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Top tips when hiring temporary heating or cooling equipment

December 17, 2009

Many companies have a regular repeating need for the hiring in of either Portable Heating or Air Conditioning equipment, for others it may just be an occasional requirement or an emergency situation. Irrespective of whichever one you fall into, here are some simple tips you may wish to consider.

1. Follow the manual

Many of the basic problems encountered by hirers could be removed by better following the instructions for both siting and operating the equipment properly.

It is vital to ensure that you do a proper handover with the hire supplier and take note of any special instructions. Then the communicating of his information to anyone else on your team who may need to take responsibility for the kit is essential.

Simple matters such as, ensuring you only plug equipment in to a suitable mains supply can help prevent unnecessary time consuming and frustrating breakdowns and ensure you get the most from your hired in equipment.

2. Talk it through

It’s really important to talk through the needs of your business, not just your temporary heating and temporary cooling requirements with your HVAC hire specialist. Only then can you ensure that you’re hiring kit that’s fit for purpose.

For example, you don’t want diesel fumes in a closed environment or noisy equipment close to a residential area. The equipment way well fit in the area where you need it, but have you considered access?

Any reputable HVAC rental specialist will be able to help you look for all these hidden problems that could arise if a correct and thorough site survey has not been completed.

3. Beware hidden costs

When you’re hiring equipment, it can be tempting to select the kit you need based on the hire cost, but this can be short sighted. Not all hire fleet is new! Ask the HVAC rental specialist the age of the kit they will offer you.

The equipment with the lowest cost per week hire charge could end up costing you much more because of the amount of fuel or energy it uses. For example, not all heaters are the same; some new IDF heater units are far more efficient than others and by a long way! A little time invested here can save much overall cost.

Again, a specialist temperature control solutions provider will advise you on the likely whole hire cost of equipment and help you make a sound decision based on both real overall costs and suitability for the application. Watch out for companies whose rental charges go up with extremes in temperature and where you can pay a premium for no good reason!

4. Select a specialist

When it comes to hiring specialist heating and cooling equipment, you want to know that you have the right piece of kit for the job, and get expert advice on how it works, what it can do and how to make the most of it. With a general hire company that kind of specialist knowledge simply isn’t available.

If you need temporary portable heaters or portable air conditioner equipment look for a company that specialises in temporary heating and cooling solutions because that’s where you’ll get the best advice. Also make sure that for full peace of mind you select a natiowide climate control hire company that can offer you 24/7 service and support.

5. Challenge the specialist!

Where you have no HVAC hire company experience or referrals to guide you and no prior knowledge, use the web and be specific with your key-words in your “google” search.

Does the Specialist HVAC hirer’s web site prove that they are working in your specialist sector, say the Facilities Management Market? Check out their similar type applications. You will soon see-through the ones that are not up to it; it will be worth while to take a few moments to consider what you need. So include Key Words that correctly cover your project, be specific. There are some very good HVAC Hire Specialist companies out there. It is worth finding them.

You could start off your search with Watkins Hire Limited and it could save you a deal of time too!

6. Last thought

Once you have done the above, checked the web and look at a number, then call 1, 2 or 3 HVAC Specialists  and maybe prefer those where you don’t deal with temporary staff  in call centres and those where you do speak with the temperature control hire specialist directly!

Contact Details

For a tempoary cooling or tempoary heating hire site survey, quotation or just fast friendly expert HVAC rental advice please call us now on one of the regional numbers below:

South East

South West

East & West Midlands

Northern East

  • 01695 724888 / 07825 212914 – Email Jim Craig

South Wales

North West

Scotland

Northern Ireland

Ireland

  • 00353 12480092 / 0044 7825 618277 – Email Brian Woods

Does your company operate from Multiple Office locations and do you want a single point of contact for your entire specialist HVAC hire requirements? Our dedicated National Accounts team can help.

Nick Campey, National Account Director – Watkins Hire Ltd

December 17th 2009

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Filed under: nick campey — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , — Watkins Hire @ 3:48 PM

INSTANT INFO FOR A FASTER FIX

December 8, 2009

You can’t stop life from throwing the odd curved ball at you every now and then. But wouldn’t it be great if you could see them coming early enough that you could respond before their full impact was felt?

mast large

When it comes to managing the efficiency of temporary air conditioning  and temporary chiller hire equipment, the answer might just be at hand….and it has nothing to do with crystal balls or other such hocus pocus! In fact, it’s a system based on GSM telemetry and already being pioneered in the hire industry by heating and cooling nationwide specialist, Watkins Hire.

Whether its temporary cooling kit hired in to replace the main air conditioning system while it awaits repair or replacement, extra equipment to top up the fixed air conditioning or a temporary cooling solution to an equally temporary need – a trade show, for example – the ability of temporary chiller rental  air conditioning units to operate efficiently can be business critical for the hirer.  And it’s not just about whether the unit is working; in many applications – data centres, hospitals, food storage, for example – ensuring that the equipment keeps the space within a specified temperature range is also essential.

