Support for the investment process

What could go wrong? ...

Actually, everything.

All elements are very important and ignoring any of them can expose the entire investment process to failure.

Ignoring individual stages or being guided by emotions when choosing a company to carry out a given stage can be the final nail in the coffin.

Remember, choose a company to cooperate with that has already carried out a similar stage or the entire investment and has the appropriate experience, knowledge and preparation for it

Be sure to check several references of the company, its qualifications, experience and talk to the clients of the company applying for the order!

Stage 1 - Concept

 

In our opinion, this stage is the most important. because the future of the investment depends on choosing the right concept and selecting the devices.

If we skip this step and start the next stages of implementation, at some point it may turn out that it is too late for changes and our system will not work as we expected.

It will be too late for optimization and it often turns out that we will have to accept much higher operating costs, much lower comfort, reduced system safety and weeks of waiting for service activities and sometimes even months for a possible repair.

We know what we are talking about, we have over 20 years of experience in the industry and we encounter similar problems every day.

Without a proper analysis of the building's energy needs and its functioning, it may turn out that the operating costs will be even 3-5 times higher.

Remember that the designer has to carry out the project in accordance with the applicable regulations and does not necessarily have to pay attention to the proper adjustment of the system to the needs of the facility, various analyses and selection of a system that will generate the lowest   operating costs.

The demand for designs is very high and designers often create them en masse from a template in the simplest and shortest possible way, which often affects functionality and operating costs.

Stage 2 - Design work

 

If the concept has been done correctly, this stage is very simple and its course is short and efficient.

However, special attention should be paid to whether the given design office has experience (or cooperates with a company that has such experience)  in selecting and designing systems established in the concept and you can see investments already completed based on these design studies.

Unfortunately, it often happens that the designer tries to force his choices because he does not know a given technology or  does not have sufficient knowledge and experience.

Remember that a poorly designed heating and cooling system, despite being compliant with the regulations, may operate incorrectly and generate very high operating costs.

Stage 3 - Delivery of equipment

This stage seems to be the simplest and raises the fewest doubts.

You just need to verify whether everything is in accordance with the design and whether all the elements have been correctly delivered and have not been replaced with cheaper, lower quality elements.

Unfortunately, sometimes it happens that devices arrive damaged, and there is no one to verify it, or the wrong thing arrived.

We can avoid such situations if we have a company that supervises the entire process.

Stage 4 - System assembly, installation

 

This stage is very important. It should be remembered that choosing a company with the right approach and experience is key here.

Often, the investor falls into the trap of apparent savings by choosing the cheapest company, whose quality is very low. Often, this company does not even have the manufacturer's authorization and the entire installation and devices are not guaranteed, but the owner of the facility finds out about it only after a problem occurs.

The second case is choosing a company based on acquaintances, intuitively without verification - it may then turn out that the company is not only not cheap at all, but also has no experience in a given technology   and its quality leaves much to be desired.

Remember that neither one nor the other case is right. apparent savings or choosing a company based on acquaintances without proper verification can have dire consequences, both financial due to the indefinitely prolonged implementation stage and very high operating costs due to endless diagnoses of incorrect system operation.

The costs are often even several times higher and the stress is difficult to estimate.

Often, with larger investments, contractors change like in a kaleidoscope. One company does not know what the previous one was doing. There is chaos on the construction site... etc

In the end, it turns out that none of the installations work properly, no one thought about service access to the devices and the entire installation is no longer guaranteed because the installation was performed by an unauthorised and untrained company, which has contact with a given system for the first time in its life.

We know this very well because we are the factory service of Panasonic and we often go to start up the installation - but then it is often too late for proper operation, low operating costs and a smile on the investor's face.

Our advice is not to skip or underestimate individual important stages of the investment process.

Stage 5 - Launch

 

This stage is also very important.

Proper start-up is the last moment to detect irregularities in the assembly, selection or configuration of the system or the assumptions of the system operation.

Of course, in the case of very serious deficiencies, it may turn out that the factory service will determine that there are so many inconsistencies and corrections to be made   that the start-up should be postponed or it may also turn out that there is no possibility of starting because the system is poorly selected and will work incorrectly or not at all.

Unfortunately, we have witnessed many such situations when a company without much knowledge and experience came to the start-up and submitted a slightly cheaper offer for start-up. The device was stopped in a failure because the installation company tried to start the device on its own and the service of the start-up company simply deleted the errors without asking what the cause was and forced the start-up.

It turned out that after a month of the system's operation from the forced start-up, the entire system had to be replaced because the previously unresolved errors led to permanent damage to the practically new generator.

That is why it is so important to supervise all stages of the investment by one company or the right person.

If each stage is treated independently, in the case of people with little technical knowledge and experience, it may unfortunately lead to disastrous and very costly consequences.

Stage 6 - Warranty and post-warranty service

 

This stage is crucial to maintaining the system in proper operation and ensuring the longest possible life cycle and the most optimal operation.

Service is not limited to cleaning filters, as is unfortunately the case in most cases.

The service company must have extensive experience in servicing a given product and manufacturer, and should quickly and efficiently diagnose the problem and, ideally, have spare parts in stock for possible repair. Otherwise, improper   service may contribute not only to trivializing or failing to diagnose a serious problem, but may also contribute to its occurrence. Then the consequences may be dire both in terms of finances and in the long interruption of the system's operation.

That is why it is so important to verify the service company, especially one dealing with GHP systems, hybrid systems or VRF systems.

The company's service authorizations and credentials, references, experience and equipment should be verified.