Five Tips To Help Manage The HVAC Units In Your Hotels

Your smart appliances aren’t the only systems in your hotel that need regular attention and ongoing maintenance. Here are five ways to keep your AC systems at peak performance and ensuring comfortable stays for your summertime guests.

Hotel property managers start their busy days with a host of guest requests, providing a constant stream of priorities to keep customers happy. More linens for the bathroom. Another rollaway bed for that extra ‘under-12’ they didn’t include in their reservation. Requesting a different room because of a mysteriously broken toilet seat.

The last thing you need on top of those standard requests is a flood of calls from your guests about hot and humid rooms and underperforming AC units. Depending on the number of units in your hotels, managing the performance of your HVAC equipment is a growing demand on your time and diminishing support staff. As seasonally usual, rising temperatures and increased use will put the test on aging AC
units. The cooling season will increase the priority on your air conditioning failures, and you don't have the time to get ahead of repairs, much less keep up with them.

Here are a few tips to ‘get ahead’ of AC equipment maintenance, so you can spend more of your valuable time taking care of guest needs that exceed their expectations instead of chasing their complaints as Summer temperatures and tempers rise..

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1. Pre-Set AC Units Before Guests Arrive - And Inform Them on Check-In

Before your hotel units turn over, check the indoor comfort settings on your thermostats (either room-by-room, or remotely using your HVAC equipment management dashboard/app) before a new guest arrives. Setting the rooms to a cooling setting just before their scheduled check-in helps to confirm proper working order of the AC unit, in addition providing comfort as soon as they step through the door. Here’s a tip: during the check-in process, let the new guests know that you’ve set the air conditioner to a cooling cycle as a courtesy for their comfort, and give them a quick tutorial on how to adjust the temperature on the control unit in their room. The hotter it is outside, the more they appreciate this simple notice as comforting.

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2. Check for Warning Signs of Wear and Tear

At the Unit - Strange sounds or condensation coming from your PTAC unit or mini-split? It might be caused by a failing compressor or fan module. Puddles or icing anywhere near the unit is also a sign of trouble to be checked by a HVAC technician.

At the Thermostat - Confirm that your thermostat has contact with the unit and that the presets are working properly. Digital touchscreen thermostats often get rough use and need replacement. If you can control your thermostats remotely as a group (via appliance management software), set thermostats to run the units through a brief cooling cycle test to monitor performance and identify any issues.

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3. Routinely Check AC Filters

For ductless AC units, the air filters often get gummed up with dust and particles after long periods of use. This issue can result in foul smells and visible gunk that hotel guests won’t like. Add a regular cleaning and replacement of filters to your maintenance checklist to ensure these parts of your AC systems don’t go overlooked.

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4. Get Online Visibility of All Your HVAC Units

Tracking the strength of your HVAC systems as a whole (rather than independent pieces equipment) may seem like a difficult and time-consuming task to set up. With many manufacturers, adding a ‘command module’ to the units allows you to remotely monitor the performance of that individual unit. Especially as more units come under the management of fewer and fewer staff members, this 5-minute task to add the electronic add-on per unit will give you complete diagnostic control of your AC units, regardless of the manufacturer. GE SmartHQ helps in this capacity with the SmartHQ Service App - which makes managing your hotel HVAC equipment easier and more efficient.

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5. Install Smart Thermostats in Your Units

The market is flooded with new ‘smart’ thermostats that claim to reduce energy use, optimize performance, and ‘learn’ about your heating and cooling habits.

Choosing a smart thermostat, on the other hand, is an exercise in feature comparisons, connectivity issues, and equipment compatibility. We’ve done the homework for you, and have identified the best smart thermostats and their features specific to the hotel and hospitality management industry.

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