Unlocking Energy Savings: The Role of Preventive Maintenance
Imagine a hot summer day in early August. It’s a busy day and customers are pouring into your business, whether to shop, eat, or work out. Then all of a sudden, your air conditioner gives out and the building fills with heat. Customers leave the uncomfortable atmosphere, and you lose out on a ton of business. More likely than not, this is a disaster that could have been prevented with a regular routine of preventive maintenance. Combined with the energy savings you get by partnering with an energy-as-a-service company, proactive maintenance of your equipment is essential to keeping monthly costs low and avoiding expensive breakdowns.
Benefits of Preventive Maintenance in Your Business
Businesses who take proactive maintenance measures save money. Staying on top of your energy equipment—whether you’re heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system or your commercial refrigerators—helps keep your facility running smoothly and prevents wasting money. Maintenance helps catch small issues that, if otherwise ignored, could overtime be exacerbated into emergencies that require thousands of dollars to fix. It saves you money in the long run by avoiding replacements and timely repairs—and by increasing the lifespan of your equipment. Plus, equipment that is regularly maintained operates with higher levels of efficiency, using less energy and helping to prevent your energy bills from skyrocketing.
That’s why Budderfly provides a complete preventive maintenance schedule for our customers. Regularly testing, cleaning, lubricating, unblocking, and replacing small parts helps us ensure that their valuable equipment is taken care of and kept in the best shape to keep operations running smoothly and cost effectively.
Predictive Maintenance Catches Issues Early
In addition to regular on-site maintenance visits, predictive maintenance is also a powerful way to protect your equipment. Using internet-of-things (IoT) devices to remotely monitor equipment conditions in real time, many equipment issues can be detected virtually and fixed before they escalate.
Predictive maintenance is different from standard preventive maintenance in that it utilizes sophisticated software to get ahead of equipment issues before a human expert even needs to get involved. For example, if an HVAC unit suddenly starts consuming a lot more energy than is standard, it can signal a mechanical problem that needs to be fixed. Or if excessive heat is detected in a cooler, this could be a sign something is not working right. Predictive maintenance technology can detect this abnormality and send a notification to alert that a repair may be needed or that an expert should come take a look to see what’s going on.
The Downsides DIY Preventive Maintenance
Many businesses ignore preventative maintenance or try to do take a DIY approach. This is understandable, as the cost of hiring a contractor especially—for older or outdated equipment—can be expensive, and many businesses are running on a tight budget. Doing it yourself is an attractive way to cut costs, but there are many downsides to tackling your own preventative maintenance.
Expertise and Knowledge: Equipment such as HVAC systems and commercial refrigerators are incredibly intricate pieces of technology, with various components working together seamlessly to perform a variety of important tasks. One wrong move can cause a lot of damage and end up actually requiring more money to solve a problem that could have been avoided. Plus, not all equipment issues are easily diagnosable, and the untrained eye may not be able to understand when a component needs to be fixed, cleaned, or changed. Technicians go through extensive training and know how to get to the bottom of any issues that arise. They are also taught the proper way to handle even the most fragile machinery parts and the precise way components go together to function properly. This expertise is invaluable when dealing with machinery that is essential to your business operations.
Safety Concerns: These technologies can also be dangerous, and to properly maintain equipment, you will have to handle electrical wiring, navigate around heat, gas, and flames, climb onto roofs, and face other precarious situations. When someone without the proper training is tasked with addressing these challenges, there is a huge liability problem that could lead to injuries or even death. It’s a job better left to those with the right experience and safety knowledge.
Equipment and Tools: Do you have a refrigerator ratchet, aviation snips, temperature probe, and clamp meters? Trained technicians have the proper niche tools to take care of your preventive maintenance needs.
Time Efficiency: You’re busy running a commercial business. Do you have time to check your freezers, heating and cooling systems, and electrical wiring on a regular basis? Chances are, you have more pressing issues to deal with and deciding to DIY preventative maintenance may mean equipment takes a backseat on your priorities list.
Preventive Maintenance Provides Financial, Energy Savings
Preventive maintenance is critical to the health of your facility and your operational budget—but only when done correctly. Budderfly provides our customers with energy-saving equipment and technologies with no upfront cost. Plus, we provide preventative maintenance agreements that enlist our team of experts to perform regular proactive maintenance of equipment to keep your machinery in premium condition. At the same time, our industry-leading monitoring technology enables the additional benefits of predictive maintenance. We work hard to make sure your equipment doesn’t have to.
To learn more about the Budderfly program and our approach to preventative maintenance, contact one of our experts today.