Controls 101
Buildings of today are technological marvels. They are complicated, high tech systems that can control the interior climate of a building through its HVAC, its security systems, card access, video surveillance, lighting, fire alarm, and smoke evacuation systems. With the latest technology in glass, buildings can even turn a rainy day outside to a beautiful, sunny day inside!
These automated “Smart Buildings” have an integrated system of technology that allows it to make intelligent decisions by assessing energy usage, decrease operating costs and can even “learn” the habits of its inhabitants. They’re also the first to know when there’s a problem, so it can be dealt with immediately.
Internet of Things - IoT
At the forefront of new building technology is the Internet of Things. More and more appliances and machines in our everyday lives have internet connectivity that allows them to be monitored, controlled, and sometimes even repaired through the internet. People can now use their smartphones to access their home security system, turn up the thermostat so the house is warm when they return home or look in the fridge to see if they’re out of milk. This is the Internet of Things, or IoT, and it allows users to use data collected by its systems in order to make operating decisions through a Controls unit.
The IoT can recognize changes in occupancy to optimize energy use and ensures the lowest energy costs for operation. Perhaps the sun warms one side of the building in the morning and another in the afternoon. The Controls system, which is the brains of your building, would make the appropriate adjustments to maintain a consistent temperature. With an integrated HVAC system, your interior climate remains constant and comfortable.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, about 20 percent of all U.S. energy use is dedicated to powering commercial buildings. By having all of your HVAC systems connected and working together, they don’t run when no one’s in the building or in areas where there are no occupants and therefore work in the most energy efficient way possible and with less impact on the environment.
How Jarrell Uses Controls to Help You
When you walk into a building with integrated systems, you don’t have to worry about walking into a catastrophe like an outage or a burst water pipe. Our Energy Monitoring Service (EMS) would have already detected a problem and dispatched one of our 24-hour emergency technicians to fix it. Instead of waiting for the temperature to rise when a chiller fails, EMS notifies us immediately and sends someone to fix the problem, often before anyone knows that there is one. With EMS monitoring, downtime is minimized. It provides monitoring of energy consumption as well as alarms.
Although most buildings today are being built with these smart Controls systems, your building doesn’t have to be new to be able to take advantage of the benefits they have to offer. Our engineers can design a system that is retrofit to your old HVAC system with a state-of-the-art Controls and Monitoring operation that will greatly improve the energy efficiency and decrease your heating and cooling costs.
Interested in Learning more about a Controls System?
Whether you’re creating a building from the ground up or you’re looking for a way to update your existing HVAC system to be more energy efficient, the engineers at Jarrell Mechanical Engineering can design, install, and maintain a system that will meet your needs and budget. Call us today at 1-800-729-HVAC (4822).
