In the new issue of Engineered Systems, Doug Lucht, writes up his experiences troubleshooting an Air Handling Unit at an art museum. He describes the steps he took to locate the problems in an air handling system that never worked properly. The facility had to turn on the chillers as early as March with sub 45-degree temperatures, when the economizers should have been taking care of the building. I love a good mystery and it points out- facilities should not just except poor performance of their equipment but should get to the bottom of it. Solutions were found, Lucht writes…
Once the booster fan was installed, AHU-9 could fully economize. The museum could now keep their chillers off further into the spring and shut them down earlier each fall. They were also able to completely abandon the roof-mounted chiller that served the chilled water fan coil units. Shortly after implementing the solutions, the museum received a check from their utility provider, which made the facility manager look like a hero to the museum curators.
This story also illustrates why cobbling together new and old equipment isn’t always the best way to save money. It demonstrates there are small upgrades that can make big changes to the facility’s comfort and bottom line.
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