HVAC Control Settings That Save You Money

By: Maria Ramos, PE

These strategies apply to variable air volume (VAV) systems with reheat, which is the
most common system design for larger buildings.

1) Allow VAV box minimums to be set at 15% or lower. Frequently, designers will use
a box minimum of 35-50% to provide ventilation at all times, which assumes that the
Owner will operate a boiler during the summer to reheat the excess air. So even if the
space isn’t occupied, the air handling system is furnishing a substantial amount of air,
and reheating it if necessary to maintain temperature. Setting box minimums lower
minimizes reheat and overcooling. If your building has occupancy sensors, use these
to set the box minimums to 0% when the space is unoccupied.

A decision needs to be made whether your building will have summer reheat, i.e.
will you operate the boilers in the summer. Even though it is recognized that
simultaneous heating and cooling is wasteful and often doesn’t achieve the
objective of properly ventilating each space, it remains by far the easiest and most
widely used strategy for delivering ventilation without overcooling or
overheating. Air is delivered to the space via a VAV box, which has a minimum
setting of 35-50%. If this amount of air overcools the space, then the space goes
into heating mode, which leaves the box at its minimum airflow with 55 degree
supply air. The supply air is then heated to 85 degrees or so to return the space to
setpoint. This is particularly wasteful in a school building where, on a typical
summer day with minimal use of the space, most of the spaces will be in reheat.

If reheat is undesirable, then the VAV boxes could have a occupied/unoccupied

minimum position, so at least when the spaces are unoccupied then the building
operator could allow the VAV boxes to go to zero minimum, or 10%, if
continuous airflow is desired. The VAV boxes will still respond to temperature
increases, so the space will be ventilated periodically. The cooling setpoint could
remain 75 degrees or so, which would prevent stuffiness and potential mold
growth.

2) The best strategy to reduce the amount of summer reheat, if you are in the planning
stage of building a new building is to consider a dedicated outdoor air system
(DOAS). In a conventional VAV system, there is no possible means of ensuring that
each individual space receives the amount of outdoor air which the occupancy
suggests that it would need, since the outdoor air is introduced at a system level.
Heating or cooling air (depending on the season) is used to deliver outdoor air to the
space, and if a CO2 sensor determines that more air is needed, then ventilation air is
increased at the system level. However, this does not insure that the ventilation air is
reaching the space which has an increased occupancy. The ventilation air will
increase in the space with increased occupancy only if the space also has an increased
heating or cooling demand, since the ventilation air is always just a percentage of the
supply air.
With a DOAS system, ventilation air is delivered to the individual spaces, so if a space
has an increased demand (which the system would know because of a CO2 sensor), then
the ventilation would directly increase to that space. Then, the heating and cooling
system could be operated strictly based on demand, and if there were no heating or
cooling demand, the VAV box could operate down to zero percent.

This approach is most feasible when planning a new building, however, it is not
impossible to retrofit. Since it is such a superior system operationally, it should always
be considered.

3) Make sure that your system has supply air temperature reset. Supply air temperature
reset will set the temperature of the supply air based on demand in the space. For
example, if the air handler is in cooling mode and all boxes are at their minimum
settings or calling for reheat, the supply air temperature should be reset upwards. The
supply air temperature should continue to be reset upwards, to a maximum of 62-63
degrees, until the position of the worst case VAV box is 90%. Some systems are
operated at a constant 55 degree supply air temperature, which increases the chances
that more air will need to be reheated.

4) Make sure CO2 sensors are working properly. For some reason, most jobs are
completed and the contractor leaves the site, without the CO2 sensor ever reading
properly. Look at this output on the screen. It should read, depending on the
location, 200-1200 PPM. If it reads 50 or 5000, or some other value out of range, it
hasn’t been properly tuned. This sensor also seems to need periodic checking to
make sure that it continues to read properly. Check it every six months or so. Most
modern systems reset the amount of outdoor air based on this reading. If the reading
is artificially low, your building could be getting an inadequate amount of outdoor air.
If it is artificially high, the outdoor air damper could be fully open at most times,
which increases heating and cooling costs.

5) Set duct pressure settings on VAV systems at their lowest possible value. All VAV
systems have a duct static pressure sensor, usually located two-thirds of the way
down the ductwork, which tells the supply fan what speed it should be maintaining (if
the fan has a variable speed drive). Depending on the system and the location of the
sensor, the fan may need to provide less static than the setpoint in order for the VAV
box furthest out in the system to get full flow. There is no reason to maintain the duct
static at 1.25 or 1.5 inches if the VAV box furthest from the air handler can get full
flow at 0.75 inches of static pressure. Setting the static reading too high wastes fan
energy. Some designers are changing the static pressure based on the position of the
worst case VAV box. This has some merit, but is too difficult to achieve in practice.
Too many changing variables make a control system impossible to tune.

6) Make sure that any installed energy recovery systems are operating properly.
Enthalpy wheels, the most common type of energy recovery equipment in schools,
should be operated in heating mode and in cooling mode, but not in economizer
 mode. If the wheel is operated in economizer mode, the incoming ventilation air will
be preheated by the wheel, and then, will need to be subsequently cooled back down.
Some wheels utilize a VFD for frost control and for economizer operation, which
slows the wheel to reduce effectiveness. The best strategy for economizer operation
is to bypass the wheel, which may be accomplished in the air handling unit itself,
with bypass dampers around the wheel, or in the ductwork. Have your control
contractor demonstrate that this is working properly.

7) Determine how your return fans are being operated. Some return fans track supply
fans, and other times, are controlled based off a pressure sensor either building or
plenum pressure. If you have air flow monitoring on the return fan, then this is the
best, most reliable means of controlling the return fan. If air flow tracking on the
return fan is not present, the only method that seems to work reliably is tracking the
supply fan. Pressure tends to fluctuate too much, which causes the speed of the return
fan to also fluctuate.

8) In general, do a thorough sanity check on all the values on the DDC screen. Look for
the following:

a) Boxes should have a flow sensor and usually, a temp sensor. Is any box reading
way out of range (200 degree supply air or 5000 CFM to a relatively small room)?
b) Do VFD speeds seem reasonable for what the air handler or pumps are doing?
c) Are bypass valves in the correct position? Is the bypass valve at 100% and the
VD controlling the pump at close to full speed? This might indicate a problem.

9) If it is possible to work from a short version of the sequence of operation, and have
the control contractor force values for air temperatures and so on to simulate modes
of operation, this is the best way to verify that your system is working properly.