Category Archives: BLOG

Commercial air conditioning units are big systems, built for the big job they have. Compared to a domestic air conditioner they have to cool a much larger area of water, all while battling the same high heats effectively in warmer months. Not only that, but dozens or hundreds of people rely on a commercial air conditioner to do its job effectively, compared to the three or four who might in a residential setting. That’s why it’s so important to be able to recognise the signs that your commercial air conditioning system might be in trouble, or worse need replacing altogether.

Short Cycles

Short cycling is what happens when your air conditioning unit turns itself off shortly after it starts up. It’s a short cooling cycle the system is running because it’s getting too hot, or there is an internal error. This is causing a problem within your system and interrupting it’s ability to cool air. This causes it to shut down. This is one of the more common issues we see, mainly because it’s an easy one to miss, especially if you’re not paying attention to it. This problem can go on for a long time and eventually cause your system to fail, so if you notice it happening, you need to bring in a professional.

Strange Noises

As a general rule, air conditioners do make a bit of noise. But that noise should be minimal – and it definitely shouldn’t be so loud it’s disturbing people. If your air conditioning system is making a racket, or you can hear strange noises like rattling, screeching or clanging, these are fairly sure signs there is something wrong. Now this might just mean something needs repairing, but if it’s a consistent problem, especially if you’ve left it a while before dealing with it, then you may need to invest in a new system.

Age

This might sound odd, but you shouldn’t just replace your air conditioner when it breaks down. All commercial air conditioners have a recommended lifespan, and most tend to last between 10-15 years. The age your air conditioner can reach will depend on a number of things, including if it’s been properly serviced during its life, how well it’s been maintained and how often it’s used. But if your air conditioning unit is at that 10-15 year mark and you’re noticing issues start to creep up, now is the time to get it replaced.

Less Efficient

If your system is reaching the end of its life, it probably won’t stop working overnight. Instead, it will start to work less and less efficiently, costing you more money as it does, until it eventually breaks down. A few signs that this might be the case include:

• Air flow is not as good as it was
• Air isn’t as cool
• Certain zones of the building won’t be cooled properly
• Water or coolant starts leaking
• Increasing energy bills despite no change in usage

If you see any of these in your system, it might need replacing.

At Bonus Eventus Maintenance we work with companies to install and maintain air conditioning 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.

Being a facilities or property manager comes with a lot of legal responsibilities. There are many areas that need your attention on a day to day basis, which means some of the annual checks can slip through the cracks. But the reality is simple – if you have a commercial property with any kind of gas appliance, it’s a criminal offence not to have a valid Gas Safety Certificate. These certificates need to be done once a year, and are often best done at the same time as your boiler service for convenience. But we know it’s all too easy to forget it needs doing, which often means rushing to find a technician who can do it before the deadline. This can lead to some difficult situations for you, so we wanted to talk about what a commercial gas safety check is, and why quick and cheap really isn’t your best option.

What Goes Into A Gas Safety Check

You may think that a gas safety check is just someone coming to look at the boiler in your building and make sure it’s all working properly and not leaking carbon monoxide into the air. And while domestic gas safety checks are often centred around the boiler (while covering other things as well), a commercial check is a lot more involved. This is partly because the systems used for commercial buildings are bigger and more complex, but also because there are more people using the building and the risk is higher if something were to go wrong. So a good commercial gas safety check will actually cover your entire site, including:

• All boilers
• All appliances in the building, including alarms
• All meters on the premises
• All pipework connected to the gas system

When a technician comes to do these checks, they will do the following on every single one:

• A visual inspection
• Functionality test
• Pressure tests
• Operation tests

This takes a lot of time, but it’s the best way to ensure your building is safe and your gas systems in full working order.

Why Cheaper Isn’t Better

When it comes to gas safety certificates many facilities managers are guilty of leaving it to the last minute, or for looking for the cheapest option rather than the best one. Both of these are understandable given how much these roles require you take on, but they are both incredibly bad decisions that will often come back to bite you in the future.

