In today’s world, building owners and managers face a multitude of issues. With the ever-increasing emphasis on lowering energy consumption, legislation is being put in place to reduce a buildings energy usage year on year. Be it new build or fit out work, consideration has to be given to the methods utilised to control the buildings heating ventilation and cooling plant to realise lower energy costs. So building owners have a problem, they need to ensure that the clients who occupy their buildings are comfortable. They also need to ensure that energy management is maintained. These two items do not always add up, somewhere there needs to be compromise.

A control system is designed to ensure that this is done automatically, however over time many changes occur within a system, interior changes may be made to a buildings structure, control setpoints on FCU and VAV are always being adjusted for hot and colds. All these things need to be recorded and any changes made require a proper assessment to ensure the correct procedures are put in place to allow the controls system to carry on functioning  as designed. If changes are not recorded and acted on correctly, then the controls system will probably run wild and use more energy than it necessary.