There are few things worse than seeing the same HVAC system fail over and over again.  Those bills for hundreds- or thousands of dollars that keep piling up are a strong indication that there is a much larger problem to contend with.

This isn’t a situation unique to homeowners.  It certainly occurs at the commercial level as well. And, recently, we were reading about just such a case.  Nearly a million dollar budget was set aside for replacement of an HVAC system in a library after it was determined that the small repairs were not doing enough.  The public facility was struggling with repeated problems that were leaving the building and the valuable books within at great risk.

Each time one of the heat pumps failed, the library budget would be taxed by several thousand dollars.  After this started to be a recurring problem, it was clear that there was a need for larger scale corrections.  According to the reports, more than half of the heat pumps were clogged, more than two hundred thousand dollars had already been spent on the “nickel and dime” repairs, and one of the pipes of the system had already burst, causing the destruction of several hundred books.  Something had to be done.

Along with new equipment, the installation of temperature and pressure sensors should also be implemented in this system. A properly place differential pressure sensor could have alerted the facilities maintenance department that there was a leak in the system, a properly controlled system that was monitoring differential pressure could have shut the pumps off, and closed supply valves averting this situation all together. With a tool like the NOSHOK 100 Series current output pressure transmitters installed in this system, the loss of pressure (due to a leak)would have been sensed.  That information would have been transmitted to the building automation system, which, in turn,could have controlled the related pumps and valve.These are controls that this library, and other facilities, would be wise to consider as they revamp HVAC systems.