The Building Envelope Delivers Potential Savings

Building owners and facility managers are always, ALWAYS looking for ways to cut costs and save money without sacrificing comfort. The phrase “easier said than done” immediately comes to mind. But before you give up on the idea of saving money, try to think outside the box. Well, more like outside the building. One of the largest areas of potential savings in any commercial building is the Building Envelope. In fact, the envelope represents 40% of a building’s energy performance.

Savvy Facility Managers Take Action with Building Envelope Repairs

Many building owners and facilities managers overlook the building envelope as a means to improve energy efficiency and cut energy costs. However, by taking a proactive approach to the maintenance of your building envelope, like you do with your HVAC equipment, you can enjoy improved operational performance and energy efficiency.

1. The Roof: Ignoring the roof can cut its lifespan in half. Preventive maintenance and strategic repairs (such as repairing leaks) meanwhile, can greatly extend that lifespan and mitigate moisture issues, which account for roughly 25% of the average commercial building’s energy loss. Some statistics show that 50% of roofs replaced do not actually need replacing! Be proactive by taking care of small repairs as they occur rather than waiting.
2. What Lies Beneath: The curtain walls, doors (don’t forget about emergency exits), and windows account for 35%, 15%, and 10% of a commercial building’s energy loss, respectively. Simple preventive maintenance can greatly improve energy efficiency, cut energy costs and increase building comfort. Some simple measures could include caulking and weather stripping.

Today, sophisticated building diagnostics and monitoring technologies can track energy efficiency and locate the source of major air (and energy) loss.

• With these building diagnostics, sources of air loss can easily be identified without having to physically remove building systems.
• Sensors, thermoscans, and aerial infrared building surveys can help to detect and locate heat loss and moisture issues in great detail.
• Pressurize curtain walls and windows to test for air leakage and to indicate the percent of air escaping in various areas, such as through cracks, in the façade or leaks in windows.

With this actionable knowledge, it is far easier to make the necessary changes to improve the efficiency of your building envelope. Additional benefits of preventive maintenance include:

1. Improving the building envelope can reduce the need for air conditioning by as much as 30%.
2. Preventive maintenance allows facility managers to more easily budget for repairs. Ongoing work becomes an operational budget item rather than capital investment.
3. A more efficient envelope means a more comfortable building, which means happier tenants.

To improve the performance of your building, you need to align yourself with a mechanical contractor with a proven track record of reducing energy usage. As an award-winning commercial HVAC and mechanical contractor, CFSI helps building owners, property managers and facility engineers to lower their operating expenses and energy costs through preventive facility maintenance, repairs and retrofits.

To learn more about how CFSI can improve the performance of your commercial facility, please contact CFSI at 202.600.2787 or sales@crockett-facilities.com. Even if you have an in-house maintenance or engineering team, we can supplement your maintenance needs with our comprehensive heating, ventilation, and cooling (HVAC), custodial, energy management, and data center cooling services.

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Sources:

Services & Maintenance: Think Outside The Box, Today’s Facility Manager

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 31st, 2014 at . Both comments and pings are currently closed.