Category Archives: BLOG

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.