You see, you will find a lot of companies out there who are offering quick and cheap gas safety certificates for commercial properties. They will come onto your site for half an hour, do a few checks and issue you with the official certificate that means you can prove you met your legal obligations. But the thing is, you didn’t actually meet your obligations at all. As we proved above, a proper gas safety check isn’t just making sure the boiler’s working and there isn’t a leak in your system. It’s a comprehensive check of your entire system to make sure everything is safe, up to code and to flag up any maintenance issues that need to be addressed before they become a bigger problem. That takes a couple of hours to do, and doesn’t cost £50. So you haven’t really got a valid Gas Safety certificate, even if you’re physically holding one.

Contractors that offer this kind of quick and cheap GSC service will often make mistakes because they are rushing to fit in as many as they can, often to cover their own liabilities if they are working on the building in general. So while it might save you a little money in the short term, it’s putting the health and wellbeing of the people in your building at risk, potentially invalidating your insurance, and costing you a lot of money further down the line.

At Bonus Eventus Maintenance, we spend a lot of our time correcting the mistakes of other technicians, particularly when it comes to gas safety checks. We understand the importance of having a comprehensive annual check done, and endeavour to provide you with the best quality service and official documentation to back it up. We carry out gas safety checks for all commercial premises, so if yours is due, or you think you may need to have your appliances rechecked, just get in touch with the team today.

When it comes to any HVAC system, choosing the right one and getting it installed correctly is only part of the process. Once everything is up and running, these delicate systems require regular maintenance and repairs to keep them running smoothly and avoid any nasty surprises. Without regular maintenance work HVAC systems of any type and size can start to break down, leaving you with very expensive bills and maybe even some property damage to contend with. But maintenance isn’t just limited to tightening screws and changing out components. It’s also about one of the less glamorous jobs – cleaning.

What Is A FCU?

FCU stands for Fan Coil Unit, and it’s a fairly standard fixture in most commercial air conditioning and heating systems. It’s designed to move air from inside the system and through multiple components (including a filter, fan blower, condensing coil, plenum box and ductwork) to filter and heat/cool the air before delivering it to the assigned rooms. It’s one of the most efficient ways of heating and cooling air within an HVAC system, but that doesn’t mean it’s without its issues. As a fan coil unit gets older its needs will become more and more frequent, which is one of the reasons regular maintenance is an absolute must.

Why Does It Need Cleaning?

Cleaning is a key part of maintenance work, even though most businesses won’t think twice about it. But here’s the thing. Part of a fan coil unit’s job is to filter air, which means catching all the dust, debris and particles as they move through the system. But all of that debris has to go somewhere, and that’s the filter plate. As you can see in the image below, FCU filter plates can become so full of this debris and dust that they become dense, and air has a harder time moving through them. This means the system has to work harder to push the air through the filter, and the whole system becomes less efficient. Long term this could cause overheating and actually cause your FCU to completely break down – which is a much bigger bill than you want to receive!

To show you what we mean, we took temperature readings of this FCU filter and unit before and after we cleaned it all out. The before readings clock in at around 22.5°C, with a very uneven temperature distribution. You can see the heat is all in the centre, with the edges being left cool or receiving no heat whatsoever. But once the filter had been cleaned out, the temperature was not only more consistent across the whole unit, but it was also the right temperature – 33.3°C. So when we say it’s important to clean your FCU and its filters, we mean it!

Benefits Of Regular FCU Cleaning

Energy Savings: Studies have shown that a dirty or clogged up filter can not only reduce the effectiveness of your HVAC system, but it can increase your energy consumption by 15-25% – so regular cleaning is ultimately easier on your wallet.

Flood prevention: Most fan coil units have a drain line or pan, and if not cleaned and drained regularly it can become blocked up by dirt and debris. This can lead to flooding and cause mould to grow, both of which are bad news for your building.

Extend life expectancy: By regularly cleaning your filters you actively extend the lifespan of your FCU. It prevents things like overheating, burnout of components or unnecessary wear, all of which could contribute to a machine failure.

