The ultimate goal of every heating and cooling installation is to provide the desired indoor climate at the lowest possible energy cost. Today’s advanced control technology means that, in theory, achieving this goal is possible. In practice, however, even the most sophisticated controllers don’t always perform as promised. The result is lower levels of comfort at higher energy expenditures. Balancing ensures the plant performs as specified by the designer and operates the way the designer intended. Only through balancing can potential problems be identified and rectified. But, balancing is normally overlooked due to the complexity and investment involved without proper strategy/method to manually balance. Hence, understanding strategic balancing for optimization using balancing strategies, such as the TA Wireless method, with advanced balancing instruments, such as TA Scope — listed in this article by IMI Hydronic Engineering — can make the balancing process easier and more optimal to achieve desired operations and savings.
Balancing prevents overflows in certain circuits from causing underflows in others. It also helps to detect possible oversizing of pumps and verifies the plant provides the functions and performance as intended.