What Is HVAC Maintenance & Why It’s Important

Tips, Tools & Checklists For Successful HVAC System Maintenance Planning

Facilities Management Software / September 2024

What Is HVAC Maintenance?

HVAC maintenance refers to the regular upkeep and routine checks put in place after installation to ensure your heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system runs correctly without any issues.

The objective of HVAC system maintenance is to prevent catastrophic breakdowns that impact the surrounding environment and result in hefty repair costs.

Whether in residential or commercial facilities, HVAC maintenance can be anything from routine inspections and manual checklists to using CAFM Software to create a preventive HVAC maintenance strategy.

Maintenance includes regular cleaning, air filter changes, examining refrigerate lines, inspecting fans and chillers, testing gas connections, and more.

Identify the Best Facilities Management Software For Managing Your HVAC Maintenance Tasks

Why HVAC Maintenance Is Important In Residential & Commercial Facilities

A properly maintained HVAC system running at optimal capacity through regular maintenance activities is key for:

• Reducing costs associated with emergency repairs or refurbishments
• Avoiding unexpected breakdowns that impact the residential or commercial environment
• Improving the indoor air quality (IAQ) of a room, building, or facility
• Saving on energy bills
• Extending the optimal working life of an HVAC system

In commercial settings, the efficiency of an HVAC system plays a key role in providing a productive working environment and having a direct impact on health and general well-being. 97% of office workers believe that good indoor air quality – a by-product of a working ventilation unit – contributes to greater productivity levels. While 99% credit IAQ for promoting at least one health-related benefit.

Poorly maintained HVAC units – due to a lack of maintenance activities – also have a large energy consumption. Heating and cooling systems are the biggest contributors to energy consumption in commercial facilities (illustrated below).

Data source: HVAC energy Breakdown, environment.gov.au

With regular HVAC maintenance, commercial buildings can provide proper ventilation, which leads to better indoor air quality. This has several benefits:

• Productivity: Improving air quality through ventilation improves productivity equivalent to $6,500 per person per year.
• Performance: Good IAQ boosts workplace performance by 10%.
• Health: Improved ventilation results in 35% fewer staff sick days, as well as better physical and mental health.
• Allergies: Office workers agreed to better IAQ reducing allergic reactions such as sneezing and coughing (51%) and less airborne contaminants.

Three HVAC Maintenance Types to Consider

Choosing a maintenance plan for your HVAC unit depends on budget, facility, use (is it required all year round or only in certain periods?) available engineers, and more. Essentially, there are three maintenance types to choose from:

1. Planned preventive maintenance (PPM)
2. Responsive/Reactive maintenance
3. Routine maintenance

1. Planned Preventive Maintenance For HVAC Systems

Preventive maintenance plans are put in place to ensure HVAC systems remain operational for as long as possible without fail through scheduled inspections, checks, and maintenance. PPM is typically initiated with the use of Facilities Management, Building Maintenance, or HVAC Software.

Although there are challenges associated with deploying PPM (like high upfront costs and excessive data gathering), the benefits outweigh them. They include:

• Lower maintenance costs in the long term
• Prolonged HVAC system life
• Reduced health and safety risks (avoiding leaking condensate pipes or excessive gas build-ups)

2. Responsive/Reactive Maintenance

Like any reactive maintenance plan, HVAC systems are only checked on if something goes wrong. Responsive maintenance is deployed to save time and money in the short term but can be disastrous in the long term.

Reactive maintenance plans have a 40% higher cost expectancy than preventive maintenance due to downtime and emergency repair costs.

3. Routine Maintenance

Routine maintenance is one of the most popular types when it comes to building maintenance. This is because it can be done with manual tools such as pen and paper or spreadsheets.

Using HVAC maintenance checklists, maintenance teams can routinely schedule daily, weekly, monthly, bi-annually, or annual checks to keep systems in working condition. These include cleaning, checking pipes for leaks, cleaning and replacing air filters, and more.

Routine checks can also be outsourced to specialist service teams for more heavy-duty tasks (like calibrating thermostats and lubricating moving parts).

Routine Checklist Example For HVAC Maintenance

Whether opting to keep your HVAC maintenance in-house or to outsource it, a qualified technician will typically follow a checklist for carrying out work. A HVAC maintenance checklist will cover tasks such as:

Recognising the Need for HVAC System Maintenance

Commercial HVAC systems have several moving parts, which, without proper servicing and regular maintenance, increases the risk of breakdowns and failures. A lack of maintenance can reduce the lifespan of a HVAC unit by 8 to 15 years.

