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Hospital Facility Maintenance

How Hospital Facility Maintenance Lowers Energy Expenses

Few facilities are more critical to a community than having a hospital available and ready to help when the need arises. For hospital facility maintenance, keeping costs under control isn’t just a matter of maintaining a profitable business. If your hospital can’t keep the doors open, lives could be lost.

Energy costs make up a significant expense for hospitals. Between temperature control, powerful medical equipment, refrigeration, and more, the costs add up. If you want to keep them to a minimum, your maintenance routine plays a larger role than you realize.

In fact, there are several ways you can lower your energy costs with effective hospital facility maintenance.

1. Catching Energy-Wasting HVAC Problems Early

Even small hospitals are huge spaces to regulate when it comes to HVAC systems. Your HVAC system is sure to develop problems from time to time.

Some of those problems can result in efficiency problems. If you aren’t getting the temperature control you want, chances are that your HVAC system is working harder than it should in the meantime.

Ongoing maintenance can detect those issues and resolve them before they cost you thousands in extra energy usage. In fact, proper HVAC maintenance can cut up to 40% off your system’s energy expenses.

2. Upgrading to Energy-Efficient Parts

As climate change becomes a larger threat to our population, more researchers have dedicated their resources to making energy-efficient technology. That includes the types of technology your hospital uses every day like light bulbs and water heaters.

A knowledgeable maintenance team has the experience to upgrade various parts of your facility to energy-efficient alternatives. This may have a higher upfront cost, but in many cases, the energy savings will pay for the parts over time.

As an added bonus, you can use your shrinking carbon footprint to appeal to customers who prioritize conservation.

3. Avoiding Energy-Wasting Repairs

When your facility needs a serious repair, the repair fee alone is expensive. Have you thought about how much those repairs can add to your energy bill too?

Consider a water leak for example. All the power tools needed to remove damaged materials will use energy. So will the lights and fans used to dry damp areas to prevent mold.

All this extra energy can make your electricity bill skyrocket. If you keep up with continuous hospital maintenance, though, these repairs are less likely to be necessary.

4. Keep the Air Clean

As important as it is to keep your air clean for your patients’ sake, clean air also gives you a lower energy bill.

One way our maintenance experts can work toward that goal is by making your exhaust system more efficient. We can spot common problems that increase your exhaust’s energy usage, like pressure loss within the system.

We can also optimize the outdoor air controls to give you an effective system. Resolving these problems will keep your air cleaner while keeping your exhaust and ventilation system from using too much energy.

Air cleanliness is also a factor with your HVAC system. When the filters are too full, the system has to work harder to push air through them. With a maintenance team replacing your filters on a regular basis, you’ll have healthier air with lower energy usage.

5. Keeping Refrigeration Units Running Efficiently

Refrigeration units throughout your hospital can add serious weight to your energy bill. Between the refrigerators for your kitchen and those for special medications, there are plenty of units to maintain.

As with HVAC systems and many appliances, refrigeration units can have higher energy costs when they’re not running correctly. Problems with the seal could cause air leaks that require continuous cooling. If the unit isn’t cooling effectively, it will take more power to reach the temperature you need.

A maintenance team can inspect and maintain all your refrigeration units so they run more efficiently. This saves you more than the extra energy costs. It saves you the expense of replacing all the medication or food in a refrigeration unit because well-maintained refrigerators are less likely to fail.

6. Maintaining Water Purity

Most people don’t realize what an impact their water purity has on their energy usage. Take boilers for example. The more extra particles and contaminants there are in your water, the less efficiently your boilers will operate.

This is another one of those problems hospitals can have for months or years without realizing how much energy they’re wasting. Even if you have a water purification system, failures in the system will lead to more energy use throughout the hospital.

A facility maintenance expert can keep your water purification systems up and running. Not only does this make your boilers and other appliances more efficient, but it lowers your chances that water contamination will cause buildup in the appliances. That buildup can cause equipment failures and expensive repairs.

7. Identifying Areas of Energy Improvement

You’ve heard the saying, “you never know what you don’t know,” and that’s true with energy efficiency. You never know when there are inefficiencies in your hospital that cost you thousands.

A hospital maintenance professional can help. We can examine your facility and identify areas where you’re losing efficiency. That could include outdated appliances, window leaks, facility repairs, are more.

This allows you to have a plan for improving your energy efficiency moving forward. You also get the peace of mind that you aren’t throwing money out the window without realizing it.

How to Boost Your Energy Efficiency with Hospital Facility Maintenance

As much as you want to run an efficient, successful hospital, there are simply too many pieces in the puzzle to handle yourself. A specialized hospital facility maintenance professional can help you improve your energy economy while lowering your future repair expenses.

To learn more about how we can help with your facilities, contact our maintenance experts today

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