Step inside the inner-workings of your HVAC-installation

Think your HVAC-installation is working optimally? Think again!

Over the past decade, as we’ve tried to do our part in the fight against climate change, we, at Hysopt, found unmarked territory: HVAC-installations. Often, these installations are underperforming. The reasons here for are various, but it’s mostly due to suboptimal hydraulics and controls. Traditionally installed HVAC-installations can be hard to fathom, but at the end of the day the design intent of your installation is where you should be looking. To tackle this problem, we did an extensive amount of research and what we found wasn’t great.

As a building owner you often lack a ton of information when it comes to your HVAC-installation. Hydraulic schematics, commissioning schedules and control description are but a few examples. No need to worry, we’ve got you covered! Presenting the Hysopt DigitalTwin! Saved in the Cloud, accessible anytime and anywhere, our Digital Twin isa space where all information is stored together. Any future changes and extensions can be calculated, simulated, saved, and brought up to date by our software to prove their impact before making any changes in your physical installation.

Attention, technical talk coming through!

It’s all in the details, and your heating and/or cooling installation is no exception. If you look at your plantroom or your data collection point, try and see if you can find your supply and return temperature. You may think that a couple degrees of difference aren’t such a big deal, but in reality, it’s an indication that your installation could use some optimizing. For example, a supply of 70°C and are turn of 67° may not seem like something to worry about, but even the smallest temperature difference can trigger low efficiencies of different heating and cooling production assets, as well as increase distribution losses and pump consumption. So simply put, you want to get rid of it!

In addition, that return temperature we just talked about, your boiler’s efficiency is affected by it as well. If that return temperature is too high, then the exhaust gases of the condensing boiler won’t condensate and once again it’s efficiency will decrease. Curious if your condensing boiler is working as it should? Take a look at the drain at the back of your boiler. If it’s dry, you should give us acall, because that means its efficiency is far from optimal.

Lots of hybrid systems seem to be performing well at first sight, but don’t be fooled. When looking closer at the gas and electrical consumption data of systems, you often get to see a whole different side of it. Underutilized CHP’s and heat pumps, gas boilers doing a lot of the work, even though they’re intended to be “back-up” production units, etc.

The culprit? The design in the hydraulic configuration of the different heat production units. On top of that, often times the impact of hydraulics and controls of the heating distribution inside your building is often unjustly treated as a separate issue. To benefit from the preferred production asset, there are many different hydraulic configurations to think about. Sadly, more often than not, it is installed in the traditional parallel/cascade set-up and that’s just not beneficial for anyone.

An optimal configuration of yourHVAC-installation is a delicate matter. Many, if not most, installations have low loss headers, by-passes, and a diverting circuit, and guess what… If you have any of those, we can guarantee you your installations isn’t working optimally.

Designing transparency in your HVAC-installation

The problems mentioned above are but a few of the obstacles you can occur in a typical heating or cooling installation. Modern HVAC-systems are getting increasingly complex, and that only increases the impact of its present problems. And in the end, you are left with higher energy costs, carbon emissions, investments, etc.

Sadly, there are plenty more reasons why systems aren’t performing like they were intended to. Luckily, with our science-based Digital Twin, we give you all the tools to actually understand the inner workings of your installation. That way, you are perfectly equipped to understand what the current performance of your HVAC-system is and how to unlock its full potential. 

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