Continuing on from last month’s discussion encouraging design engineers to create their own automatic temperature control (ATC) system flow diagram and write their own sequence of operation, let me start with the importance of this responsibility. Think about the equipment and recognize it has already been pre-engineered (e.g., 500-ton chiller). Then think about the duct distribution and pipe distribution and recognize that all of this is very stagnant and, except for the air, water, or steam passing through these conduits, there are no moving parts.
Now recognize the ATC system has moving parts and computer programming to orchestrate this systems’ movement, and accept the fact that if there is going to be an HVAC problem with the system, there is a 90% chance the problem will be the ATC. Sure, the system can experience air and water balancing issues, but for the most part, those get manually adjusted and the problem is usually solved.