Commercial buildings of all shapes and sizes house our local businesses, and therefore their value to and impact on operations is considerable. When it comes to proper building maintenance, establishing a plan and then following through with it at the designated intervals is key.
Pat Killeen – Engineered Controls
As building occupants, it’s first important to know exactly what you are responsible for and what will be handled by other parties. That being said, it’s always important to know that it is being actively managed by someone who is knowledgeable so that your assets are protected and business will be able to continue as usual. Pat Killeen, owner of Engineered Controls, emphasizes the importance of teamwork between the business owner, building owner/property manager, and key industry professionals in establishing a reliable building maintenance plan:
“The comfort and safety provided by proper maintenance of your building’s mechanical and electrical sub-systems enables building owners and managers to focus on their core business or mission. Today, building systems that are properly maintained will run at top efficiency and for the longest possible amount of time, minimizing operating costs and unnecessary capital expenditures. Properly controlled and maintained building systems equal maximum employee satisfaction, maximum productivity and cost savings.
Engineered Controls offers custom maintenance plans that can be tailored to fit the needs of each customer. A well maintained system can be cost neutral when considering both the energy savings and extended life of the equipment. In addition, a good maintenance program will help to ensure buildings will experience smooth, uninterrupted operation for as long as possible.
What constitutes the ‘right’ level of service for security equipment and automation systems differs from facility to facility. Whether you simply need to identify a reliable resource for fast and accurate repairs, or you want to continually optimize the performance of your building, Engineered Controls provides a tiered approach to service that meets your equipment needs, failure tolerance and budget.
From Engineered Controls perspective there are five main benefits for the building owner to work with a maintenance provider.
Reduced hassles from equipment breakdowns • Management of business expenses • Optimization of energy usage
Increase employee and tenant comfort and health • Increased peace of mind
At Engineered Controls, our goal is to help the building owner or manager succeed by offer custom tailored maintenance agreements to fit your staff’s skill sets and business needs.
We’re now offering Adviser, a complete suite of building management services and cloud-based resources from Engineered Controls. Adviser is designed to monitor energy and operational efficiency, and put your facility on a path to optimization. Our Adviser customers have the support of our network of energy and automation experts, backed by sophisticated analytics technology, all working to deliver the right level of service and the information you need to maximize your efficiency and achieve your business goals.
Adviser advisory service from Engineered Controls offers three levels of service – Awareness, Improvement and Optimization. With three different options our customers can choose which level of Engineered Controls Adviser services they want to use.
The Awareness program is a web-based monitoring and troubleshooting system that keeps a 24-hour watch over a building management system. The Improvement program provides all the services included in the awareness program, plus consultations from our energy experts. And finally, the Optimization program provides all the services of awareness and improvement, plus our customers will receive a prioritized list of energy recommendations that will help them to focus on system changes that provide them the most benefit.”
It’s important to keep in mind that a lot of items that should be included on your building maintenance checklist are things that you’d only notice if they weren’t being done or working properly. Many of your building’s systems and equipment is heavily relied upon to work day in and day out to serve a variety of vital purposes. Proper maintenance will ensure that your daily operations continue to run smoothly without any issues arising that have the potential to compound and seriously affect your business’s bottom line.
Troy Spady – Complete Comfort Omaha
“One of the best values and best ways to take care of building maintenance is to get an Annual Maintenance Agreement,” advises Troy Spady of Complete Comfort Heating and Cooling. “A standard agreement calls for a visit in the spring to prepare for the cooling season and another visit in the fall to ensure you are ready for the heating season. Some of our customers have us come out quarterly to change filters and belts. We can customize a schedule that will fit your needs. By investing in an Annual Maintenance Agreement, you save time and money knowing your system is running optimally year round.
Recently we have also had a peaked interest in WiFi thermostats from building owners who are not on-site. This gives them the ability to know what is going on with their heating and cooling system 24/7 no matter where they happen to be. There have also been advances in technology in HVAC systems that allow remote access functionality where a dealer can access system information remotely. This makes troubleshooting before going on site a reality and provides an even greater level of service to building owners.”
