Facilities managers often are business majors, real estate majors or other non-technical people.  HVAC and other highly technical aspects of their responsibility are profound mysteries that they entrust to other qualified staff.  This does not totally isolate them from having to confront technical decisions or technical situations.  This course is designed for you.  It will be presented in layman's terms. It will try not to overwhelm you with large doses of technical information.  It takes the mystery out of...

Remember we stated that cold is the absence of heat.  Now we will discuss how to heat a space when there is an absence of heat.  There are several means to heat a space or building.  In this discussion we will not get into heat pumps, solar heaters and other uncommon heating means.  We will examine the most common systems used in commercial buildings.  Steam boilers, hot water boilers, electric resistance heaters and variable air volume boxes (VAV boxes) are the systems we will discuss.  VAV boxes...

It is impractical to have separate thermostats and other equipment in each office for individual comfort control.  That is why you only have one thermostat in your home.  That one thermostat controls the temperature for every room in your house.  The area or rooms that are controlled by a single thermostat is referred to as a "zone".  If you only have one furnace at home, you only have one thermostat and therefore you only have one "zone".  In an office building There will be several zones per...

The most common way of heating and cooling a building or office is by removing the air, conditioning it and sending it back to the space.  Sounds simple enough, but lets discuss how this is done, how this recycling of the air works.  When you condition air, there is a limited number of things you can do to it.  You can cool it (remove heat from it), heat it, remove moisture from it, add moisture to it and filter it.  It can also be exhausted.  Exhausted air must be replaced with outside air.  All of this...

While we are still discussing HVAC within the office or the space served by the HVAC system, I would like to examine a popular misconception about Indoor Air Quality (IAQ).  I capitalize "Indoor Air Quality" because it seems to be the hot button in today's workplace.  You will notice from time to time, black dirt around the supply air diffusers and light troffers that supply air to the space.  The dirt will be on the ceilings near the diffuser and on blinds or draperies if they are near the diffuser.  It...

Before moving on to the refrigeration cycle, chillers and cooling towers, let's discuss some common HVAC terms, starting with the term "HVAC".  HVAC is an acronym for Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning.  Some people refer to the term as "H-vac".  These are the amateurs and the laymen trying to impress others.  Engineers, the professionals, always refer to the term properly as HVAC, stating each letter.  Please do not expose your lack of knowledge too much by referring to it as...