Importance of HVAC services in Facility Management

HVAC facility services involve keeping all heating, cooling, and ventilation systems within a facility running as optimally as they can. This includes building automation, monitoring of energy systems, and safety monitoring. It also entails ensuring equipment safety compliance, improving comfort and air quality.

When people think the air temperature is good and there are no other obvious problems, facility managers don’t get much praise. It’s when something stops working, like a chiller, or it gets hot and uncomfortable that the phone rings. HVAC facility services play a part in reducing the chance of that call ever happening.

What are HVAC Services in Facility Management?

Facility managers oversee building hard services, which cover electrical, plumbing, and safety systems as well as HVAC systems. All of these systems fall under the facility’s responsibility and need to be optimised for safety, reliability, and efficiency.

In facility management, HVAC services include all preventive and reactive measures for building climate control systems. The four key hard services of a building are electrical, plumbing, safety, and HVAC systems. Because of the equipment and system focus, this category is essential to the building and is therefore considered one of the facility manager’s key hard services.

 Most HVAC services in facility management comprise:

•  Preventive maintenance (PM), corrective repair (CM), emergency response (ER)
•  The tuning of controls and building management systems (BMS)
•  The management of air quality
•  The creation and maintenance of service records and certificates for building audits

How HVAC Services Differ From General Maintenance

As the names suggest, PM focuses on proactive activities, while CM focuses on the reactive activities of repairing a system that has stopped working. Both categories involve field activities like replacing a filter or inspecting and cleaning system parts, like the chiller coils, bearings, belts, and the refrigeration system.

Importance of HVAC Services in Facility Management

Protecting the highest controllable cost in a building, as well as occupant comfort, HVAC services are essential to any facility management programme. For most buildings, HVAC is responsible for 35–40% of the building’s total energy use, which can lead to huge spending variability on energy as well as repairs.

As a quick stat, only 30% of facility managers perform preventive maintenance, which can cost three to ten times more in the long run than structured maintenance when a building’s HVAC equipment fails.

1. Decreased energy use. The U.S. Department of Energy reports that properly managed HVAC programmes lead to 15–20% less energy use in a building per year. HVAC systems tend to get clogged and dirty, and refrigerant tends to be low, causing the systems to work harder.
2. Fewer HVAC system failures. Well-structured preventive programmes lead to a decrease in HVAC system failures by 35–60%. Smaller repairs, which prevent larger failures and larger costs, like belt replacements, refrigerant repairs, and others, are planned and can be easily addressed by trained technicians and are usually planned and completed during normal business hours for reduced impact.
3. Extends the useful life of major HVAC components. HVAC systems are expensive assets. Chillers, compressors, and air handling equipment should be operated within recommended limits to minimise operating stresses. HVAC services done on a regular basis extend the useful life of these assets.
4.  Improved indoor air quality. Controlling the quality and quantity of fresh air that is supplied to the space is a responsibility of HVAC systems. Duct systems need regular cleaning to reduce the pollutants and humidity in the space. Air filtration should be sufficient for the facility. Better air quality has been shown to positively influence occupant health and productivity.
5. Safety and compliance. Several regulations and building standards regarding safety, energy, and ventilation have audits where building owners must provide documentation regarding regular maintenance. Recorded servicing for HVAC systems offers documented evidence that supports safe and compliant building maintenance. 
6. Tenant and Employee satisfaction. Complaints regarding building temperature and air quality are one of the most visible examples of building management failings. Regularly servicing building equipment contributes significantly to the overall building satisfaction for both tenants and employees and is critical to building management maintaining a positive reputation and a higher building satisfaction rate.

Reactive vs Preventive HVAC Services

How to Develop an HVAC Service Program

An effective HVAC service programme starts by inventorying all your assets, developing a service programme, and tracking performance.