He adds, “With building maintenance, the key is to be proactive. There is nothing worse than having something break down when it could have been prevented. At the very least if something does break down, there is peace of mind knowing you have someone in your corner to call that is familiar with your equipment and values you as a customer. It’s important to find the HVAC company that you can trust and that will take care of you. We take pride in fitting that description at Complete Comfort.
The comfort of everyone in your building is one of the most integral parts of running your business. Maintaining your heating and cooling system is one of the easiest ways to ensure that employees are comfortable year round. Not only will keeping on top of building maintenance save you unforeseen headaches, it will save you money in the long run. Call us today to ask about Annual Maintenance Agreements for your business and home!”
The buildings that our contemporary businesses occupy are becoming more and more sophisticated, which also means that maintenance plans must adapt to take all technological advances into consideration.
Dave Bodenstedt – Echo Systems
“A building owner needs to be aware and consider what technology options are out there that can be implemented and integrated into their own facility to make it more energy and maintenance efficient,” explains Dave Bodenstedt, Commercial A/V Solutions Consultant at Echo Systems. “It’s important that a return on investment can be quantified and justified. You’ll want to work with a firm that is able to design and engineer as such. You’ll also want to work with a firm that can help you find ways to save money through rebates, tax incentives, and lower energy costs. Echo Systems can help with all that!
Lighting, window shade, and HVAC control can play a huge benefit in energy savings and can also reduce or eliminate maintenance costs in some cases. Lighting and HVAC can make up for over 70% of an office buildings’ energy usage. So how do you make that 70% shrink? Lighting control can extend lamp life and can also provide lighting only to spaces that are occupied. You can also add the benefit of energy savings and maintenance just by upgrading or retrofitting light fixtures to LED. A typical LED fixture can extend lamp life to 30% longer, as compared to a typical T8 Fluorescent office building fixture. That means an average LED can last 22 years when calculating an 8 hour work day for 5 days a week versus only 13 years with the same figures. That notion could be considered maintenance free, depending on life cycle of the office space itself. Adding dimming extends lamp life even longer and reduces energy consumption even more! Window shade controls can automatically adjust shades to raise and lower based on direction of the sun, which in turn makes your HVAC not work as hard. HVAC control can also work in zones and occupancy so your HVAC isn’t fully heating or cooling a space that’s not being occupied.
The majority of building technologies out there can be monitored and notifications can be sent out to maintenance. This further reduces burden on maintenance, by alerting them to a problem before failure so they can make a decision to replace before down time potentially occurs. There are also technologies out there that can keep track of asset usage such as document readers and projectors to see if future asset investment is needed.
Echo Systems does offer service and maintenance contracts for all converged technologies we recommend and support. Annual maintenance is common, but can be as frequent as quarterly if an owner wants added piece of mind. If a firm is required to provide more frequent maintenance, they could be paying a premium for something that’s not necessary. The main, basic point of a service and maintenance contract is to minimize down time and to provide priority service to owners who have them.”
As previously mentioned, no two buildings are the same when it comes to required maintenance. This is especially true with the popularity of renovating and repurposing older, often historical buildings. A classic example is the development of downtown areas to offer multipurpose housing and commercial space.
Darin Cielocha – McGill Restoration
“Recently we’ve seen a lot of companies contracting projects that involve the modification of older buildings,” says Darin Cielocha of McGill Restoration. “Since this has been popular in recent years, building owners and managers are constantly looking to maintain the integrity of their building and improve whatever necessary to protect the initial investment that was made.
If it’s not already, allocating a portion of your budget to the improvement of your facility should be a part of your long term business planning. While some maintenance items are small or recurring at defined intervals throughout the year, others are sizeable projects that may need to be addressed due to the forces at work—wear and tear from environmental stressors or regular traffic and so on. While you can’t necessarily plan in exact terms when things like this will happen, you can estimate to a degree of certainty the intervals at which time particular items will be a concern from the information about the building materials, construction techniques, architecture, structural integrity, age, past issues, etc. With so many variables at work, planning ahead to have your building periodically evaluated so that issues are addressed proactively is paramount.
