Working with a good designer

Question - How do I know what I need and what is best?

Answer - Work with a good designer

Involve a good designer from the start, most established companies will carry out a free site survey and a design, on the understanding that they will get the opportunity to quote for the job if you decide to carry out the work.

If anyone tries to charge you at this stage of the work it is a good indication that he or she may not be the fairest person to do business with.

Between you and your chosen design engineer you can quickly establish the level of cooling power that is needed to provide you with a good solution.

Your designer will look at where your heat problems are originating from, and will firstly look to see if there are any passive methods of reducing these heat sources. Even redistributing heat emitting office equipment around can show improvements.

Remember that in the UK, our buildings east facing walls and windows get
almost no heat from the sun - so these are the best place to locate vending machines, coffee machines and the photocopiers, as these appliances can generate vast amounts of unwanted heat into the room.

Window blinds are another good example of passively reducing the heat load, by limiting the solar heat entering the room, and allowing a smaller, and less costly air conditioner to be used, which will also be cheaper to run.

The job of the survey is to establish all of the heat sources that are present, such as:

Solar heat through walls and windows
Equipment heat from computers and office equipment
Office lighting
People

The job of the designer, once this data is gathered, is to assess with your help, the likelihood of all of the heat sources occurring simultaneously. Often they do not - and if equipment is chosen, just by adding up all of the potential heat sources, this will result in heavily oversized equipment being installed.

Remember that larger output systems are more expensive to buy and to run.

Your designer will refer to your cooling requirements in watts or kilowatts, or sometimes in the older imperial term of British Thermal Units, better known as btu's. Whatever term is used, this is the output cooling capacity of a system.

If you are quoted in btu's and you want to know what this figure is in watts, refer to the simple conversions below:

1 watt equals 3.412 btu's
3412 btu's equals I kilowatt
There are 1000 watts in 1 kilowatt

Once armed with this information you can then proceed to see what types and styles of system are available in the cooling size that you need, and what appeals to you.

Do not worry if you are unfamiliar with some of the names of the manufacturers you may be quoted.

The names that you do recognise may probably be known to you only because of the many other products that they produce, such as Hi-fi's and Television sets. Producing a good CD player is no guarantee that they can do the same with an air conditioning system.

Always ask questions, and don't feel awkward about doing so - after all it is your money that is being spent at the end of the day.

Treat the process with the same diligence as you would when buying a new car - and most importantly - involve everyone who will be working or living with the new air conditioning system.

About the system ask questions such as these:

• Performance
• Appearance
• Easy controls
• Running costs
• Noise levels
• Service back up
• Warranty
• Equipment life expectancy

Always ask to be quoted from a quality brand - even if you are working to a tight budget.

Ask to see samples of the actual types of systems on the market, and not just from glossy sales brochures; better still ask to be shown real working systems so that you can get an idea of the noise levels the systems produce.

Some cheaper brands are quite noisy and should be avoided for use in the home and the office, in noisy workshops and production areas they would be quite acceptable.

Some established contractors have their own local showrooms.

A good contractor with satisfied customers will have no problems arranging to take you to have a look at their installation work.

About the installation itself ask questions such as these:

• How long will the work take?
• Will the work be messy or noisy?
• Can the work be carried out when the office is closed?
• Who will look after the electrical work?
• Will I need a builder?
• Do I need planning permission?
• Can I do any of the work myself?

Remember that many air conditioning contractors offer a price, which excludes the electrical and builders work.

This is not an attempt on their part to confuse, but merely the way that they have always operated, but it may mean that you have to appoint an electrician or builder.

The more forward thinking air conditioning companies are now offering a complete, stress free, installation package, including the electrical work, to their customers.