How Building Services Work Together

Building services are the systems that make a building usable: heating, cooling, ventilation, electrical power, lighting, water, drainage, lifts, fire systems and the controls that link them. In this course you will learn to apply knowledge of these systems as a facilities practitioner: to diagnose problems, choose between options, manage maintenance and talk confidently with engineers and contractors.

The most important idea at the start is that these systems are connected. A fault in one often appears as a problem in another. A complaint that an office is too hot may be caused by a failed electrical supply to a pump, a stuck valve, a control schedule, or a blocked filter. If you look at one system only, you will often fix the wrong thing.

How one fault travels through the building

Example 1. In a hotel, guests complained of no hot water in the morning. The plumbing contractor checked the calorifier and found it cold. The real cause was electrical: the circuit for the primary pump had tripped overnight because of a failing motor. The hot water problem was a pump problem, and the pump problem was an electrical problem.

Example 2. An office was too warm every afternoon. The air conditioning contractor added refrigerant twice. Trend data from the BMS later showed that the time schedule for the air handling unit stopped it at 13:00 on weekdays, a setting left from a period of reduced occupancy. The cooling system was fine. The control schedule was wrong.