Insider Brief
- Cleaning HVAC ducts, coils, and other components decreases energy consumption and increases air flow, in all tested climates
- Net energy consumption decreased both during and after cleaning of components
- Additional benefits of cleaning include greater system stability, and less reliance on backup systems
Cleaning HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air cooling) ducts and coils significantly reduces energy consumption, a recent study published by Energy and Buildings found.
“Following prescriptive cleaning, HVAC systems exhibited significant energy consumption reductions and delivered higher airflows compared to their uncleaned counterparts,” the study, written by Nasim Ildiri, Emma Biesiada, Tullio Facchinetti, Norma Anglani, Nouman Ahmed, and Mark Hernandez found.
“On average, intervention systems saved between 41% and 60% [energy] on conveyance (fan/blower) energy, with one exception, and supplied 10% and 46% more airflow compared to their uncleaned counterparts.”
Building operations are responsible for one-third of total global energy output, and optimizing the energy used by these operations is critical to lowering carbon emissions, the report authors said. Energy used by HVAC systems is “significant,” accounting for nearly 50% of total energy use in the U.S.
The study selected four groups of buildings across the U.S. and Europe, with different types of climates (cold-humid; hot humid; cool-dry; mixed-humid). The authors measured the Variable Air Volume (VAV) after cleaning all HVAC system components, including fans/blowers, heat exchangers, and evaporator/condenser coils.
Net energy consumption decreased both during and after cleaning of the HVAC components. The authors also found that there are greater benefits for large HVAC systems in cleaning the components than in smaller systems.
Building managers would be likely to benefit from a “new generation of affordable IAQ (indoor air quality) and HVAC systems monitors” to compile IoT archives into a database to optimize air flow rates, the authors said.
There are additional benefits to regularly cleaning HVAC components, they added. “Cleaned HVAC systems presented greater system stability in operational conditions, characterized by decreased fluctuations in system differential pressure,” they wrote.
Cleaner HVAC systems were also less dependent on backup equipment, which could reduce maintenance costs.
