Your building automation contractor should be a part of your design team!

TC Controls has over 100 years of knowledge when it comes to building automation controls. With all this knowledge shared through the team, it’s no surprise that everyone agrees on this point; the sooner the controls contractor is included in the project, the smoother the job goes. As a building owner or general contractor, you know that communication is the key to a successful project that delivers exactly what the customer wanted. Therefore, you should introduce your controls contractor during the design phase, a controls system is the communication bridge between all your mechanical equipment. To do this right, you will need to consider.

• As you work with you Engineering team see if they have any control contractor or system recommendations along with their equipment recommendations.
• Once you have a controls contractor, put them to work for you!
  • Your control contactor should immediately start working to ensure that the mechanical equipment will be controlled with the on/off or ramp up/ramp down sequences that you
  • Your control contactor should immediately start working with your equipment suppliers to ensure that the equipment comes equipped with the correct communication protocol, like ModBus, BacNet.
  • Your control contactor should immediately start working with your electricians during the design phase to ensure that the P&IDs work with the equipment, their electrical characteristics and electrical panels are designed with the equipment in mind.

With the control’s contactor being introduced early on, they can work their schedule into the projects master schedule. This will allow for greater transparency, planning ability and accountability throughout the project. Speaking of completion; the early introduction also allows for a project that can end on schedule, or even early. It’s too often that a controls contractor is held hostage on-site attempting to re-wiring or re-writing protocols that could have been taken care of earlier on in the project.

With the points mentioned above, you can easily see the criticality of including the controls contractor early in the design phase; could you imagine not bringing the controls contractor till construction?… Don’t think that thought, we don’t want to ruin your day!