Better air quality: Indoor air quality is incredibly important, especially if you have people living or working in your building. Having clean filters means they can work more efficiently and filter air effectively, giving you better air quality in your building.

As a general rule, we recommend having your FCU cleaned at least once pr twice a year, to ensure it stays fully functional and running efficiently. At Bonus Eventus Maintenance Ltd we specialise in the maintenance and servicing of commercial HVAC systems. And we love a good clean! We view cleaning as a critical part of our job in keeping your systems healthy. If you’re not happy with your current maintenance provider, or if you don’t know when your filters were last cleaned out, we would love to help. Just get in touch with the team today to book a free consultation.

As commercial heating and ventilation experts, we see a lot of different systems, setups, and situations in our daily work. Most of the sites we visit are ones we maintain on a regular basis, and so we’re able to make sure everything is up to code and address any issues as soon as we spot them. But that’s not always the case. Some of the buildings we’re called out to are either emergency situations or sites that need a lot of work done, and in this case there are often safety concerns around the equipment. And when the building manager decides to take the job in house, we will leave safety recommendations for them to follow. But what happens when we leave the site, and come back to see nothing has been done?

Why Do Unsafe Sites Happen?

Sadly this is something that happens more often than you would think. We will visit a site as part of a survey, or to consult on a problem, and we will find several problems. Things like unsafe gas boilers in a block of flats, for example. This kind of thing is very common, and it’s our job to flag this up as it can be a huge health and safety hazard for people living or working in the building.

So we will take note of it and pass our concerns onto the building’s management company, along with a list of recommendations that will make the site safe again. Sometimes we will be asked to help with this, but sometimes we aren’t, and we won’t visit the site again for another year when their next safety check is due. When we do go back, we find the problem is still there, sometimes worse than it was a year ago. This leaves us in a very difficult position.

Between A Rock And A Hard Place

Let’s say we’re in the situation above. We’ve visited a block of flats for a safety check and discovered their boiler system is unsafe and needs repairs or replacing. We notified building management at the time and provided a quotation to fix it, but it wasn’t accepted. And now we’re back on site and see the issue was never address, and some extra issues have cropped up because of it. What do we do? The way we see it, we have a few options:

• We should shut the gas supply for the boilers off so that the problem won’t be a safety hazard. But if we do this, the tenants will not have any heating or hot water, which is also a health and safety issue.

• We report the issue to buildings management again, with another quotation, and a strong recommendation that it is dealt with right away. Sadly this particular building manager has already shown he isn’t reliable for repair work, and so we don’t know if the issue will actually be fixed.

This leaves us between a rock and a hard place in the form of property managers and the gas safety regulations. If we follow the regulations then we shut down the boiler and we will almost certainly lose our contract with the building straight away. Which is why some unscrupulous businesses might let unsafe sites slide – to keep themselves in work. Or we could submit the recommendation and quote again but not force the issue, in which case we are knowingly leaving the tenants in danger.

To be clear – in this situation we would always shut the gas off. While we do value our customers and their support for our business, safety is our number one priority.

It’s Time For Change

So, what’s the best answer? Well, we think it’s neither. At the moment, a property manager is not under any obligation to accept recommendations or quotes from contractors when it comes to work orders. Even when those recommendations are about safety. Yes, there are laws in place for landlords, but the follow through is not reliable. But when safety is in question, we believe there should be tougher rules in place.

What does that look like exactly? We’re not sure. In an ideal world there would be stricter rules around having remedial safety works carried out, including a requirement for property managers to accept quotations from contractors when they relate to improving safety. Of course property managers shouldn’t be forced to accept quotations from a business they don’t want to work with – but if there were a reporting and follow up process for safety issues, then we wouldn’t find ourselves in this situation and everyone would be safer for it.

At Bonus Eventus Maintenance Ltd safety is always our number 1 concern. Safety checks are an integral part of our business, and we will always include a basic safety check in our maintenance visits. We will also alert you to any issue that are just starting out, or that could be in the future based on what we see, so that you can take appropriate action while it will be a simpler fix and easier on your wallet. If you would like to know more, just get in touch with the team today to book a chat with one of our experts.

