Tips for Your Building’s Energy Efficiency During Winter

Winter is officially here!

People Walking in the City after Rain

Keeping a house warm during winter can be quite expensive. However, keeping a building warm? – That’s an entirely different & a lot more complex story. But don’t worry: we are here to help.

HFM Asset Management is an Australian building efficiency company located in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane.

We work hard every day to transform properties into efficient, cost-effective and compliant assets for our clients.

Our team provides a unique range of skills including utilities performance management, engineering, facilities management, procurement and data analysis.

Expert advice in keeping buildings warm and costs low

We recently asked our experts what they would generally advise Facility Managers/ Building Managers/ Property Managers to help them keep their buildings warm during the cold days of winter, while still being energy efficient; and here is what they said:

  • Check for the use of most appropriate energy source (electricity or gas).
  • Check and optimise boiler excess air level
  • Check potential for automatic excess air control on boiler
  • Optimise boiler sizes and scheduling for expected load (winter/summer)
  • Check cleanliness of boiler (tube fouling/scale), water treatment systems and feed water source
  • Observe the boiler control cycle
  • Check blowdown cycle amounts and times
  • Check insulation of boiler and heating hot water pipes, valves and flanges
  • Check potential for economisers to preheat feed water/make-up water
  • Check water treatment records
  • Check domestic hot water temperatures
  • Consider high efficiency condensing boilers if replacing your old boiler

And here’s a plus! These detailed tips can help you save a fortune

Advise your Building Management System (BMS) contractor to tune the system and confirm optimum winter mode operation settings, such as:

  • Adjust the indoor temperature for winter operation. The typical winter ‘set-point’ is 18-20°C. As a rule of thumb, for every 1°C adjustment of the air-conditioning closer to the outside temperature, the energy required for heating and cooling is cut by 5–10%. It is important to check your tenants lease indoor temperature requirements before adjusting the temperature;
  • If there is a central gas heating system in place with additional electric reheat terminals, prioritise operation of the boiler. Gas is cheaper and cleaner than electricity, thus, improving your operational cost and base building NABERS rating;
  • Optimise start time of the central plant. This can significantly reduce your energy consumption;
  • Make sure the economy dampers work properly. This is to maximise natural free cooling and prevent simultaneous heating and cooling.
  • Encourage your tenants to have their blinds fully open to maximise use of solar radiation for natural light and heat
  • Consider installing revolving doors for the main entrances to the building.

Ensuring energy efficiency through the year is important not only for the obvious reasons (Save money and reduce the environmental impact of your building) but also to make sure it has the best possible NABERS Rating; which will benefit the building in the long term.

HFM can help you perform all the tests mentioned above; in fact, the combined experience and knowledge of our team can assist you to make your buildings more efficient and cost-effective.

To find out more, please feel free to contact us

Want to know more about what we can do for you?

Have a look at our Building Efficiency Roadmap 

HFM Building Efficiency Wheel

You might also be interested in this: 

Are you prepared? See if your building need a NABERS rating

We offer tailored Engineering Solutions to improve the efficiency of any type of site, anywhere in Australia.

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