Time frames vary with respect to maintenance-related projects, which also speaks to the importance of planning. For example, if you’re looking to have a maintenance project done in 2016 that incorporates construction, it’s very difficult to set something in motion if you didn’t start planning until the 3rd quarter last year. If a project will take six months, there’s generally an equal six months of planning beforehand. In fact, sometimes a job will require more time with planning than with the project itself. In my experience it’s beneficial to begin planning in the 1st quarter so you can implement in the 3rd quarter. Anything that affects the structure itself is generally a major undertaking and mobilizing efforts will take time. While it’s different with restoration and maintenance versus a complete build, you’ll always want to keep this in mind.”
He continues, “On the maintenance side of things, we are constantly working ahead so my advice is always to plan, plan, plan! Aside from the great importance of planning, currently with the labor crisis, finding good workers has been difficult but they are out there and you want to make sure you are working with them. Working with industry experts who have extensive experience in the field means that they’ve seen a multitude of difference scenarios, so they are adept at tailoring a project’s specifications to fit all of the critical factors involved—especially those that are less obvious or might be easily overlooked. We always say we are, and work with, solution providers and problem solvers. They are able to make good decisions because they’ve worked with a wide variety of materials and methods in construction.
This especially true with old buildings, because we’ve come a long way and the designs just weren’t meant for the traffic loads and weight needs. We are trying to cram more and more people into offices and patrons in the doors. Luckily we have smart ways to restructure things these days! For example, if you make your space bigger you’ll need new HVAC equipment to properly heat and cool the space, and you might even need to structure the load capacity so you can put the new, and most likely heavier and larger, equipment on the roof.
Maintenance programs will also switch hands, so you’ll want to be kept up to speed about the last time that key services were performed. It’s quite common for people to spend more money on updating the interior of a building than the exterior, when in some cases the dollars would go much farther by doing the opposite. As a prime example, as new tenants coming into a space will paint and install new flooring without hesitation. The face of the building, signage, parking lot…all are important factors to take into consideration too. While you are reviewing your budget and where to spend, keep in mind that you may need to allocate funds to the outside of the building as well, which will draw attention with curb appeal but at the same time also has underlying benefits to offer.
Essentially if you’re going to invest in maintenance, work with professionals who can offer a whole building perspective. A comprehensive maintenance program will have items that need to be done weekly, monthly, yearly, and in certain year increments so having this in place will allow you to avoid being stuck in a reactive cycle that can cause problems from unanticipated costs and down time. Maintaining the integrity of a building and investing in the improvement of your facility should always be a part of your budget and your yearly planning.”
As previously mentioned, the exterior elements are just as important as the building itself in terms of regular maintenance because your curb appeal, along with your attention to the safety of your guests and the upkeep of your property, will factor into the public’s overall perception of your business. A key part of your property, as it will literally be trafficked by all employees and visitors to your building, is the parking lot. “A well maintained parking lot is not only aesthetically pleasing to your customers, and shows your care and concern for the appearance of your property, but it also offers protection against any potential safety-related issues and huge costly repairs,” emphasizes Debra Maxfield, owner of Stripe it Rich, LLC. “Stripe it Rich will inspect your parking lot for these issues and provide their feedback as to any potential risks that exist or any areas that may lead to future repairs which can be expensive and inconvenient. Furthermore, we are concerned with giving you a budget you can live with and we work closely with our clients to protect and maximize your investment dollars.” She adds, “Maintaining any facility is often an arduous task. My best advice is to select the companies you trust, and who support you by providing excellent customer service, to get the job done.”
Aside from ensuring the safety of its inhabitants, proper building maintenance protects the integrity of the building which affects its aesthetic value as well as minimizing any costly problems that are likely to compound if not actively addressed. All aspects of building maintenance need to be articulated and then handled by the responsible party according to professional recommendations in order for optimal results over time. Luckily in the Omaha Metro there is no lack of industry experts who keep our buildings both beautiful and functional for all to enjoy!
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