When you think of your heating system, what comes to mind? Probably your boiler or your heat pump – the main part of the system that does all the heavy lifting. Don’t worry – most people think the same thing! But a commercial HVAC system is about so much more than the primary system. It’s a network of components, each with its own role, that connect together to provide you with heating, cooling and hot water. But all too often facilities managers will focus on maintaining that main system, and forget that the ancillaries need some attention too.

More Than Just a Gas Safety Check

All commercial properties are required to have a gas safety check done every year by law, by a registered gas safe engineer. This is something that all facilities managers know about, as not doing it could put them at huge risk for fines as well as putting the health and safety of their customers and tenants at risk. But a gas safety check will often only look at your primary heating system – so your boiler or your heat pump – to make sure it’s working correctly. They will not always check the accessories and ancillary systems connected to your heating system to make sure they’re being maintained. But this is a big oversight, as these ancillaries can hugely impact the performance and safety of your HVAC system. So while getting your gas safety check is a legal requirement, getting your ancillaries checked and maintained is also critical.

The Role of Ancillaries

Whether you have a heat pump or a boiler, it’s important to remember that your heating system is just that – a system. And your actual boiler is just one part of that system. Without all of the other elements that connect to it, it’s essentially useless. The exact ancillaries you have will depend on your heating system, but some of the more common ones include:

• Blowdown vessels
• Water softeners
• Condensate tanks, trays & pumps
• Accumulators
• Economisers
• Hotwell tanks
• Tubing & piping
• Peristaltic pumps
• Inhibitors
• Fixtures and fittings

This list is by no means exclusive, and if you’re not sure what your HVAC system ancillaries are we strongly encourage you to find out. Your heating system is a complex thing, and you need to understand each element in order to maintain good system health. By learning how to take care of your HVAC ancillaries you can save yourself a lot of money on repairs and keep your system working at maximum efficiency.

Our Top Care Tips

So how do you take proper care of your ancillaries? Well, we recommend hiring a professional to help you with this, but a few things you can do regularly yourself include:

• Keep clear. In a commercial space, your heating system should be housed in a plant room and away from other equipment. Most HVAC systems will need a well-ventilated space in order to work well, so make sure you’re keeping the space around them clear. This includes space around all ancillaries, which should be placed so that they connect properly without causing any hazards to employees or the system itself.

• Check your water quality. Believe it or not the quality of your water does have an impact on the effectiveness of your HVAC system, and how you treat it. For example, if you’re in a hard water area then you are at risk for build-ups of limescale in pipes, as well as deposits of minerals like calcium and magnesium, which turn into solid particles and build up inside your heating system, trapping heat or cooling and preventing it from being released. This might mean you need ancillaries like a water treatment unit, which will need maintenance and care of its own.

• Dirt and debris can easily build up on and in your heating system, and this can cause a lot of problems. So schedule some time for your cleaning crew to clean the equipment and ancillaries and the space around it to prevent this. If you have a boiler, invest in a powerflush service at least once a year to make sure your system is clean and radiators throughout the building are running at maximum efficiency.

• Invest in maintenance. Regular maintenance is the key to keeping any industrial HVAC system running smoothly. Hire an expert maintenance company and set up a regular preventative maintenance schedule so that you can catch any faults before they cause problems and make sure your system and its ancillaries are all in good working order.

At Bonus Eventus Maintenance Ltd, we specialise in the routine maintenance and care of commercial HVAC systems. We don’t just look at your main system, but every element attached to it to make sure everything is operational and in good health. If we spot something that’s wrong – a component that’s degrading or an element that needs cleaning – we will handle that too, so you can be confident that your HVAC system is being regularly checked and is in full working order. If you would like to know more, just get in touch with the team today.

