As summarized in last month’s article, it is important to understand your technician’s level of expertise (and possible limitations) as well as to make sure a few key items are included in your service contract. In addition, your control service provider should offer certain value-added services to make sure you are receiving the best possible service for your investment.
Does your controls service provider:
- Adhere to a regular service schedule and notify you in advance of a pending service visit and again prior to leaving?
- Review your immediate needs or issues during the initial minutes of a site visit and provide you with an action plan for the day?
- Review equipment schedules, operation and trending to determine if deficiencies are present?
- Review current control programs to ensure they are up to date with programming strategies for energy efficiency and cost savings?
- Implement historical trending strategies to obtain data critical to troubleshooting issues when they occur as well as tracking operational performance?
- Provide a detailed summary report of each service visit to document the tasks completed and justify the number of hours spent on site?
- Provide timely after hours service at a fair rate and provide adequate documentation for tasks executed to correct the issues?
- Provide provisions for remote access? Your provider should have the ability to survey your system remotely to improve response time and reduce travel costs.
It is important to understand the role and responsibility of your controls services provider in order to maintain safe, effective, reliable and cost-effective building operation.
For more information on how your controls contractor can add value to your building automation system, please contact Ed Ritter, PE at (717) 845-7654 or elr@ba-inc.com.