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?
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.
- National Accounts 07500 788345 – Email Nick Campey
- National Accounts 07787 518171 – Email Terry Stevens-Smith