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 running a commercial property, we all know that the focus for investment is the front of house. After all, that’s where the customers, tenants or patrons are going to be, and you want to be able to provide them with a good experience and make sure they are in a nice environment. This all makes sense. But the problem comes when property managers get too focused on the front of house, and forget that the back of house needs some investment too.

Why Is Your Back of House Important?

The back of house might not be glamorous, but it is important. It’s the place all of your business-critical systems live, and it’s what keeps your business running and your front of house operational. If your front of house was a puppet, then your back of house is the strings – you need one for the other to work. And because these systems are critical, they need care, attention and maintenance. If not, you could find that your front of house starts to suffer as a result. For example, your HVAC system is a part of your back of house. It’s the heart of your building, providing heat, hot water and ventilation, making the environment habitable and comfortable. If it isn’t properly maintained, then you could start seeing leaks, hot and cold spots in your property, vents getting dirt or breaking or incredibly high energy bills out of the blue. Customers might not see the back of house, but that doesn’t make it any less important than your front of house when it comes to business investment and attention.

A Cautionary Tale

To help illustrate exactly what this means for your property, let us tell you a story:

A few years ago, we were called out to inspect and repair the plant room for a block of flats. There were 20 flats in the block, and a single plant room to service the whole building. The equipment in that plant room was with around £2 million, and it provided heating, hot water and ventilation to every flat and the communal areas. But once the plant room had been installed, it had just been left alone for years with minimal attention and no professional maintenance for 6 years. When we asked, the block manager said it was because they were trying to cut costs, and preventative maintenance was an expensive bill on top of all the other running costs. So by not doing maintenance on it, he had saved himself a few thousand pounds a year that he could put into maintaining and refurbishing the common areas and the flats. in other words, he invested only in his front of house.

In theory, this approach made sense. But when we examined the plant room, we found it in poor condition. There was so much wear, dirt build-up and damage that most of it couldn’t actually be repaired. Instead, the most cost-effective route for him was to completely replace the plant room after just 5 years in operation – costing him another £2million.

To put that in perspective, if that plant room had been properly managed and maintained it could have lasted for decades before it needed replacing. But instead the block manager chose to invest the maintenance cost in his front of house each year, shooting himself in the foot and costing him a lot more just 5 years on. Needless to say, we are now maintaining that plant room for him, and all is still running smoothly! We told you that story not to blow our own trumpet, but to show you just how much not investing in proper back of house maintenance could cost you.

Not Investing Costs You Money

By now you should see just how important investing in the back of house is for facilities managers. Your priority is ensuring things run smoothly and your customers have a good experience, and a big part of that is keeping your HVAC systems operating at full capacity. A few ways not investing in maintenance work could cost you money include:

• Costly repair bills: If you catch an issue with your HVAC systems quickly, it can usually be repaired without any problem and not cost a lot of money. But as you saw in our earlier example, if you don’t maintain your systems properly then the repairs just get more and more expensive, and can even mean you need to replace your whole system.

• Loss of earnings: Certain problems with your HVAC system can mean you need to shut down your business until it’s fixed. Things like gas leaks or floods can be a huge risk for customers, and you will not be able to earn anything while the repairs are taking place. This could take a day, or it could take several weeks – meaning you could lose out on a lot of earnings.

• Damages: We don’t just mean damage to your HVAC system, but damage to your premises. Leaks can cause water damage, corroded pipework can cause issues with your wall structure, or moisture escaping can seep into your walls causing mould, peeling paint and more. All of this will cost you money to repair, on top of the cost of fixing the problem

• Reputational damage: Imagine you’re running a restaurant, and one of the corners is always too hot. Customers seated there will not have a pleasant dining experience, and may complain about the temperature to their friends – who may choose not to dine with you in future. You’ve now lost future income because you failed to invest in fixing an issue with your back of house systems.

At Bonus Eventus Maintenance Ltd, we specialise in ongoing maintenance for HVAC systems in commercial properties. Whether you’re the property manager for a block of flats, a restaurant, an office block or a church, we can help you keep your VAC systems in full working order, preventing problems and ultimately saving you time and money. If you would like to know more, just get in touch with the team today.

