The survey always makes Brooks Ingrassia shake his head, especially as someone whose career includes cleaning air ducts inside commercial and institutional facilities.
During a presentation at the annual AHR Expo, a gathering of HVAC professionals in Atlanta, Ingrassia revealed that 60 percent of the people surveyed in a poll said they preferred a reactive maintenance program instead of a proactive or regular maintenance program.
As he told the crowd gathered for the National Air Duct Cleaners Association (NACDA)-sponsored presentation, that’s a lot of people who say, “let’s let it fail, let’s let it break, and let’s have a problem before we decide to fix it.”
Ingrassia, an HVAC contractor based in Kansas City, Missouri, serves on NACDA’s board of directors and presented at the show on the benefits of how a consistent cleaning schedule can help facility managers realize cost savings and extend the life of mechanical systems.
“Running a piece of equipment to failure can cost you much more than a regular maintenance program,” Ingrassia says. “One dollar worth of maintenance deferred can cost four times that in capital renewal costs.”
In a post-pandemic environment, the importance of indoor air quality (IAQ) has never been more critical for managers. The general public has never been more aware of the air they breathe in their workspace, and are factoring it into their decisions about where they want to work. If employees are taking that into consideration, students and their parents are also making it a factor in where they will attend school, and customers are considering IAQ when making decisions on where to do business.
During his presentation at AHR, Ingrassi offered attendees the benefits of maintaining a consistent cleaning schedule.
Dave Lubach is the managing editor of the Facility Market.
