From
one tenant’s cold complaint to over $2,000 in service calls…and nothing was
broken
A true
story…
How
spending $250 could have avoided spending over $2,000
A Commercial Property Manager, we’ll call her Paula to
protect her identity, recently acquired a new property.
A three story facility with about 1/3 occupancy (all on the
first floor).
Within
the first month, a tenant complained that their space was too cold.
Being new to the building, Paula looked through the vendor
list and found the Mechanical Service Provider for the HVAC systems.
She called them out to resolve the cold complaint.
After nearly a week of troubleshooting and still no heat,
Paula’s tenant was ready to move out.
Not to mention that Paula also received a service invoice
for over $1,500.
The
invoice stated that the problem was not mechanical, but a “controls issue”
which required a site visit by the controls vendor.
Paula went back to her vendor list and determined that
Energy ETC was listed for controls work.
Paula called Energy ETC’s Helpdesk.
After giving the Helpdesk technician the property’s
address, they attempted a remote connection to the BMS.
Next
problem, during the transition between Property Management Companies the
Internet Service Provider for the BMS connection was not part of the plan and
was shutdown.
A site visit by Energy ETC would be required.
Within the hour Energy ETC’s BMS Application Engineer,
we’ll call him Carl, was at the building.
Carl contacted the Mechanical Technician who first
responded, only to be told it was a controls issue that kept shutting down the
fan.
Upon
reaching the rooftop equipment, Carl observed the heater unit’s fan shutting
down and then restarting itself repeatedly.
The fan never ran long enough for the heater to come on,
thus no heat.
Carl determined that the duct static pressure was rising too high
causing a safety circuit to shut down the fan.
Next Carl discovered the maximum speed the fan could run at
before tripping and set that limit in the BMS.
Problem
solved, the fan continued to run, and the heater section began warming the
space.
Paula immediately went to visit the first floor tenant, they
were very happy and said they felt comfortable right away.
Unfortunately, another service invoice from Energy ETC
brought the total for this one cold complaint to over $2,000.
Outcome…
Paula now knows that by enrolling her building in the BMS
Assurance program powered by Building Clouds she could have saved $1,750
in service calls and the tenant’s frustration would have much less,
from nearly a week to less than an hour.
Paula is now going to sign up for BMS Assurance and keep
her Internet Service Provider payments up to date.
Energy ETC’s Helpdesk will now help Paula manage her
building by making sure her HVAC systems are operating properly
and her tenants are comfortable and happy.
BMS
Assurance Powered by Building Clouds and Administered by Energy ETC
Featuring
Connect – Monitor – Correct
Leveraging
the Internet of Things
You can find more info at:
www.twitter.com/BldgClouds
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