Changeover Time is Coming

After one of the coldest winters in recent memory, the heating to cooling changeover is right around the corner. Here are some tips for making the changeover this year.

 

1)      During the shoulder season when heating may be required, Make Up Air units that are fed by Primary Boilers can be left in a heating mode while the fan-coils in the suites are switched over to cooling. With a cooler Spring appearing likely, this will allow you to provide some heat in the corridors while providing cooling insuite.

 

2)      Glycol – make sure that when draining coils of glycol to recover all of the glycol in clean storage containers. Do not let the glycol flow into the building mains.

 

3)      Basement Loops (Miscellaneous Heating Loops) that are fed from the Heating / Cooling Mains need to be manually shut down during the summer to prevent condensation in enclosed spaces.

 

4)      Do an inspection of the Cooling Tower well before your changeover date. With the ice storm, it is possible that parts of the Tower may have experienced some damage due to heavy ice.

 

5)      Make sure that outside, electrically heated areas are shut down for the summer or that the controlling thermostats are set to a minimum set-point a couple of degrees above freezing.

 

6)      Remember to call Provident Energy during your changeover. Unless the Energy Management System is commanded to the cooling mode, HVAC systems will not operate properly.

SpringFest 2014

SpringFest 2014 is less than a month away!

The annual educational seminar and tradeshow expo will take place Thursday April 10 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre – South Building. Be sure to drop by and see us at Booth #318! For more information, including FREE registration, please visit their website. http://www.springfesttoronto.com

Tech Corner – Even Buildings Need Exercise!

In operating a building, there is a phrase that is often used – “exercise the valve”. What does this mean? It simply means to operate a valve to check for proper operation. Over the last year, we have had a number of instances remind us of why exercising valves is important.

In one case, as part of an overall building improvement program, all of the gas lines in the building were re-painted yellow, the colour indicating a natural gas line. It looked great. However, when we went to exercise the emergency gas shut-off valves, we discovered that the valve had been painted as well, and the valve was well and truly stuck in the open position. Fortunately this was discovered during a routine inspection and corrected. Imagine if this had been the case during an emergency!

In another case, we operated some needle valves on the Domestic Cold Water Booster Pumps in order to do some testing. These valves had not been exercised in years. The result was a failure of the Low Suction Pressure Limit on the system and resulted in a loss of water in the building for a number of hours.

There have been countless cases over the years where work has been delayed or re-scheduled because isolation valves that were supposed to allow work to be done on the plumbing systems did not “hold” (work as designed and “hold” back the water).

Exercising valves is a good maintenance practice and should be done on a regular basis. It only takes a few minutes to exercise a valve, but it can mean hours or days on a job when it is suddenly discovered that these valves don’t work.

The same “exercising” principal can be applied to lead / lag equipment. For example, a pump system may be set up where if the lead pump fails, the lag (or back-up) pump will kick on. If the lag pump is not exercised periodically, the seals on the pump can deteriorate, ‘dead-spots’ in motor windings can develop, and couplings can fail when first started.

A good building exercise program begins with a list of priority valves in the building. These include, main water shut off, gas valves, riser isolation valves, and builds from there. A little exercise can go a long way.

CO Monitoring Systems for Your Underground Garage

Presently, exhaust fans in the underground garage of your building should be running 24 hours a day, seven days a week if you do not have a Carbon Monoxide Monitoring System installed. Contrary to popular belief, it is a violation of the building code for exhaust fans to be cycled or shut down at any time during the course of a day unless there is a CO Monitoring System in place. Section 6 of the Ontario Building Code states that an enclosed storage garage should have a) a mechanical ventilation system to limit the concentration of carbon monoxide to not more than 100 parts per million of air or b) provide, during operating hours, a continuous supply of outdoor air at a rate not less than 3.9L/s for each square metre of the floor area.

If your fans are running 24 hours a day for seven days a week it is possible that the implementation of a CO Monitoring system could generate savings for the corporation. In this case paybacks are generally between 2 to 4 years. The incentive is double that of lighting retrofits - CO Monitoring systems garners an incentive of $0.10kWh. To book a garage assessment, please contact the sales department at Provident Energy at 416-736-0630, extension 5.

Building Automation System Take–Overs

Not all Building Automation Systems (also known as Energy Management Systems) are the same. There is a wide range of manufacturers and installers with different control abilities.

As part of our free energy assessment, we often inspect existing Building Automation Systems. Regardless if the Building Automation System was installed during the construction of the building or if the System was installed as a retrofit, there are often areas that are either not controlled or not controlled very well. In many cases, the existing Building Automation System can be upgraded via the implementation of additional Variable Frequency Drives and leak/flood detection.

