When equipment is not functioning optimally, the rest of the building feels it. Literally! You may experience noises, floor and wall vibration, and worst of all, tenant complaints. These types of issues are among the hardest to diagnose because the offending equipment might be floors away from the disturbance. It takes expert troubleshooting skills and an in-depth understanding of a building’s unique mechanical set-up to solve these issues. Tenants typically have recourse and can refuse to pay rent, leave the building, or sue for damages, so it’s vital to your success to solve these issues immediately. We diagnose, mitigate, and often cure these issues completely.
If you are continuously experiencing problems with your equipment—especially when it involves the same equipment or you find multiple pieces of equipment faltering at the same time or in a specific area, you may have issue with RESONANCE and/or COHERENCE. We isolate the root cause of these kinds of failure to prevent them from occurring and reduce downtime. Additionally, your PM program may need to be re-evaluated in light of the priority and criticality of your assets. We independently verify the quality of the PM service you are paying for—whether it’s performed by your employees or by a third party mechanical contractor. We can help you improve your maintenance programs.
VFDs are great energy savers. They also increase the lifecycle of your equipment—but only if they are PROGRAMMED right and properly MAINTAINED. But they can also be annoying when they fault and spit out some numerical code or something as mysterious as “Earth Fault.” Our team is intimately familiar with VFDs and their behavior. We can troubleshoot and improve their operating effectiveness. We are also adept at utilizing additional components like CTs, filters, and rectifiers to minimize the normal harmonic disturbances caused by VFDs. We assist with control issues by reviewing the mechanical systems as a whole and improving the way they interact with your Building Automation systems. We also install, replace, and start-up new VFDs.
PREDICTIVE DIAGNOSTICS through periodic monitoring of your equipment can significantly lower your maintenance costs by helping you reduce unscheduled downtime and the cost of both normal and unexpected repairs. Monitoring also helps you plan better so you can properly budget capital and operating expenditures. We also provide installation and programming of continuous condition monitoring systems that will improve the effectiveness of your infrastructure and alert you when your equipment is in need of attention.
We perform ACCEPTANCE TESTING on repair and corrective action work to ensure the equipment is not defective, is installed properly, and operating effectively. Whether our mechanical team performs the repair/corrective action or someone else does, an independent party should always perform a comprehensive mechanical inspection so you know the work gets done right.
Whenever you repair or change out major mechanical components, it changes how your system operates. At the very least, your equipment needs to be LASER ALIGNED and DYNAMICALLY BALANCED. We can either perform these services for you or, as an independent third party, verify that they have been properly aligned and/or balanced. At the same time, the CRITICAL FREQUENCIES of your equipment have now changed because the components have changed. You should always test for and lock-out those critical frequencies from VFDs to ensure against inefficient operation, noise issues, RESONANCE effects on other equipment, and catastrophic failure.
Everyone focuses on the equipment—the fan, the pump, etc. But what about the piping and ductwork that connects it all? If not properly ISOLATED and SEISMICALLY-CONTROLLED, you not only end up with vibration and noise problems, but your equipment won’t function efficiently and may not provide enough air or liquid. We ensure:
1. Isolation is installed to spec/as designed.
2. Isolation is installed to spec/as designed.
3. When energized, the system delivers the appropriate amount of air/liquid/steam.
4. We also detect and minimize COHERENCE, vibration which travels along the common elements of a system and adversely affects properly running equipment.
From the inception of a project, our structural and systemic input can help prevent isolation and sound issues before you break ground. We review mechanical specs to ensure appropriate functionality and capacity. Even if your mechanical drawings are peer-reviewed, our expertise in the vibration/noise/isolation field is second to none. We catch the little things that turn into big dollar issues.
Contrary to expectations, conventional commissioning only tests whether your equipment turns on. It is NOT a QUALITY ASSURANCE or ACCEPTANCE TEST. By involving us as part of your Commissioning Team, you get an independent assessment that ensures:
1. Your systems have been built to spec/as designed or a suitable alternative.
2. The equipment is not defective from the factory or damaged after time spent in a rigger’s yard.
3. Your equipment has been properly installed.
4. Your equipment is operating to spec and properly.
5. Details don’t get forgotten in the rush to transition a building—especially when it comes to proper alignment, balancing, and programming of controls. These details are what cost you money when you least expect it.
We assist owners and prospective buyers by giving them an in-depth look at a building’s existing mechanical systems so you know what you have and what you are stepping into. We can provide recommendations and estimated costing on improvements and retrofits. This can be used as part of the negotiating process and to forecast capital improvement costs and ongoing maintenance expenses.
At the end of any Construction or Retrofit, the punch list always seems to linger. Everyone is done with the installation. The Commissioning has been “effective.” But you still have a punchlist that never seems to get resolved. We specialize in taking your punchlist and following up on those items to ensure they are effectively closed out, not just checked off on paper.
