You may notice possible symptoms of poor energy performance in your building. For example, a chilled-water pump might operate significantly more hours than the chiller. You then face the task of finding and resolving the underlying cause of the symptom. The cause of the symptom may in fact be a problem (for example, incorrect control settings) or it may be a condition that is not a problem or cannot be avoided (for example, setpoints that are based on the needs of a process load and not on occupant comfort).  Please note, the hyperlinks in this post link to tools and resources on the BetterBricks website. 

Finding the cause of a symptom of poor energy performance will involve inspecting your building and collecting and analyzing trend logs from your Direct Digital Control (DDC) system. For general guidance in getting ready for these two activities, see:

Getting Ready to Find Problems by Inspection (PDF)

Getting Ready to Find and Confirm Problems by Trend-Logging (PDF)


Identifying Problems

Now you are ready to tackle specific symptoms and find the underlying cause. This Symptom-Diagnosis Tool helps you identify and better understand what causes a large number of important symptoms.

To use the Symptom-Diagnosis Tool:

  1. Select the appropriate equipment type below to display a list of possible symptoms.
  2. Select a candidate symptom from that list.
  3. Read specific advice on what might be causing that symptom in that equipment.

To begin, select the appropriate equipment type:

 

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For more information about energy saving building operations practices,  please visit the BetterBricks website.