Provident Energy utilizes a Siemens Apogee Building Automation System that can be remotely accessed via the internet. Most Building Automation Systems are owned by the Condominium Corporation and they are free to choose any Energy Management company to monitor their system. The take-over should not involve a full re-installation of the Building Automation System. For any System, the main control panels can be replaced and in most cases the existing wiring, sensors and conduits can be re-used (the initial wiring is generally the most costly and labour intensive step).

As mentioned earlier, we find many existing Systems leave room for improvement. For example, the Domestic Hot Water System may have a flat temperature set-point for the entire day and night. Or, the make-up air handling units may have VFDs that fluctuate only between 85% and 95%, 24 hours per day – whereas these units could be slowed down during non-peak hours. Provident Energy can implement additional control algorithms for existing Building Automation Systems and we can usually enhance overall energy savings by 4%-7%.

Another important feature of Provident Energy’s Building Automation System is our Monitoring Service. Your building’s system will be monitored 24/7 offsite by Provident Energy’s team of highly skilled technicians for both critical systems alarms and overall system optimization. This ensures that any issues that may arise within the buildings critical components will be diagnosed by technicians and relayed back to the site staff. Early diagnosis of such issues helps to prolong the life of your critical components, and also helps to ensure that the residents comfort isn’t compromised in the process.

What incentive rebates are available for common area retrofit projects?

(Excerpt from Condo Business Magazine Online (part of the REMI network). Click here for the full article.)
 

There are several electrical and natural gas incentives available for energy-saving retrofits. Some of these incentives can provide a condominium with a rebate of up to 50 per cent of the project costs.

If a condominium is interested in electrical savings, the saveONenergy programs are offered through local utilities and are funded through the Ontario Power Authority (OPA). A wide variety of retrofits qualify under saveONenergy, including lighting, carbon dioxide monitoring systems, controls, building envelope, variable frequency drives and building automation systems.

There are three different streams for the saveONenergy retrofits. The prescriptive option allows a condominium to simply select from a list of measures that come with a matching per-unit incentive. Through the engineering and custom tracks, lighting retrofits are generally eligible for $0.05 per kilowatt-hour saved and non-lighting retrofits are eligible for $0.10 per kilowatt-hour saved.

If a condominium is interested in natural gas savings, Enbridge offers incentive rebates for retrofits such as variable frequency drives or building automation systems. Upon the successful implementation of an eligible project, customers may receive an incentive payment based on a rate of $0.10 cubic metres of natural gas saved.

The incentive application process for saveONenergy and Enbridge are similar: the retrofit project must be approved prior to implementation. A condominium’s application and specifications will be reviewed by an incentive program technical advisor to ensure the retrofit meets the program requirements. Once the retrofit project is complete, additional documents and site visits are required.

Understanding all the fine print of the incentive programs can be confusing but most energy efficiency contractors will assist with the incentive application process as part of their scope of work. Make sure to ask the contractor to estimate the anticipated incentive and clarify who is responsible for the applications. Although incentives have been available for years, it is surprising how many condominiums are still not taking advantage of them.

Building Automation System Take–Overs

Not all Building Automation Systems (also known as Energy Management Systems) are the same. There is a wide range of manufacturers and installers with different control abilities.

As part of our free energy assessment, we often inspect existing Building Automation Systems. Regardless if the Building Automation System was installed during the construction of the building or if the System was installed as a retrofit, there are often areas that are either not controlled or not controlled very well. In many cases, the existing Building Automation System can be upgraded via the implementation of additional Variable Frequency Drives and leak/flood detection.

 
Provident Energy utilizes a Siemens Apogee Building Automation System that can be remotely accessed via the internet. Most Building Automation Systems are owned by the Condominium Corporation and they are free to choose any Energy Management company to monitor their system. The take-over should not involve a full re-installation of the Building Automation System. For any System, the main control panels can be replaced and in most cases the existing wiring, sensors and conduits can be re-used (the initial wiring is generally the most costly and labour intensive step).

As mentioned earlier, we find many existing Systems leave room for improvement.  For example, the Domestic Hot Water System may have a flat temperature set-point for the entire day and night. Or, the make-up air handling units may have VFDs that fluctuate only between 85% and 95%, 24 hours per day – whereas these units could be slowed down during non-peak hours. Provident Energy can implement additional control algorithms for existing Building Automation Systems and we can usually enhance overall energy savings by 4%-7%.

Another important feature of Provident Energy’s Building Automation System is our Monitoring Service.  Your building’s system will be monitored 24/7 offsite by Provident Energy’s team of highly skilled technicians for both critical systems alarms and overall system optimization. This ensures that any issues that may arise within the buildings critical components will be diagnosed by technicians and relayed back to the site staff. Early diagnosis of such issues helps to prolong the life of your critical components, and also helps to ensure that the residents comfort isn’t compromised in the process. 

 

 

 

For more information or to book a free energy assessment, please contact the sales department at Provident Energy at 416-736-0630, extension 5 or visit our website www.pemi.com