Monitoring indoor environment conditions to protect ratings and minimise complaints

Background

The owner of a pre-eminent office building in Brisbane places great importance on maintaining and improving their NABERS ratings, so as to meet their wider ESG commitments. The onsite Facilities Manager is proactively looking to maintain the property’s industry-leading 6 Star NABERS Energy rating, while also looking to improve upon its lowly NABERS Indoor Environment (IE) rating. The latter recently dropped by half a star due to a combination of poorly located sensors, broken sensors and mechanical failures.

Issue

The 25,000sqm+ site has more than 350 unique zones and a vast network of complex plant and equipment. Before using PEAK, improvement of comfort conditions was largely reactive based on tenant complaints. Given that NABERS IE ratings require random sampling of a small number of zones, one broken or poorly located sensor could mean the difference between hitting or missing the criteria.

Resolution

Since deploying the PEAK Platform, the FM now has confidence they can maintain their market-leading energy rating while improving their IE rating. With visibility across all zones, they can proactively identify poor zone temperatures, before promptly pinpointing and resolving the issue. 

In one recent instance, the FM was notified of a poor zone temperature via a variable air volume (VAV) alert raised within the PEAK IE dashboard. A quick onsite investigation found the temperature sensor was jammed behind a vending machine, which was causing the abnormally high readings. The FM then photographed the sensor and attached it to the Action ticket, before forwarding it to the BMS contractor for a quote to relocate the sensor - a workflow completed wholly on the FM’s mobile while onsite. The zone has since returned to within the ideal range, supporting both future IE ratings and tenant comfort. Figure 1, drawn from PEAK Charts, shows the zone temperature returning to below the setpoint after a period of consistently high temperatures.

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To discover how PEAK can support your monitoring efforts to minimise tenant complaints and lift IE ratings, request a callback from one of our experts today.