Its now cold, jack frost has arrived. The New England winter can be beautiful, offering great recreational fun; the New England winter also has the joyous effect of frozen pipes, black ice, and thrown-out backs! Regardless of your relationship with winter, we have tips on how you can prepare your facility and its systems for this winter, via your building automation system (BAS).

Your BMS is designed to automate, trend, and monitor your facilities operational systems. If utilized correctly it will provide you with energy savings, prevent unexpected equipment failures and keep the facilities occupants comfortable and happy…. ok, we admit, that last bit may impossible!

First, lets check your trends, is your fault detection diagnostics system working? This is a wonderful time to clear your alarms and faults. Depending on your trending you may want to adjust set points, enable, or disable certain equipment. You may also see that an aspect of your mechanical equipment has been working overtime and running hot, this could be a sign of common issues like resistance from failing bearings or dirty filters. By understanding your faults, you can work on the solution now, versus being caught off guard and paying a premium later. The BMS speaks, listen to it!

Next, before the consistently freezing temperatures and snow arrives you should inspect and or replacing your outdoor environmental sensors. These sensors directly communicate with your BMS system and influence its actions. If you have not inspected theses within the year, do so. Faulty sensors can lead to incorrect BMS commands leading to overheating or even a lack of heating. Overheating means waisted money and your occupants will become uncomfortable. Not enough heat means unhappy occupants but also frozen pipes and coils. If you end up with frozen pipes, this is a costly repair and leaves your facilities HVAC unusable until fixed. Check and or replace your sensors!

Our last and simple suggestion is to call in your preferred BAS contractor for a seasonal change over inspection. This will alleviate you from having to do all of this, allocate your energy elsewhere. Ensure your BAS contractor is familiar with your systems and fully understands that you are looking to clear faults, understand valid alarms, and set up your system for the winter.

If you have any questions about how TC Controls can help you and your facility prepare for winter, just give us a call. Our job is to consistently deliver the most predictable, intuitive, and reliable BAS solutions.

Have a fun, safe winter. We will keep Jack Frost at bay.