices increase, energy costs are rising in Britain, and in Australia, the cost of electricity has skyrocketed.[2] It will become increasingly necessary to manage costs by maintaining efficient operation of energy systems as energy prices continue to rise.

Steam is a common byproduct of energy generation in boiler systems. When energy is generated in a boiler system, heat energy is transferred to water, which generates steam used for heating. Measuring the steam produced by a boiler is the most logical way to measure boiler output, but it is extremely difficult to measure steam output accurately.[3] In a world where energy costs are only expected to increase, it is imperative that boiler output be measured accurately in order to conserve both money and energy. Continue reading “Gas Mass Measurement”