Commercial air handling units (AHUs) play an essential role in the heating and cooling of buildings. Large structures depend on the air that is pulled in from outside and distributed evenly by AHUs for optimal indoor air quality and temperature control.
AHUs are at the heart of comfort and efficiency for commercial HVAC systems, so when they begin to underperform or break down entirely, there are significant consequences for tenants and for operational costs. Understanding commercial HVAC maintenance and replacement is important for keeping AHUs at peak performance.
Commercial HVAC Maintenance for Air Handling Units
Maintaining AHUs is critical for efficient commercial HVAC performance. With these HVAC components, common causes of poor performance or break downs include a failed blower motor, dirty filters, fan unit problems, condensation leaks, dirty airways, or old age.
Each of these has distinct signs in the form of poor indoor air quality, poor temperature control and/or poor air flow. Contacting your commercial HVAC maintenance provider as soon as these signs arise is important so that their trained technicians can accurately assess the problem and get AHUs back up and running.
Replacement of Commercial Air Handling Units
Inevitably, commercial AHUs will reach the end of their service life and need to be replaced. This often proves to be a highly complex project, but also an opportunity for cost savings over the next decade. This was exactly the case when a 24-story Class A Office building, totaling 300,000 square feet, recently approached Donnelly Mechanical to replace 8 AHUs across 8 different mechanical rooms.
Before any of the units experienced full-blown failure, Donnelly was able to replace all the AHUs and associated equipment with minimal disruption to tenants. The new high-efficiency systems were installed, started, tested, balanced, and underwent vibration analysis reporting before the job was complete.
In the end, the project was a success. The new systems promised to deliver savings in the form of energy efficiency over the lifetime of the systems, and the replacement was completed on time and on budget.
To learn more about commercial AHU replacement, read the Donnelly Mechanical Featured Project on Turn-Key Air Handling Unit replacement in Class A office space.
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