About: bonuseventusmaintenance

Every person, organisation and building in the world has a carbon footprint. Over the last 10 or so years a lot of focus has been on knowing what your carbon footprint is, and reducing it as much as possible. But not as much focus on business and residential business owners doing the same thing. So today we’re going to talk about what a carbon footprint is, why it matters and how using a heat pump could help reduce yours.

What Is A Carbon Footprint?

Essentially your carbon footprint is the name for the environmental impact generated by your company activities. Specifically, the amount of carbon dioxide released into the environment by performing the activity, and how damaging it is.

For example, if you wanted to work out the carbon footprint of a bottle of water, you would need to add up all of the greenhouse gases produced by sourcing the water, manufacturing the bottle, transporting and creating the product and all of the activities within the business to get that bottle of water made and sold to you. That’s a lot to add up!

We talked a bit more about how you can work out your carbon footprint in this blog, so if you wanted to know more, give that one a read!

Why Is Reducing Your Carbon Footprint Important?

Obviously, the fewer carbon emissions that are released into the environment, the better. And everyone should be doing their part to reduce theirs. But the two biggest carbon producers are businesses and buildings, so there’s a big incentive to start there, as it will have a much bigger impact than any individual action.

There are also some business benefits to embracing carbon neutrality now and moving towards a more sustainable business model. For one thing, it will protect your reputation in the marketplace as the public outwardly condemns more and more carbon-heavy businesses. Consumers are actively choosing to work with businesses that take their carbon footprint seriously and are making positive changes, so a boost to your sales figures and general market presence are a welcome bonus.

It will also make it easier for you to transition to a more sustainable business model in the future. There are already limits being put on energy consumption and regulations around things like fossil fuels – and you can bet there will be more in the future. Lowering your emissions now in any way you can will make reacting and complying with new sustainability regulations a lot simpler for you down the line.

Finally, it will actually help your business cut costs. While investing in carbon-neutral strategies and equipment might seem expensive, most will save you an enormous amount on energy bills in the medium and long term. By lowering your carbon footprint, you lower your energy use, which in turn lowers your energy bills. And while it isn’t always viable for businesses to spend money on becoming environmentally friendly, in this case, the savings are worth it.

By cutting down the carbon footprint of those two sectors, we could significantly slow down climate change, preserve our environment and make better use of the earth’s resources.

Building Maintenance And Carbon Footprints

Commercial properties are one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gasses, largely thanks to the multitude of systems inside that produce carbon dioxide as well as the physical act of building them. This is such a large problem that the government has actually launched a ‘Zero Carbon Buildings’ initiative, with the aim of bringing all older buildings to carbon zero by 2050, and ensuring all new buildings are constructed in a carbon neutral fashion alongside them.

Once a building has been built, the biggest source of carbon dioxide is usually the HVAC system. Older or legacy systems like gas boilers can produce around 4,500 kWh of CO2 per year, which can add up to a huge amount of carbon in the environment over the building’s lifespan. But if you change to a modern solution like a heat pump, you can cut that number to almost zero. Heat pumps produce just 220 kWh of CO2 a year because they are powered by electricity, not gas, and they last a lot longer as a result. Paired with renewable energy sources like solar panels, this single change could bring your building to almost carbon neutral within a matter of months.

At Bonus Eventus Maintenance we are passionate about the environment and reducing the carbon footprint of our own business as well as our clients. We are currently consulting with a number of block and facilities managers on the changes that would need to be made to their HVAC systems to meet this target, and if you’re in a similar position we’d love to help you too. Just get in touch with the team today for a free consultation. And if you want to know more about energy efficient HVAC solutions, keep an eye on the blog.

We don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s pretty hot in the UK right now! We’re having some unprecedented heatwaves this year, and workplaces across the country are turning to the ‘AC’ part of their HVAC systems to keep cool. But if you haven’t been taking care of your air conditioning properly, you could end up in a sweaty disaster. So today we thought it would be a good idea to remind you of why regularly servicing your air conditioning is a good idea!

Better Energy Efficiency

With energy bills soaring, you want to make sure you’re making the most of every penny you spend, and not washing money running inefficient equipment. Regular servicing is an easy way to ensure your air conditioning system running at full efficiency. Small things like clogged air filters, dirty condenser coils and other issues mean that the system is using more energy to operate normally, sending your energy bill through the roof. You might not even notice any of those issues are there, just that your energy bill has gone up and you don’t know why. Maintenance can stop these things from building up and keep your energy bills manageable.