1. Inventory your assets. Create a list of every chiller, air handler, rooftop unit, VRF system, pump, and control unit. Document the age, location, and equipment condition for each asset. You will now have a documented asset list with a clear understanding of your building risks.
2. Rank the equipment by risk. Assign a risk level to every unit in your list. The higher the risk level of the equipment failure, the more important it is that the equipment is inspected and repaired more frequently. Equipment that serves spaces like cold storage, labs, hospitals, and server rooms has the highest level of risk and, therefore, requires the shortest service interval and quickest response time.
3. Establish a Periodic Service Programme. Establish a seasonal schedule for pre-cooling and pre-heating service. Create monthly or quarterly service tasks for all of your filters, belts, and frequently used equipment. Putting all of these tasks in the schedule for specific dates in the year will ensure that these service tasks don’t fall behind and remain scheduled when you have a busier building.
4. Select your delivery model.  There are many different service models, from fully in-house to outsourcing all of your services to a blend of the two. This model is completely dependent on your organisation. You should consider the skill of your techs, what kind of certifications your technicians may or may not have, how big of a portfolio you may have, and your required service response times.
5. Employ a CMMS. Digital maintenance software tracks your maintenance programme from schedule to digital work order, email reminders, and maintenance history. It also assists in audits by storing maintenance logs.
6. Determine KPIs. Record information such as callouts, response time, and availability. Use this information to analyse the success of the services and defend the services when requesting an increase in funding.
7. Quarterly meetings. Use your data to determine whether your goals are being met and to guide the quarterly revisions of the plan. Consider adding and deleting items from the list, particularly items of questionable value or that require additional inspections. Be sure to include newly acquired assets.

Case Study: How Improved HVAC Services Can Pay For Themselves

With better HVAC services, you get a significant ROI. Imagine a small office building that has an HVAC energy budget of $50,000 per year. For an energy reduction of 15% to 20%, you get savings of approximately $7,500 to $10,000. That’s enough to cover the service for the next few years. Plus, there’s no cost of emergency calls. As I said before, this is a theoretical example. Make sure you get some quotes of your own for comparison.

HVAC Maintenance Service Costs

When you need an HVAC maintenance plan, you get better results with planned maintenance over emergency repairs.

• Maintenance Cost: $1,700 – Industry standard maintenance spend is approximately $1,700 for one HVAC unit per commercial building, but this number can change.

•  HVAC Payback Period: 6 to 12 Months – Maintenance repairs and savings on HVAC energy will pay for your HVAC maintenance contract. Most commercial building owners reported paying off their investment in HVAC maintenance in under a year.

FAQs About HVAC Services in Facility Management

Q1. How do you describe HVAC services within a facility management context?

 HVAC services include the routine maintenance, inspections, optimisation, and repair of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems to ensure the building environment is efficient, comfortable, and safe.

Q2. What is the value of HVAC maintenance to a commercial property?

An HVAC system consumes a significant portion of a property’s energy and impacts comfort and indoor air quality. Regular maintenance reduces energy loss, protects equipment from premature wear, and extends the service life of the equipment.

Q3. When should commercial HVAC services be scheduled?

Servicing of commercial HVAC systems should occur at a minimum of twice a year, before both cooling and heating seasons. Monthly or quarterly checks should also be performed on filters, belts, and systems that are subjected to significant wear.

Q5. Are HVAC systems a hard or soft service?

It is a hard service since it relates to the systems and construction of the building itself.

Q6. Should I hire an outside HVAC firm or perform it in-house?

If you don’t have refrigerant-certified or expert technicians, outsourcing is your best bet. If you have a larger portfolio of buildings with plenty of steady HVAC work, keeping it in-house makes the most sense. Some teams end up using a hybrid approach.

Q7. Can HVAC services really reduce energy costs?

You can improve the efficiency of your equipment by having clean coils and filters. It is also good to check for correct refrigerant levels and to calibrate controls to get your HVAC running at maximum efficiency.

Conclusion

HVAC services are essential for building facility management teams when it comes to managing the safety of their building’s occupants, as well as protecting the equipment and energy budgets. The first thing you need to do is to get an asset audit of all the HVAC systems in your portfolio. The next step is to move from being reactive to being proactive and start documenting the improvements you are seeing.