Energy efficiency is fast becoming an integral part of the design for new construction and major renovation building projects. This is driven, in part, by a growing availability of incentives and rebates offered by utility companies. Attractive incentives are offered for a variety of measures that provide long-term energy and cost savings to building owners.

As building owners and managers, the top objective is to reduce costs. When exploring the many ways to increases building efficiencies, replacing old equipment and investing in solar or geothermal energies are popular solutions with proven energy savings.

The downturn in the economy has forced many companies and organizations to make some tough choices in spending cutbacks. A common place to cut back is outside vendors who perform maintenance. This strategy needs to be looked at more closely.

With rising energy costs and increasing concern over energy efficiency, building owners are finding that HVAC system recommissioning or retrofitting can be an efficient, energy-minimizing and cost-saving alternative to major utility equipment replacements. The benefits of recommissioning, experts in the industry say, can far outweigh the longterm costs of running an inefficient system.

Many mechanical contractors work closely with Rocky Mountain Power to minimize the costs of HVAC retrofit. The power company provides incentives for many types of energy efficient technologies, including HVAC, variable frequency drives, programmable thermostats, water-chilling equipment, occupancy-based packaged terminal AC/HP controls...