Lower Repair Costs

Speaking of keeping your bills manageable, regular servicing also means your repair bills will be lower across the board. That’s because your technician will be able to spot issues while they are still small and fix them early, leading to lower repair costs. Without regular servicing, you will find yourself on the receiving end of emergency repair bills, which are never cheap.

Your System Will Last Longer

As with any major equipment, regular servicing will extend your system’s operational life significantly. When just one component fails in the system, the rest of the components have to work much harder to compensate for it. This significantly reduces the lifespan of the entire system and means you will need to replace your HVAC systems a lot more often than strictly necessary. And while of course there is a limit on how long certain components are going to last, regular servicing means less stress is put on the system, and the longer it will last.

Better Indoor Air Quality

Air conditioning isn’t just there to keep you cool. It’s also there to clean and filter the air to provide a safe environment for your employees. It’s been proven time and time again that indoor air quality is linked to productivity, sickness, absenteeism and employee happiness, so it’s a worthwhile investment to make! But to achieve all of this, your air conditioning system contains a number of air filters that are designed to purify the air that passes through it. These can get dirty very quickly, which then decreases the air quality. Regular servicing ensures that your filters are working as they should, being changed regularly and that everyone in the building is breathing clean air.

How often your air conditioning needs servicing will depend on a few things, including the model, age, how often it’s used and how well it has been maintained in the past. So, if your air conditioning isn’t cutting it in this heatwave, it might be time for a service. To book yours, or find out more, just get in touch with the team today.

If the last 2 years has done anything, it’s revealed just how important hygiene is for the overall health of individuals and the population as a whole. But while we’ve all been focused on making sure we wash our hands and properly clean surfaces, how much thought have you put into the cleanliness of other areas? Like the air in your building, for example?

Air quality isn’t just about keeping Covid-19 out of your lungs. It’s also directly related to things like concentration, mood, performance and better overall health, and improving it can have serious benefits to everyone breathing it. So how do you keep your air quality high and prevent infection? By keeping your HVAC systems clean and well maintained.

Airborne Pathogens And Viruses

One of the most common causes of infection from viruses is the inhalation of contaminated air. For example, speaking, coughing and sneezing can all expel large numbers of ‘aerosols’ (suspensions of solid or liquid particles in the air), which could include viruses and bacteria. The smaller the particles are, the longer they will stay in the air and the further they will travel when expelled. For example, we know that Covid-19 can survive in the air for over 25 minutes before it is dispersed enough to not be infectious.

When exposed to dry air, most of the moisture content in the aerosol will evaporate instantly, making the suspended particles smaller and lighter, able to travel further and survive longer. But both temperature and relative humidity affect the airborne survival of viruses, bacteria and fungi. So by controlling the heat, humidity and airflow within your building, you can significantly reduce the lifespan of viruses and pathogens and protect the people working within.

From The Outside In

Your first line of defence against pathogens and debris getting into the air in your building is to stop it from coming inside in the first place. The simplest way to do this is t ensure that all air intakes in the building have been fitted with a pre-filtration system, containing a filtering media that blocks larger pollutants from entering the building. These systems are actually a fairly standard part of most HVAC systems, as they help improve efficiency and keep it operating at optimum. The thing most people get wrong is not changing this filter media often enough. Since it is responsible for catching all of those bigger pathogens and stopping debris clogging the system, they tend to get filled up quicker than smaller filters and lose their effectiveness. By hiring a company to perform regular routine maintenance tasks like changing filter media, you can dramatically improve your indoor air quality and protect your HVAC equipment at the same time.

Regular Cleaning

Outside health concerns for the people in your building, maintaining good hygiene standards in your HVAC system can also have some commercial benefits. As we mention every week, regular maintenance is key to ensuring your system is working correctly and catching problems while they are small. Cleaning is a part of the HVAC maintenance programme for this exact reason. Without regular cleaning and hygiene checks, your HVAC system could suffer from:

• Condensation forming and pooling on vessels, pipes, equipment, cold surfaces and even floors, causing hazards and damage.
• Corrosion and other damage to buildings, structures, fittings and equipment.
• Bacterial growth and mould, resulting in hygiene issues, spreading infection and compliance difficulties.
• Higher servicing and maintenance costs as a direct result of damage caused by poor hygiene.