Of course, it’s the hirer’s job to select the right temperature control hire company, and the hire company’s job to ensure that the equipment is well-specified, well-maintained and fit for purpose, but any equipment can develop a fault. The only way to stop a fault from becoming a major problem is to spot it early so that action can be taken quickly and that’s exactly what the Watkins Hire ‘Fault Reporting Telemetry System’ does. 

The company installs a remote telemetry unit onto a piece of hire equipment and if a fault develops the unit triggers an email alarm message via the GPRS network to alert the servicing team with the details of which air conditioning unit is affected and what the fault is.  The client can even choose to include email addresses of members of their own team so that they can send someone to site to take remedial action in real time as soon as a fault occurs.  The fault could be as simple as a piece of kit being switched off, or as serious as a component failure: whatever the problem, this real time fault recognition allows Watkins Hire to repair or replace the faulty equipment quickly, helping to avoid a rise in temperature above the accepted range.

“The GSM telemetry unit is simply wired in to the hire equipment and configured to the needs of the user,” explains Mark Hills, managing director of Watkins Hire. “It may just be programmed to pick up any faults so that we can respond quickly by repairing or replacing the unit.  However, in many applications it is also essential that the environment is maintained within a set temperature range and the GSM system can be used to monitor the temperature too, triggering an email alert in just the same way if the site becomes too cool or too hot.”

The Watkins Hire system is able to monitor temperatures thanks to its integral 128K flash memory which can store temperature values at pre-configured time intervals during the day.  If the temperature does rise or fall outside of the preconfigured range it will be reported by the device as a fault, triggering an email alert.  The value of the system to the client, however, is not simply in the peace of mind it offers that any fault or spike in temperature will be reported immediately, it’s also in the constant monitoring facility it offers. The GSM telemetry is used to transfer temperature data from the equipment to the Watkins Hire website where clients can view it securely. Armed with this information over a period of time they can analyse the data, enabling them to spot a likely dip or rise in temperature outside of the acceptable range before it actually occurs or to recognise patterns that might indicate an issue with the way the environment is managed.

“This is not new technology,” Mark continues, “but it is under used in this type of context, that’s why Watkins Hire has invested in bespoke software to apply GSM technology to the hire sector issue of equipment failure.  In applications where maintaining a constant temperature is business critical, such as data centres, for example, the ability to remotely monitor a machine’s performance has proved invaluable to our clients.”

Does your company operate from Multiple Office locations and do you want a single point of contact for your entire specialist HVAC hire requirements? Our dedicated National Accounts team can help.

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Filed under: Fault Reporting Telemetry System — Tags: , , , , , , — Watkins Hire @ 12:04 PM

CHOOSING WATKINS HIRE IS BEST POLICY FOR INSURANCE FIRM

December 8, 2009

It’s a well known fact that corridor conversations account for a large proportion of business deals – and that was certainly true when heating and cooling specialist, Watkins Hire installed a temporary heating boiler at an office building in Lincoln.

portable chiller supply temporary cooling to Becor House

Portable chiller supplying temporary cooling to Becor House

While the Watkins Hire service team was at ‘Becor House’ installing equipment for the building’s landlord, they struck up a conversation with one of its tenants, Barbon Insurance, and were soon invited to quote for the insurance firm’s temporary air conditioning requirements.

Explains Norman Goody, Facilities Manager at Barbon Insurance: “We don’t have a fixed air conditioning system in the building so we hire temporary air conditioning from around May to October every year.  We had used the same supplier for several years but after seeing how efficiently Watkins Hire handled the temporary boiler installation we asked them to quote for our air conditioning.  Not only did they provide us with much newer, quieter and more efficient equipment than our usual supplier but they also provided excellent service and reduced the cost considerably.”

Watkins Hire completed a survey of the three storeys occupied by Barbon Insurance before providing a detailed specification and quote tailored to the company’s requirements.  The hire firm provided a 250 kW chiller rental unit and a 80kW chiller unit sited outside the building to provide sufficient cooling load for 20 off 20kW air handling units within the insurance company’s offices.  Watkins Hire also provided a temporary power generator hire package to power the equipment and a Fuelpak bunded fuel tank. 

Norman continues: “Our experience of Watkins Hire has been excellent throughout the whole period. The equipment has recently been removed and this also went smoothly over one weekend, thereby causing no disruption to our business or mess to our premises. We would have no reservation in recommending Watkins Hire to any potential customer and we will certainly be using them again next year for our temporary air conditioning requirement.”

Does your company operate from Multiple Office locations and do you want a single point of contact for your entire specialist HVAC hire requirements? Our dedicated National Accounts team can help.

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Filed under: COOLING & HEATING SOLUTIONS — Tags: , , , , , — Watkins Hire @ 11:35 AM

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