In a recent article from the US Energy Information administration, it states that only “One in eight U.S. homes uses a programmed thermostat with a central air conditioning unit”. 

The interesting fact of this study is that 41% of homes have a programmable thermostat, but 12% (one in eight) have the thermostats programmed. 

In other words, most of the homes that have the energy saving hardware (programmable thermostats) installed, don’t use them properly.

The same logic applies to commercial buildings;  although controls infrastructure exists in many buildings, it is underutilized, or not utilized correctly. 

Even for fairly newly constructed, or renovated buildings, they are often not commissioned correctly.  For example, we responded to a service call where a new make up air unit was not functioning properly. 

It turns out that while the unit was fully functional, the temperature controls were not installed properly.  This prevented the unit from supplying the air at a appropriate temperature.

In other cases, there is just an overwhelming amount of data from the building management system (BMS) for the operator to use and understand. 

While there will often be alarms notifying the building operator that there are issues, the operator is usually so busy that they can only attend to urgent, emergency issues such as broken server room units. 

Building Analytics is starting to be implemented to automatically analyze BMS’ and create actionable lists for owners.

Similar to your home, the building you work in likely has the potential to save energy if utilized fully.  This may require a HVAC service call, or maybe a contractor to implement a building analytics package. 

Whatever the case, it’s good to take advantage of your building’s existing infrastructure, and not leave unrealized energy savings.

To learn more about the benefits of Building Analytics, contact our Service team today.