The good news is that ongoing HVAC maintenance isn’t an expensive outlay for you, unlike the cost of replacing a full unit, or paying sick leave for employees who are breathing poor quality air. While the cost of replacing a complete system can run into the thousands, maintenance and cleaning of that system will cost a fraction of that and keep your buildings in working order for longer. Not only that, but there is some evidence to suggest that well run HVAC systems could actually save you money in terms of energy and electricity used by your building.

By investing in regular maintenance and cleaning for your HVAC systems you are ensuring lower payouts for repairs, reducing your emergency call-outs (and their charges) and providing a cleaner, more comfortable environment for the people using your building. For advice or help with your long-term HVAC maintenance plan, get in touch with the team today to book your free consultation

Carbon is a big source of concern for the world right now. Greenhouse gasses have been flooding our environment for such a long time now that we’ve done irreparable damage to our planet. Thankfully, the world has woken up to the danger, and now we are all able to make changes to reduce our impact and really make a difference. If you own or run a commercial building, one of the ways you can do this and do your part to become carbon neutral, is by switching your heating, ventilation and air conditioning solution from gas to heat pumps.

What Does Carbon Neutral Mean?

Being carbon neutral means you are not contributing any carbon to the environment, but you aren’t removing it either. Given that very few businesses can actively remove carbon from the environment, being carbon neutral is the big goal for all businesses and anyone who owns a building in the UK. This can be achieved by adopting environmentally friendly policies and either upgrading or retrofitting equipment with more eco-friendly alternatives.

In fact, there’s a Zero Carbon Buildings Initiative in place at the moment, in which the UK government pledged to achieve a net zero carbon emissions goal for the country by 2050. Since a large portion of carbon emissions are generated by buildings, this is one of their first focus points. existing buildings to be retrofitted wherever possible with zero carbon solutions, rather than knocked down and a new building erected. This will save a significant amount of carbon by itself, and if new buildings are being designed and constructed in a carbon neutral fashion, suddenly zero carbon buildings become a lot more achievable.

How Do Heat Pumps Help?

The big question now is, what can you do to reduce the carbon footprint of your building? You might think that you’re locked into all of the legacy systems you have in place, but this simply isn’t true. In fact, most modern systems can be retrofitted into older buildings, replacing your less efficient and more wasteful systems in the process. In terms of heating, ventilation and air conditioning for your building, the best answer is a heat pump.

Switching from a gas boiler to a heat pump is a relatively simple process. Choosing the type of heat pump you want will depend on your location, access to resources and other things, and once installed can save you a massive amount of carbon emissions. In fact, while a gas boiler produces around 4500 kWh of CO2 per year, a heat pump produces just 2,20 kWh of CO2 emissions, largely through its power source – electricity. And since they last around 14-15 years compared to the gas boiler’s 10, they keep the CO2 emissions lower for longer.

The Magic Ingredient

Of course, heat pumps do an amazing job, and they are a great first step in your carbon neutral journey. But while they are low carbon, they aren’t zero carbon by themselves, since they require mains electricity to run. The real magic comes when you pair heat pumps with renewable energy. In other words, solar panels.

By utilising solar energy you’ve generated yourself, you can completely negate the need for mains electricity for your heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. This is not only a great cost saving exercise (since energy bills for most commercial premises can add up to thousands a month in just HVAC costs), but it also slashes your carbon emissions for the system to basically zero. If you have a well-insulated building then you can enjoy efficient heating at low cost and zero carbon emissions. Now isn’t that magical?

At Bonus Eventus Maintenance we are passionate about the environment and reducing the carbon footprint of our own business as well as our clients. We are currently consulting with a number of block and facilities managers on the changes that would need to be made to their HVAC systems to meet this target, and if you’re in a similar position we’d love to help you too. Just get in touch with the team today for a free consultation. And if you want to know more about energy efficient HVAC solutions, keep an eye on the blog.

In the past we’ve talked a lot about the environmental impact of buildings, particularly when it comes to heating them and supplying them with water. And we’ve also mentioned the benefits of heat pumps as an alternative to traditional gas boiler systems in terms of both energy and cost. But if you want to be really green (and almost eliminate your energy bill), then you can combine two powerhouses of green energy – heat pumps and solar panels.

How Do Solar Panels Work?

