Hi folks,

Thanks in advance for whatever help is possible.

I'm an IT guy, and the school where I work has had a series of disasters/ripoffs by the HVAC/Boiler folks. One comes in, charges big bucks but makes it work then the guy who figured it out leaves that company and service goes down the toilet. Then they want really big bucks to start all over again. Start up with another company and then they hold us to ransom once they get it figured out.

Is this industry mature enough now that we can find someone to help us set up our own control system? Every time one of these guys takes off we are left high and dry with some ridiculous bills.

I'd like to find someone who can work with us to develop a good control system that will be ours. We are not near any city, so as things have been we are easy pickings unless we can create some kind of home grown system work.

We are located in North Western Saskatchewan Canada, but I'm happy to hear from anyone in the world who can actually help. I can give you remote access.

Currently we have 2 Raytherm boilers where one is primary and the other as backup. About 250,000 BTU's each on propane and when the weather is cold we need them both. We are planning to replace these units with new as natural gas has just arrived. They are 17 years old.
The air handling units are Scott Springfield and we are told they are good units.

The existing control system is kind of a hodge-podge of stuff that each of the vendors left behind. The main bits are Barber Colman but parts of it have been disabled. There is also a Basys Controls QD2040 Internet gateway. We don't generally have problems with the equipment but often with the control system.

I have pictures of the main components I can supply when we find someone willing to help.

I'm not looking for free help. This will be a paid gig once we find someone and establish a relationship.

 

I share in your frustration. I am also located in the remote area of Saskatchewan and several hours drive from any city. We have had similar struggles with various HVAC support. I am a controls/automation guy who supports a large industrial refinery and feel handcuffed when it comes to the proprietary HVAC of my own office building.

I can offer this advice. Once a system has been working once, like you say it has, usually there is no programming changes required to maintain that status. Far too often the next person who tries to help is compelled to "fix" from the keyboard rather than use solid traditional troubleshooting techniques. Askings questions starting with what happened , when , when was it working last, whats changed, etc...etc...seems like as soon as you put a system in that has connectivity with a laptop, instantly no one can trouble shoot anymore without access to the laptop to see if any "changes" will fix the problem. Far too often I deal with utilities personnel who want access to a control system instead of casting there own shadow of the field equipment. Whats wrong with taking measurements with an IR thermometer of heat exchanges/air ducts/ heat rads etc?....why not physically look at a valve too see if its 100% open instead of yelling from a rooftop that the valve is open cause the laptop says so.

PLC/DCS/BuildingHVAC control systems usually cannot edit programming changes by themselves. So if its ever ,ever, worked well once, then try to look at field problems first. ie: motor status/belts/ flow sytems with plugged strainers/ inadvertently closed/open manual valves etc...
This comes from experienced field work and seasoned trouble shooting.

Interesting that we are not too far apart physically and from this problem perspective,we are in a "similar boat"

 

Oh my, very sorry I missed this. I thought I would have received an email if anyone replied.

Happy New Year.

A little depressing to find that this is the norm. We have discussed another approach here as we do not feel we really need the remote access piece of this as that has all come from the various vendors. What do you supposed the chances are that we could take a step back in time and go back to some kind of discrete zone controls?