Maximize winter energy savings in NJ buildings with smart HVAC design: upgrade to efficient equipment, optimize controls (BAS), and seal the building envelope.
You can make sure your building stays comfortable and save a lot of energy in the winter by putting efficiency upgrades first and adding modern controls. To fight the high cost of heating in the Northeast, you need to work smarter, not harder.
Making the Building Envelope Better
Even if your heating system works really well, you’ll never really save energy in the winter if your building is leaking conditioned air. The first step in designing an HVAC system that works well is to look at and improve the building envelope.
- Sealing the air: Look for leaks around the roof lines, windows, doors, and utility penetrations. Air sealing is often the cheapest way to go because it makes your HVAC system work less by letting less air in.
- Insulation: Make sure that the walls, roofs, and floors that are open to the outside meet or exceed New Jersey’s current energy codes. Proper insulation keeps the heat inside the building from escaping quickly. This keeps the temperature stable and lets your system cycle less often.
The most important thing for energy efficiency is a strong envelope. It keeps heat in and lets your HVAC system work as it should.
Call LKU Group, Inc. at (201) 791-1210 for a consultation!
Upgrades to High-Efficiency Heating Equipment
The heating equipment itself may be to blame for older buildings. Switching to high-efficiency boilers or furnaces can save you a lot of money on energy right away.
- Condensing boilers: Modern condensing boiler technology captures latent heat from exhaust gases, achieving efficiencies of 90% or higher, which is much better than older, non-condensing units (which are often only 70-80%).
- Systems with Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF): VRF systems can heat and cool with amazing accuracy in some business settings. These systems can heat one area and cool another at the same time, which saves energy and makes them very efficient, especially in buildings with multiple tenants or uses.
Getting rid of old equipment and replacing it with newer, more efficient models is a big investment, but the return on investment (ROI) is usually quick and big, thanks to lower utility bills.
Using Smart HVAC Controls and Automation
If your heater is running when it shouldn’t be, it will waste energy, no matter how well it works. Modern HVAC design is based on complex control systems.
- BAS, or Building Automation Systems, A BAS brings together all of the lighting, climate control, and security into one system. It lets you schedule based on how many people are in the building, automatically changes the temperature in wings or floors that aren’t being used, and cuts back on power use during busy times.
- Zoning: By using zoning, you can heat only the parts of the building that are being used. This works especially well in big, spread-out buildings where people use them in very different ways.
- Economizers: The main job of economizers is to cool things down, but checking and maintaining them also keeps cold outside air from getting into the system by accident, which makes the heaters work harder.
Did you know?
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) says that commercial buildings in the Northeast, including New Jersey, spend up to 45% of their total energy use on heating. This means that the efficiency of HVAC systems is the most important factor for keeping operational costs down.
Even a system that is well-designed needs to be taken care of. The quickest way to lose winter energy savings is to skip regular maintenance.
- Change the filters: Dirty air filters block airflow, making the equipment work harder and longer, which uses more energy.
- Checks to stop things from happening: Certified technicians do annual preventative maintenance to make sure that burners are clean, controls are set correctly, and all parts are working at their best. This also stops small problems from turning into expensive breakdowns in the middle of a cold snap.
- Re-commissioning: Re-commissioning the system every so often makes sure that the controls and sensors are still working according to the original energy-efficient design specifications, which can change over time.
LKU Group, Inc. designs and installs high-efficiency HVAC systems for commercial and industrial buildings in New Jersey.
Call LKU Group, Inc. at (201) 791-1210 for a consultation to analyze your system and unlock major winter energy savings.
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