Predictive Maintenance at Brisbane's Stuartholme School

Predictive Maintenance at Brisbane’s Stuartholme School
The Customer

CoolTimes

Site: Stuartholme School

The system: Daikin VRV Heat Pump

Stuartholme School is an all-girls private high school located in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
The site consists mainly of Daikin VRV connected to various types of indoor units.

The Challenge

The goal of HVAC remote monitoring is to detect problems as early as they appear, before they escalate to a major issue. Ultimately, HVAC remote monitoring helps HVAC service companies to identify issues and inefficiencies before they become major problems, allowing for proactive maintenance and minimizing downtime. All you need is someone trained and knowledgeable to figure out the nature of the issue, and define a course of action for solving it.

Predictive Maintenance at Brisbane’s Stuartholme School
The Solution
CoolAutomation’s Smart HVAC Predictive Maintenance Suite

Using the professional application and its advanced HVAC diagnostic tools, we quickly identified an extremely high current reading from the fan driver PCB. This was limiting the machine’s frequency, yet no fault or protection state was activated.

Predictive Maintenance at Brisbane’s Stuartholme School
The Traditional Course of Action
1
Schedule a site visit
2
Travel to site
3
Connect the service tool and wait on-site for several hours to gather data
4
Analyze the service data
5
Potentially have to share the data with a senior technician to analyze
6
Locate the fault
7
Order the required parts
8
Return to the site and replace parts
9
Connect the service tool and re-analyze the data to confirm correct operation
clock
Total of 11 working hours
Traditional VS Remote HVAC Service - A Comparison
The Traditional Course of ActionRemote HVAC Service
On-site long data recording with the essential need for the error to re-emerge (will not appear if both units are operating)
Offsite remote system test and fault finding
Multiple trips to the site are expected
Identify the fault
Analysis of the raw data gathered with minimal assistance from the tool, involving a Senior VRF expert on-site for a considerable amount of time
Less than 1 hour of on-site junior VRF service provider
On-site fix
Remote fix verification
On-site verification test
Remote fix verification
CoolAutomation Solutions Used
Remote diagnostics
Searching for the error cause
Using historic data
Remote diagnostics
1
Remote diagnostics
The service data from the VRV outdoor unit belowclearly shows the fan speed at 0 and yet stilldrawing 128amps. The outdoor unit continuesto run at a reduced capacity with no protectionstate activated nor fault code present.
Searching for the error cause
2
Searching for the error cause
The service data from the VRV outdoor unit belowclearly shows the fan speed at 0 and yet stilldrawing 128amps. The outdoor unit continuesto run at a reduced capacity with no protectionstate activated nor fault code present.
Using historic data
3
Using historic data
The service data from the VRV outdoor unit belowclearly shows the fan speed at 0 and yet stilldrawing 128amps. The outdoor unit continuesto run at a reduced capacity with no protectionstate activated nor fault code present.
The result is
result
Enhanced tenant comfort
result
Significant energy savings
result
Increased HVAC technician productivity
Benefits
benefits
Reduce HVAC energy consumption
benefits
Maintain comfort for pupils and staff - less system downtime
benefits
System longevity - identifying problematic faults quicker, ensuring no long-term damage is done to the system
benefits
Enhanced service - one service call vs. two
benefits
Reduced costs with no initial call-out fee
benefits
Reduced service technician working hours
q
Using CoolAutomation has saved the school countless hours of call outs and labor, minimizing time by utilizing their unique cloud-based solution. By diagnosing the Daikin VRV equipment remotely and efficiently, senior technicians ensure minimal equipment downtime. CoolTimes has allowed us to set schedules, restrict wall controller operation, set auto heat/cool logic, change over rules and monitor real-time energy consumption. Implementing these control strategies has already seen an energy and maintenance downturn in costs and presumably see equipment lifespan increased.
Alan Bedford, Facilities Manager