INDUSTRY COMMENT Moving beyond reactive HVAC maintenance H


Many organisations still manage HVAC systems reactively. When a piece of equipment fails, an engineer responds and performs the necessary repair. The system continues operating until the next issue emerges. While that approach may appear manageable in the short term, it often creates larger operational and financial problems over time. Terry Rose, HVAC director, Integral Cooling Tech elaborates


VAC asset management planning needs to go further than routine maintenance schedules and reactive callouts. Organisations need a clearer understanding of which


assets are critical to operations, how systems perform across their lifecycle and – crucially – at what point repair strategies stop delivering value. The industry has already started moving in this direction. Frameworks such as ISO 55000 have pushed asset management higher up the agenda across the built environment, encouraging a more structured approach. Within building services specifically, maintenance standards like SFG20 continue to reinforce the case for planned, risk-based strategies over purely reactive ones. The challenge for many organisations is translating those principles into practical decision-making across complex estates, particularly where factors such as ageing systems and incomplete asset data and changing building use make operational risk harder to identify.


Start with criticality


Effective HVAC asset management starts with understanding the operational impact of failure. Not every asset carries the same level of risk. Some failures create temporary occupant discomfort. Others can affect compliance or business-critical environments. Asset planning cannot rely solely on equipment age or visible condition. Many estates still make replacement decisions using age as the primary indicator of risk, but age rarely tells the full story. For example, a well- maintained chiller with stable operating history and properly supported controls may present far less risk than a newer system suffering from persistent controls issues or poor commissioning. This is where condition surveys and asset


reviews often fall short. Too many focus heavily on plant condition while overlooking the operational context around the system. An asset can appear serviceable during inspection while sitting one failed component away from a major disruption.


It’s particularly common in older buildings where HVAC infrastructure has evolved gradually. Systems may have been upgraded in phases, spaces repurposed for entirely different uses, or controls strategies repeatedly modified to manage short-term operational problems.


In many buildings, the original design intent no longer reflects how the space actually operates. Performance drift compounds this further. Because changes happen incrementally, they often become accepted as normal building behaviour rather than recognised as indicators of underlying deterioration. Controls strategies get overridden to manage comfort complaints. Ventilation rates shift away from original design conditions. Plant begins operating against occupancy patterns the building was never designed to support. By the time the problem is visible, it has usually been developing for years. Condition surveys and feasibility studies


therefore need to assess more than whether equipment still runs. They should examine how systems support the building operationally, what dependencies exist around critical spaces, and how failure would affect day-to-day operations. The primary purpose of the building itself is often the most useful starting point. A healthcare environment demands stable conditions within clinical spaces. A logistics facility may depend on temperature control for product integrity. In commercial offices, environmental performance increasingly shapes occupant experience in ways that are harder to ignore. This process regularly reveals hidden single points of failure. A relatively minor HVAC asset may appear unremarkable on an asset register while supporting a highly critical operational


area. Without a structured review, those dependencies remain invisible until failure occurs.


Good asset reviews, then, must move beyond simple grading exercises and ask broader operational questions. What actually happens if this system fails? How quickly can it realistically be repaired? Does the building still operate in line with its original design assumptions? Is the current controls strategy still appropriate for how the space is used today?


Move beyond minimum maintenance


Many organisations still structure HVAC maintenance around a small number of large servicing visits each year, often aligned with compliance obligations or seasonal requirements. While that may satisfy minimum servicing expectations, it rarely provides enough oversight for operationally critical systems. A more proactive strategy allows engineers to build genuine familiarity with systems and identify changes in performance before failures occur, monitoring declining efficiency, abnormal operating behaviour, refrigerant pressures, recurring faults and component deterioration. This aligns closely with reliability- centred maintenance principles, which focus activity on operational risk and asset criticality rather than fixed servicing intervals alone. Wider industry changes are also adding


pressure to long-term planning. Refrigerant phase-down programmes, evolving efficiency standards and decarbonisation targets are forcing many organisations to reassess ageing systems earlier than originally planned. HVAC remains one of the largest contributors to operational energy use across commercial estates, meaning maintenance strategy, controls performance and replacement planning all directly influence sustainability objectives. Another reason why reactive management alone is an increasingly poor fit.


Build a long-term strategy


Good HVAC asset management starts with visibility: a clear understanding of which assets support critical operations, where the biggest risks sit across the estate, and how systems are performing over time. Once that picture exists, conversations around lifecycle cost, planned replacement, capital investment and operational resilience become significantly easier to have, and easier to act on. Reactive maintenance will always have a role. Failures happen. But organisations that rely on it as their primary approach gradually lose visibility of long-term cost, risk and performance until something forces a decision. A structured asset management strategy puts organisations in a position to make those decisions deliberately, before circumstances make them for you.


24 BUILDING SERVICES & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER JUNE 2026 Read the latest at: www.bsee.co.uk


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