Kickstart your office facilities
Thousands of buildings will slowly begin to reopen in the coming weeks after a significant period of inactivity. This inactivity does not only refer to people but also to the facilities which are key to a functional and comfortable office area such as boilers, HVAC systems as well as water tanks and associated pipework.
Tackling the issues
In older buildings, and those with boiler fed heating systems, the sudden loss of demand will undoubtedly affect the HVAC systems. The biggest issue facing facilities and building managers is the threat of legionella from standing water in the pipework. There is substantial guidance on the CIBSE website (Chartered Institute for Building Services Engineers) which offers advice for risk management and system restart which will be a useful tool. It may be as simple as restarting the system at a lower temperature for the first few days or buildings may require the entire system to be flushed out and re-filled to ensure no microbial growth.
To avoid large energy costs, restarting the system at a reduced temperature is the more desirable measure however it is essential that building service engineers and facility managers check with their boiler procedure or manufacturer.