Solar panels are by no means a new invention. But they are something that’s flown under the radar for many years, largely because the technology was still too expensive to be commercially viable. However, with a lot of development in the last decade and funding schemes from local governments, solar panels are now an affordable solution for businesses and homeowners alike.

So, how do they work? Solar panels essentially absorb the energy from the sun and convert it into energy. That’s the simple version. The more complex version is that on a subatomic level the panels allow photons (or particles of light) to knock electrons free from their atoms, generating a flow of electricity. This is because each solar panel is made up of lots of small panels, also known as photovoltaic cells. Each of these cells takes in sunshine and UV energy, and turns it into electricity.

Solar panels are made by attaching a lot of these individual photovoltaic cells together and sandwiching them between two layers of semi-conducting material, usually silicon. This protects the cells and the people around them, and allows the cells to work together in generating a substantial electrical current.

These panels are attached to the roof of your building, where they get the most exposure to sunlight. A qualified installer can then wire them directly into your electrics or attach batteries, so that the energy they generate can be used to power the building or be stored in battery cells for a later date. It’s a little more of an upfront expense, but it’s the ultimately renewable, green energy source.

So How Do Solar Panels Power Heat Pumps?

So in this blog we’ve talked a bit about heat pumps work when compared to a traditional gas boiler. You can read in more detail there, but in essence they work by absorbing thermal energy from a low-grade source, transferring it to a heating element with a higher temperature and dispersing it through the system. The source for the thermal energy can be air, ground or water, depending on your premises and limitations.

Heat pumps are generally much more energy efficient (around 400%) and much more environmentally friendly, since they produce far less CO2 and require less energy to run. So, switching to a heat pump is already a great step toward reducing your carbon footprint. But if you want to really make cost and environmental savings, you can take it one step further and connect solar panels to your heat pump. This means that any electricity the heat pump requires to operate will be powered by the greenest, most renewable form of energy – sunlight. Which is better for the environment and better for you.

On average, a heat pump (of any variety) will use around 25% of its rated heat output in electricity. So for a 20kW heat pump, up to 5 kW of electricity is needed. If you can provide that electricity through solar power, rather than buying from the grid, you can save yourself a huge amount of money. And if you invest in battery storage for your solar panels as well, you can retain any extra energy you generate for use during production dips (aka winter in the UK!).

At Bonus Eventus Maintenance, we’re really passionate about the environment. We’re always looking for ways to reduce the environmental impact of heating, ventilation and air conditioning, and passing that knowledge on to our clients. By advising our clients to combine solar panels and heat pump solutions, we hope to help you save money, and do your bit to save the planet. If you’d like to find out more, just get in touch with the team today to book your free consultation.

Over the last 5-10 years, people have been working indoors a lot more, for longer periods of time, and spending less time outdoors. Especially over the last few years, when a pandemic confined most of us to the indoors for months at a time. This change in behaviour has had a knock-on effect on a lot of things, from our overall activity levels to vitamin D deficiency becoming much more common. But one of the things most people don’t realise is that the quality of the air we breathe when we’re at work for 9 hours a day can have a real impact on our concentration, our productivity and our health. We spend 90% of our time indoors at work, so the impact of poor air quality is pretty severe. Which is why we‘re amazed that there is still no legislation out there setting an acceptable Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) standard for the workplace.

Gradual Decline In Air Quality

Innovation and new technologies are great things, but when they are at the cost of our environment, you have to start asking some questions. Our cities are becoming increasingly polluted by with car fumes, airborne industrial waste and even particles from log burners. All of that heavily polluted air is then being pulled into our buildings through windows, doors and ‘fresh air’ ventilation systems. Some of that air is filtered, but since there is no standard requirement for the level of filtration, there is no way to tell. And with most commercial air conditioning units being only used for temperature control instead of air quality, a lot of employees are spending 90% of their time in a workplace with substandard air quality. That might not seem like a major issue, but breathing low-quality air day in, day out can have some pretty negative effects.

The Unseen Effects Of Bad Air Quality

Bad air quality doesn’t just make you cough – the impact is far more widespread than that. For example, having a low relative humidity (below 40%) environment increases the lifespan of airborne pathogens, helping them stay suspended in the air for longer and travel further, spreading infection throughout the workplace. Viruses like the flu and norovirus survive longer at an RH of 20- 30%, whilst a mid-range RH between 40% and 70% will minimise their survival. Low humidity and air quality will also make people feel cold, leading to a rise in heating bills, a wide range of health problems and increased absenteeism.

