Full Description

Information on the costs of maintaining heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment is of interest to manufacturers, building owners and operators, and consulting engineers. Because of this interest, the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air- Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) has sponsored several research projects on HVAC maintenance costs in recent years.

The objective of this project, the third of a series, was to obtain accurate and relevant data on the maintenance costs of HVAC systems and thereby add to the currently small body of data on such costs. To gather these data, a survey of a sample of office buildings was undertaken in cooperation with the Building Owner.s and Managers Association, International (BOMA). The BOMA members surveyed were requested to provide information on various costs incurred for HVAC maintenance (e.g., wages, supplies, contract services, etc.) as well as information on building characteristics (e.g., location, square footage, number of stories , age, type of HVAC system, building usage, cooling plant size, and heating plant size). The data thus collected were analyzed with statistical methods to determine how HVAC maintenance costs are affected by such factors as the type of HVAC system, geographical location, type of building usage, installed cooling and heating capacity, and size of building.