There is scientific evidence which suggests that maintaining indoor temperatures and providing higher ventilation rates is likely to increase the work performance of the people and also bring tremendous financial benefits for the company. JBS Services specialize in building management system equipment and installation.
Indoor Temperature Control
The design as well as operational intent of a building management system is to maintain the temperatures near the comfort zone in nearly all of the thermally conditioned commercial buildings. However in practice temperatures, it is often significantly above the estimated 71 degrees Fahrenheit as this is considered optimum productivity. In the EPA building assessment survey and evaluation, a study which was conducted on 100 representative US office buildings found out that 33 percent of the indoor measurement sites located at the height of 4 or 5.6 feet above the floor had a workday maximum temperature which is at least 5 degree above 71 degree Fahrenheit and 72 percent of these work sites had a workday maximum temperature ranging at least 3 degrees Fahrenheit above the 71 degrees Fahrenheit. Temperatures which are below this suggested optimum level are quite rate. Only 1.4 percent of the work sites had a work day minimum temperature which is below the 65 degrees Fahrenheit block.
Indeed the key to having good indoor temperature control is by following practices below:
- Heating and air conditioning systems which have sufficient capacity and should be maintained in order to meet heating as well as cooling loads.
- The large sections in a building should not be treated as a single thermal zone with the temperatures being controlled by a single thermostat as this particular practice will often result in temperature control problems.
- Thermostats should be accurately calibrated.
- Airflow to different sections of a building should be adjusted and balanced out as needed in order to maintain desired temperatures.
- A building management system should be maintained and equally commissioned.
Provide Adequate Building Ventilation
Whenever possible, it is important to design a building in such a way that it can maintain building ventilation rates at or above the required minimum rates which are specified in the current applicable codes as well as professional standards. There should be periodic or continuous monitoring of the outdoor intake flow rates in air handling units or in the outdoor and indoor carbon dioxide concentrations is recommended in order to assure that the amount of ventilation is actually delivered at a consistent level with the standard design and operational intent. The building management system should be designed in a way that is reasonably accurate and that the intake flow rates are very accurate. The typical reliance on the building design as well as the occasional air balancing when maintaining desired ventilation rate is typically not recommended since available data will indicate that the building and subspace ventilation are already within code requirements.
In order to enable commissioning, there should be adequate access provided to the air handler components for maintenance and measurements. The common anecdotal reports of the ventilation equipment failure and control problems are the need on the ongoing maintenance and commissioning.