HVAC It is very important to determine your heating, ventilation and air conditioning
(HVAC) needs before you sign a lease.
You should always have your engineer fully review the building’s HVAC
system to ensure adequate capacity so there are no surprises once you
are locked into a lease. You should also check the standard days and hours
of operation. Additional usage costs that are easy to overlook, such as
overtime A/C charges, can be as high as $600 / hour. It is very important
that you and your company understand the impact that HVAC has on your
lease. It can be a substantial cost depending on the type of system and
how the system is controlled. The tenant controls and maintains the system. The tenant can choose when to run the system. There are no overtime charges, but the cost depends on the system. This is the most advantageous for the tenant. The landlord controls the system and the hours of operation. The tenant covers the maintenance. Any use outside these set hours is overtime. The landlord controls and maintains HVAC system during normal hours of operation. Any use outside these set hours is overtime.There are 3 Types of HVAC Maintenance
Tenant Controlled
Landlord Controlled / Tenant Maintained
Landlord Controlled
There are 3 types of air conditioning systems:
* Note that the overtime charges for all central building systems can range from $75 to $600/ hour.
Air is blown over cold water to become chilled. If the building is large, the water is cooled in fan rooms. These fan rooms can be located on each floor or they can serve many floors. This system is very expensive to operate after hours if the units serve many floors. The overtime charges would be for all the floors that are served by your unit whether or not the tenants are using the air conditioning overtime.
This system runs on the same theory as the cooling tower with chilled water except that a chemical process cools the water. This is sometimes called a Glycol system.
Air conditioning working on a central building system will allow for the main line to be tapped for the rooms that need to keep at a constant cool temperature, e.g. a computer room.
Package unit systems are located within the tenant’s premises. There are 2 types of package units. The first one runs on a condenser water or chilled water that is piped in to the packaging unit. The tenant will have to negotiate a rate for after hours A/C with the landlord. The second is air-cooled units that can be controlled manually and are located in the window.
Copyright 2000 Concrete Stories