SERVICE AND MAINTENANCE
Tips and checks to make life easier
Regular maintenance is vital for air conditioning and can add value to both contractors and their customers’ business. Here, Jerry Hall, air conditioning manager at Wolseley Climate looks at best practice and off ers tips and hints for achieving optimal results.
L
ike any equipment, air conditioning needs regular maintenance – not just to make sure it works effi ciently but also to validate the manufacturer’s warranty and
ensure it lasts through its predicted lifetime period. With another lockdown in place, now’s an ideal time to put it on your schedule. With offi ces either closed or on skeleton staff , there’s far less disruption to the building’s occupants and access is much easier, especially if you need to get into tricky roof spaces. Generally speaking, to keep on top of things a full
maintenance check should take place around 3 times a year. Manufacturers provide full and clear schedules for each piece of equipment covering all mechanical, electrical and electronic parts, but for indoor units the real focus is on the fan motor, fan, fi lters and body and casings, as well as the heat exchanger and drip trays. For outdoor units it’s similar, with a primary focus on the compressors, heat exchangers and fans and motors. Last but not least, inspections of the total heat exchanger – VAM – will cover fan motors, fans, fi lters and casings. Much of this will be either a visual check or – if the equipment has been idle – switching it on and off to check everything is in good working order. Many obvious faults – such as loose casings or damaged insulation – can
22 May 2021
be easily fi xed to help improve performance and service life. Even if you’re not able to undertake a full maintenance programme, there are three critical things you can do that will save customers time, eff ort and money later on. The fi rst is very basic, but it’s often overlooked: check the remote controller to make sure there aren’t any fault codes! The other two are cleaning - especially the fi lters and coils – and checking the refrigerant. If you do nothing else, do these and you’ll be doing yourself, the equipment and your customer a big favour. Cleaning is important because of dust and other debris
– one of the biggest enemies of effi cient HVAC systems. It’s ever present and builds up steadily over time. Filters are there to collect it of course, but these need to be regularly checked and thoroughly cleaned. If they’re not, the system will start losing effi ciency – research has shown that this could be by up to 15% in some extreme cases. It’s even possible for a blocked fi lter to cause permanent component failure.
However, even the best fi lters can’t collect every microscopic particle of dust, and it has an annoying habit of getting into other vital parts, including the coil which sits right behind the fi lter. This relatively delicate mechanism
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