HVAC systems are essential for any business that operates in a building. They keep your occupants cool when it’s hot out, warm when it’s cold out, and breathing clean air when the air quality outside is less than ideal. They even prevent the spread of airborne pathogens. Keeping your indoor spaces at an optimal temperature range and keeping the air clean maximizes productivity and cognitive function.
Without adequate HVAC systems, your building’s occupants can fall victim to “Sick Building Syndrome” (SBS)—whether due to poor ventilation, insufficient or excessive heating or cooling, or some other climate control issue, just being in your building can make them feel sick.
But not just any system will give you the perfect climate control solution for your building. When it comes to making those buildings into comfortable indoor spaces for employees, clients, and customers, a one-size-fits-all solution just won’t do the job.
Office buildings need custom HVAC solutions that fit their size, floor plan, and other unique climate control needs. Otherwise, their systems will be costlier, less energy-efficient, and less well-equipped to keep their occupants healthy and comfortable.
There is a wide range of different types of HVAC systems for commercial buildings, and as many ways a custom HVAC system can be designed as there are ways an office can be designed. In this article, we’ll explore the fundamentals of custom commercial HVAC design and show you what needs to be known to build the perfect climate control solution for any building.
The Basics of Custom Commercial HVAC Systems
For every HVAC system, there are several things it has to do well:
- It has to keep your building at a comfortable temperature.
- It has to keep the air in your building reasonably free from allergens, pathogens, and other particulates that can negatively affect health.
- It has to do its job efficiently, without driving up maintenance costs or utility bills.
When an HVAC system isn’t optimized for your building’s size, structure, floor plan, and usage, it can’t do these three things well. Certain zones of your building might be too hot or too cold, even while the temperature in other zones is perfect. Parts of your office might become virtually uninhabitable to people with pollen allergies in spring. Your HVAC system might be put under more strain than it should be to address your building’s cooling or heating needs, causing components to wear out quicker and need expensive repairs or replacements sooner. It might be an electricity hog that drives up your building’s utility bills and expands its environmental footprint.
So, to design a customized heating, air conditioning, and ventilation system, you need to consider the fundamentals:
Building Size and Structure
The shape and size of your building determine everything about the design of a custom commercial HVAC system for it. Larger buildings or those with unique architectural features often require more complex systems to ensure consistent temperature control and air distribution throughout all areas.
The age of your building is also a factor here. New buildings are designed from the ground up with knowledge of the modern HVAC systems currently available and best practices for livable working spaces. Older buildings, though, aren’t built to the same standards. Their architects didn’t know what we know now about air quality or climate control or have the technologies we have now. Bringing these buildings’ HVAC systems up to modern standards is a challenge in its own right.
Floor Plan and Zoning
Different areas within a building may have distinct climate control needs. For example, storage rooms and server rooms often need to be kept cooler than cubicle farms, and an office in one part of the building might be cooler or warmer than an office in another part due to quirks of the building’s layout.
This is where modular HVAC systems come in handy. Multi-split systems make use of multiple indoor units, for example, which can be independently controlled to adjust temperature, humidity, and air flow needs for separate zones of the building. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach that leaves some parts of the building wanting, occupants enjoy a tailored approach to climate control.
Usage and Occupancy
Custom commercial HVAC solutions need to take into account how the different parts of your building are used. Zones that see more foot traffic from employees, customers, and visitors will put more strain on your climate control system’s heating, cooling, and ventilation systems, so the systems need to be robust enough to handle high-traffic areas.
In order to design the most efficient and effective custom HVAC systems possible, it helps to have solid data on foot traffic to identify these high-traffic areas. Modern HVAC systems and especially smart building systems, with their bevy of sensors, are great at collecting this information.
Energy Efficiency and Sustainability Standards
The previous three building blocks of custom commercial HVAC design all focused on meeting the needs of the people in your building, in every part of your building, from top to bottom, to every nook and cranny. There is one crucial factor that can’t be overlooked, though: Utility costs.
You do not have an unlimited budget for a custom HVAC system, and part of keeping costs down is knowing how to design a custom system that does more with less. An HVAC system that isn’t optimized for your building’s architecture, floor plan, and usage will take more electricity to do a worse job than a system designed to use the least electricity to do the most work.
As an added bonus, energy efficiency doesn’t just reduce utility bills and the overall operating costs of your HVAC system over its lifetime—it also makes your building less wasteful overall and makes it easier to meet any sustainability goals you have. HVAC technologies are increasingly being designed to provide more and more energy efficiency and environmental friendliness, thanks to developments in technologies such as high-performance refrigerants.
Commercial HVAC Services Tailored for Businesses
This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the considerations that must be taken into account for custom commercial HVAC designs. Building custom systems is hard work that demands a thorough investigation of your building and your unique climate control needs to determine which technologies and brands will work best for your building and its occupants—work you can’t be expected to do all by yourself.
Across the Colorado Front Range, businesses across corporate and industrial sectors trust Chiller Systems Service. We’ve been providing clients with custom commercial HVAC solutions since 1997, delivering turnkey systems that meet the highest standards of performance, energy-efficiency, and cost-effectiveness with dedicated lifetime support and 24/7/365 maintenance services.
Let us design a custom commercial HVAC system for you. Contact Chiller System Service today and discover how to ensure a healthier, more productive workforce.