If you are looking for a new heating system for your commercial property, you might be tempted to just replace what you have with a newer model. But what if we told you that you don’t have to use a boiler-based heating system? That boilers aren’t the only way to generate heat and hot water in your properties? And that, in fact, they are probably costing you a lot more money, time and energy than you realise?

Your alternative? Heat pumps. Heat pumps have been around since the 1940s, but only relatively recently have they become a common products for wider commercial use. They are much more modern than traditional boiler installations, and give property managers a lot of advantages when it comes to efficiency, performance and cost. And with the energy market behaving the way it is right now, property managers are on the lookout for cheaper and more efficient ways to heat their properties! So before you go with what you’ve always used, ask yourself, would a heat pump or a boiler be the better option for me?

Boilers

Boilers are the default choice for many property managers, because they are a known and well tested entity. Pretty much all modern properties both residential and commercial are built with a boiler heating system in mind, which means it’s much more convenient to install and run. A simple sealed chamber device, boilers use a coolant (usually a water-based solution or steam) heated to a certain temperature to generate heat and hot water. There are a few different types of boiler available depending on your property and preferences, but the most common types are:

• Gas
• Biomass
• Condensing
• Combi
• Electric
• Wood pellet

The most common options by far for commercial properties are gas and electric.

Pros: Boilers are well known for their quick startup speeds, so you will get from cold to warm in a much quicker time than a heat pump. While boilers do take up space, you can get compact boiler units that can take up less space than some heat pumps. They are also more heavily regulated, with strict standard design and testing codes to follow to ensure safety in operation.

Cons: Boilers of any type are not very energy efficient, with an average efficiency rating of 85%.  They also produce large amounts of CO2 while they run – the average gas boiler will produce 4500 kWh of CO2 per year, making it one of the least environmentally friendly options. They are also much more expensive to run, which means you will end up spending more in the long run.

Heat Pumps

Compared to a boiler, a heat pump is a more complicated device, but the ultimate goal is more or less the same – generating heat for your property. Heat pumps work by absorbing and transferring thermal energy from a low-grade source to a heating element (the pump’s coolant) with a higher temperature, before dispersing it through the system. You can get different types of heat pump depending on which source you want to use, but the main types are:

• Air source
• Ground source
• Water source
• Air to water

Most of these pumps will use a liquid refrigerant as coolant, and this is used to pump into their underground pipes or external fan cover tubes, which absorbs the heat and passes it through a compressor, which heats it further before moving it through the heating and hot water elements of the property. This method is more complex, but because it relies on natural sources rather than gas it is often much more efficient.

Pros: Heat pumps are far more modern in terms of design, which means they are more naturally suited to energy saving and effectiveness. A heat pump is around 400% more energy efficient than a gas boiler – no matter which type of pump you choose. You can also connect a heat pump to solar panels if you have them installed, saving you even more money. They are also much more environmentally friendly, producing around 2,200 kWh of CO2 emissions per year. Heat pumps will also last between 14 and 15 years, meaning they are likely to last longer than a boiler would if properly maintained.

Cons: The biggest downside to a heat pump is that it requires a compressor to run, and this can be quite noisy. If you have a dedicated plant room away from your main property space then this isn’t an issue, but if you need to run the equipment around tenants then it could cause noise problems. Because heat pumps are more modern it also means that not all properties are suitable for them, so if you want to install a heat pump you will need a survey and potentially even a full heating system refurb, which can be expensive.

So if you want the most for your money, a heat pump is your best bet. Heat pumps come out on top for CO2 emissions, energy efficiency and reliability – all of which are incredibly important in a commercial property. And with the government pushing businesses to opt for lower carbon alternatives, a heat pump could be a great way to earn your green points as well. At Bonus Eventus Maintenance Ltd we work with facilities and property managers in office blocks, schools, care homes and residential blocks who need help providing the best heating and ventilation systems for their buildings, and are frustrated with poor maintenance service. If you would like to know more, please just get in touch to speak with one of our team members 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.