But, you can’t have your RH too high either. Above 60%, people will start to feel uncomfortable and out of proportion with the actual indoor temperature. This will make people a bit edgy, sweaty and generally unable to focus. This causes people to turn on air conditioning or comfort cooling, sending energy costs through the roof. High humidity also encourages mould growth and condensation within your HVAC system and which at best causes a temporary dip in system efficiency, and at worst can create mildew, mould that will be spread throughout the building and cause all of the associated health-related problems for your employees.

Lack Of Regulation

At the moment there is no specific legislation around air quality in general workplaces. However, a lot of organisations have started to realise the impact air quality can have on employees, and so have been recommending proper HVAC systems to improve air quality and maintain an RH of 40-60% in all commercial workplaces as a standard. These organisations include:

• Humidity Group Of The HVAC Association
• The World Health Organisation
• The National Association Of Optometrists

It’s also the range recommended by BS EN 29241 as the optimum for visual display terminals. Not only that, but these organisations have also recognised the importance of good HVAC operation and maintenance in office environments, and how much it contributes both to the thermal comfort of employees and the indoor air quality of the workplace.

At Bonus Eventus Maintenance, we believe that the main barrier to properly addressing these IAQ issues is commercial. We seem to shy away from setting coordinated regulated standards to ensure excellent IAQ as this would result in extra investment in plant equipment and slightly higher running costs due to higher maintenance requirements. Really, what we should be considering as an industry, employers, employees and society as a whole is whether improving IAQ to underpin improved health and wellbeing is worth that investment. Of course, we believe it is. If you would like to find out more about how to improve IAQ in your workplace, just get in touch with us today.

When it comes to the world of heating there is a lot of technical jargon that gets thrown around, and one of the most common is ‘HVAC’. We’re guilty of that as well – it’s a term we use a lot. But when you don’t work in the industry, you might not quite know what a HVAC system is, and how it’s different from the air conditioning units you can buy online, or your home boiler. So today, we’re going to look at the difference between the two, and why there is so much confusion.

What Is HVAC?

HVAC stands for ‘heating, ventilation and cooling’. Its job is to heat and cool a building and provide proper ventilation so that moisture can escape and not cause issues like mould. HVAC systems are made up of a range of different elements that are combined into one efficient and easy to manage system, and are most commonly found in commercial properties like blocks of flats, restaurants, office blocks and so on.

HVAC units can take on many different shapes and sizes, all offering different benefits depending on their design and the spaces they’re being used in. The average HVAC system might include any combination of:

• Heat pumps
• Boilers
• Air conditioning units
• Ducting
• Moisture vents
• Refrigerant lines
• Condensing units

And much more besides. In short, if it controls the temperature or air quality of a building, it comes under the umbrella of HVAC.

So What Is Air Conditioning?

So is HVAC is heating, ventilation and air conditioning, why is air conditioning also a separate thing? Well, it’s mainly because air conditioners only do one thing – condition air and move it through the space. They do this by filtering air as it comes in, removing humidity and heat and then pumping cool air back into the home and sending the warm, humid air through vents and back outside. They are also equipped with special filters that can remove particles and allergens like pollen and dust, cleaning the air you breathe in the room.

You can buy mobile air conditioning units for small spaces, complete with extraction duct, but they are rarely effective. Instead, we always recommend having an in-built air conditioning unit to get the maximum benefit, either as a window unit, a mini-split system or as part of your wider HVAC solution. Which leads us back to our main question…

Is There Really A Difference?

Yes, and no. Air conditioning has its own definition and can be used as a standalone solution, but it also makes up part of the HVAC systems. Some properties will have a separate heating and cooling system in place already, and so they only require an additional air conditioning unit to provide that filtration and clean air supply. But most will need a full HVAC system to provide heating, cooling and ventilation as one integrated solution. The trick is understanding what’s going on in your building and being able to decide which option is right for you. That’s where we come in.

At Bonus Eventus Maintenance we work with companies to install and maintain air conditioning and full HVAC systems of all shapes and sizes in commercial properties. Our experts can advise you on the right type and size of system for your property, ensure it’s installed correctly and set you up on a regular maintenance plan to prolong the life of your equipment. If you would like to know more, or you think your air conditioning system might need some attention, just get in touch today to book your free consultation.