In your house in winter, the heating turns on early in the morning. Would you open the windows at the same time?

Surprisingly, many BMS control systems are programmed to do exactly this. Ventilation systems start at the same time as the rest of the plant. In winter this is usually early in the morning, well before office hours.

This is the equivalent of opening the windows at 6am or earlier and pumping cold air into the building with a large fan and turning the boilers up to compensate. Would you ever consider doing this at home?

Smart Ventilation

We program ventilation systems to work in conjunction with the heating and cooling system to compliment it. In Winter the ventilation systems have a shorter office hours schedule designed to maintain CO2 levels in office hours. In Summer they support the cooling systems by removing excess heat from the building at a lower cost than the chilled water systems. More advanced programming allows setting on the AHU speed based on CO2 levels in order to maintain a comfortable working environment.

Safety Note

(Please note…unless you are a skilled BMS engineer, do not attempt to separate the ventilation system interlock from the plant start. It is a good idea to do it, but care must be taken to ensure the ventilation systems cannot run in cold weather without the boiler…otherwise you may freeze the pipes and cause a flood! We can help here…).