Energy Expenses in Buildings - ACADS-BSG

February 24, 2021by ACADS-BSG

Buildings aren’t cheap. They aren’t cheap to build and certainly aren’t cheap to maintain. Even the most thought-out and pondered-over maintenance cost spreadsheet will invariably include line items for those extra expenses that were never considered. In terms of energy expenses, one of the most considerable in any building is space cooling. If you’re reading this in February in Australia, you certainly understand the point.

Before we jump into the cooling component, understanding how heat permeates and occupies building space is fundamental. On the external side, heat from the sun hits interior spaces via conduction, convection, or radiation. The former is across roofs, walls, and windows, something common in all buildings. Convection is the movement of hot outdoor air into confined spaces, while radiation refers to heat penetration via transparent surfaces as well as opaque services such as roofs and walls in the form of re-radiation.
An often overlooked transporter of heat is appliances. Items like coffee machines, lighting fixtures, water heaters, and TVs consume electricity and subsequently release heat. Multiplied over large amounts, spaces can get hot rather quickly. Large offices understand this reality all too well.
Heat load calculation is a process where building rooms are surveyed to understand the heat sources in play. This is a highly specialized but fundamental task for HVAC designers to design the appropriate cooling systems, thereby achieving optimal building performance. Thankfully, access to sophisticated software continues to evolve to facilitate this important task, something unimaginable a decade ago.

Keeping cooling costs in check is a must on the maintenance end. Expensive mistakes have been known to occur.

The user interface for HYENA+ is much cleaner and more user friendly than the UI used for the original HYENA program. This makes the experience more enjoyable, easy, and less taxing when using the program for long periods of time. HYENA is an excellent tool to have and its now web-based nature with HYENA+ has allowed it to become even more beneficial.

– M. Cummings

It has always been a pleasure dealing with ACADS-BSG team due to their helpful nature and quick response time to any inquiries and technical issues. Camel\Hyena works out of the box and install time is in seconds, I cannot recommend any other company that provides better customer service other than Catherine and her team.

– Marvin D

Catherine and the team at ACADS provide customer service of the highest standards always offering the best solutions for our business with fast response times. I would highly recommend ACADS-BSG.

– Amy

The ACADS BSG suite of software has been used by VOS Group for 30 years. We as a company have grown as the software capabilities have changed with usability and technology. The support from head office has always been quick and accurate, with a resolve to overcome any obstacles. We have always found the outputs to be accurate and reliable and a good basis for good engineering design.

– Shayne C

Moving to a cloud based platform has improved the overall performance of the software. [being able to log in from any device] has improved my overall productivity as I only need to carry my smart phone or a tablet, and I can do my job remotely. Tools and functions are clearly organised within the new interface reducing any confusion for a new user. Copy+ Paste option saves a lot of time for Engineers like me. It just works like an Excel Sheet, where you can copy items and paste them somewhere else. It saves a lot of time especially if you are working on a single project and you want to do multiple calculations.

[HYENA+] allows me to quickly switch from one calculation to another without losing any data. This has reduced the overall lead time in doing calculations. I am sure [HYENA+] will have a positive impact on the Fire Industry.

– Ahkil M