Proactive HVAC maintenance will cover inspecting parts such as thermostats, condenser fans, compressors, dampers, evaporators, air filters, and more. If any one or more of these parts fail, several issues can arise:

• Paying emergency call-out fees for qualified technicians
• Shutting down ventilation systems for reactive repairs
• Experiencing short cycling due to blocked filters or damaged thermostats
• Having refrigerant leaks in office spaces
• Loud and abnormal noises that distract workers
• A build-up of dirt on air filters and condenser coils

Legal Ventilation and HVAC Inspection Requirements In the UK

While regular upkeep is important for improving the working environment, there are several laws and requirements that commercial HVAC systems need to meet. Facility managers need to know that:

Air conditioning units containing F-Gases (refrigerants) must only be handled by a certified technician
HVAC systems with a capacity of over 12KW need to be checked by qualified technicians every 5 years
Buildings must have a valid TM44 inspection certificate after every HVAC check

When it comes to requirements for IAQ and ventilation, there are various recommendations for different air pollutants. For CO2, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) recommends 5,000 ppm (parts per million) over 8 hours. Although, since the COVID-19 Pandemic, SAGE suggests this limit be at 1,500 ppm.

For commercial use, the recommended guidance and limits are:

How CAFM Tools & HVAC Software Improve HVAC Maintenance Activities

Dedicated HVAC Software tools and CAFM systems provide facility managers with the right features and capabilities to improve the life expectancy and usage of HVAC systems. Typical features include:

• Work order assignment
• Job tracking
• Space planning, design, and management
• Building maintenance management
• Workforce/Contractor management
• Energy tracking and optimisation

One key capability of Facilities Management Software is the ability to track, plan, and manage building maintenance. With the right tools in place, building maintenance costs can be reduced by up to 40% when switching from reactive maintenance to a more defined planned preventative maintenance (PPM) plan.

Preventive maintenance approaches can be successfully applied to HVAC maintenance tasks. Using a CAFM tool, facility managers can:

• Track the usage of HVAC systems throughout each office, floor, and building
• Optimise the use of heating and cooling through smart systems
• Measure IAQ in real-time
• Access inspection certificates
• Assign skilled, qualified technicians to regularly inspect and update units
• Manage spare parts availability to reduce unplanned downtime

Without regular HVAC maintenance, there is a significant increase in unplanned downtime, which costs facilities between 5% – 20% of their productivity capacity. As well as costing businesses in the UK £38 million every year.

The Maintenance-Related Benefits of Smart HVAC Systems

The use of IoT technologies for the creation of smart buildings is a trending topic among facility managers and building owners. These smart upgrades range from automated space planning tools to smart thermostats – a market predicted to triple from $1.1 billion in 2021 to $3.2 billion in 2028 in the US.

One area considered for a smarter upgrade in commercial buildings is the HVAC system. With a typical office HVAC unit accounting for 40% of total building energy consumption, there is a high demand to improve efficiency through smarter systems.

By upgrading to smarter HVAC systems, buildings will benefit from:

• Reduced energy consumption and total output
• Fewer breakdowns through overuse
• Reduced energy costs used to run HVAC systems
• A more focused output of heating and cooling

A smart HVAC system works by installing sensors and collecting data on its usage. These devices are connected and information is displayed in systems such as Facilities Management Software. From here, HVAC systems are either automated or a precise schedule is built to better utilise units such as during working hours or when temperatures are above or below a certain threshold.

Since 2023, there has been a push for more efficient heating and cooling systems. These include the introduction of less-toxic refrigerants, such as R-454b, which has a lower global warming potential.

As well as the use of CO2-based demand-controlled ventilation (DCV), which can reduce HVAC energy output by as much as 70%.

Future Trends In the HVAC System Market

A study on the HVAC system market indicated 4 key drivers for change:

1. Need for energy-saving HVAC systems
2. Increased construction activities (residential and Industrial)
3. Government regulatory policies and green incentives
4. Demand for better indoor air quality

With this comes the introduction of advanced tech and growing demand. Innovative change is providing facilities with multiple heating and cooling options such as Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) systems, heat pumps, air handling units (AHU), and advanced air filters.

There is one main restraint for these drivers of new tech, however; the increasing expenses associated with maintenance, repairs, and installation.