Architects and interior designers strive to arrange spaces for optimal traffic flow. However, they seldom try to situate areas of similar occupancy schedules in the same area. This ensures easy access for staff. The modular arrangement is for the advantage of the HVAC and electrical systems.
Take as an example a restaurant with a kitchen and a dining facility. Each follows a different occupation schedule: The kitchen is busy long before the first customers arrive, and for many hours afterward. If both areas are served by the same air-conditioning system, it must run for the entire time the kitchen is open, continuing to air-condition the dining area for many extra hours when it’s not in use. Also, there are times in the winter when the kitchen must be cooled, to counteract the heat of the appliances, while the dining area needs to be heated. This situation can be avoided if the kitchen and dining areas are zoned separately, to be serviced by separate air handlers.
As another example, consider a small manufacturing facility. The shipping dock often works longer hours than the front office or the assembly and testing areas, which may even work an extra shift.
Careful arrangement of these areas so that they’re on separate air-handling units allows the units serving unoccupied areas to be turned off. Sensitive equipment such as computers and electronics, which often require lower temperatures and around-the-clock space conditioning, can be served without keeping other areas colder than necessary and conditioned when unoccupied.
It’s easiest to arrange things in this way before the facility is built or the building rental space finished. A thorough review after the fact, of the building plans and ductwork layout, however, may lend itself to some changes that—perhaps in combination with some changes in space usage itself—may enable a degree of isolation for the HVAC units. This is most feasible if the area has a lay-in ceiling that permits ready access to the ceiling space where the ductwork is run.
A more subtle—but equally important—advantage to this functional type of layout is that lighting and equipment can also be controlled according to the daily work schedule. The electrical usage can be cut off along with the air-conditioning equipment, further reducing the energy used by the space. This is especially helpful if an entire electrical panel and its transformer can be shut down for a period of time.
Transformers continue to use power even when they’re serving a small load. Coil resistance losses are emitted in the form of heat, so the equipment also affects the cooling load if it’s located in a conditioned space. Only if the entire distribution branch can be taken offline will there be energy savings from transformer losses.
Careful circuiting of the equipment and power outlets in a building can permit the disabling of an entire distribution panel for a period of time each day. If circuits that supply electricity to any clocks, alarms, or emergency apparatus are on a separate panel, this should not be a problem.
One final comment applies to functional layout and electrical service. Designers are usually quite liberal in the number of power outlets they provide in a space. These can often be reduced even further if the furniture layout is known and all the points of use are established.
Either way, be cognizant of duplex outlets, their location and quantity versus space use.
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Excerpt from Energy Conservation Projects.