What are owners and operators truly buying when they buy building systems? Have these purchases become too complicated? For many building systems, just as in all of our world today, the technology is evolving quickly and this makes what used to be a relatively straightforward “apples to apples” comparison nearly impossible. Could our industry (HVAC) make buying decisions different and easier?
First I believe it is important for our purchaser to understand and answer the first question … what are you truly buying when you purchase a HVAC systems? In its most basic form, I believe our customers are buying performance. At the end of the day the whole purpose of an HVAC system is to maintain a certain and defined interior environment no matter what the outdoor conditions may be, wouldn’t you agree?
Think about all the engineering, analysis and evaluation that goes into making the best choice when it comes to selecting the most appropriate type of system: the most suitable equipment, the best configuration, the most reputable manufacturers and the most qualified contractor to install these components. Let’s make sure we have all the right components to be able to access all these things so that we can service and maintain it, check on it and adjust it if necessary.
All this effort and all this expense for what? The building occupants right?
As long as the building systems are doing what they were supposed to do, the building occupants are satisfied and (at least in theory) productive as well wouldn’t you agree? I would suggest our consumers are really asking for and paying for performance. Also, most of our customers would gladly skip all the “necessary” analysis and evaluations and simply purchase the performance if they could. Could you imagine buying 72 degrees and 50 percent RH (performance) for your space? That sounds much easier (at least for the customer) to me.
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