Authority of HVAC System in Organization

[khanengr]

Hi all,

I am an electrical engineer, working in an oil refinery, here the HVAC system comes under the authority of Electrical Department solely including total operation and maintenance, Last week I met another Engineer from a very reputed Fertilizer plant and he also told me that at his plant, HVAC system is also solely under custody of Electrical Department. However, I think HVAC system must be under utilities department or Mechanical department.

Kindly help me to understand the reason of HVAC system been given to Electrical Department when we are not expert in it? Also what is the scenario in your organizations.

Thanks.

 

[MintJulep]

Because there are wires connected to it.

 

[Drazen]

i believe it mostly depends on number of specialists you have involved.

you certainly need some mechanical fitters familiar with hvac system, but let us say their number is quite small related to number of electricians working in the same field.

in industrial environment, mechanical department mostly involves people who do as equipment millwrights, machinists.

it is possible that they made maintenance organisation based on history of failures, where there could possibly be much more electrical failures in hvac systems than mechanical ones.

you certainly need mechanical fitters, but it is possible that you don't need mechanical engineers in hvac maintenance department.

in that scenario you will need mechanical engineering consultant to help you with complex hvac problems as an outside sources.

of course, if your bosses did not pay that, it is possible that they squeeze budget to the bottom, and you should thing about alternative job opportunity for the time when big failures with shutdown business

there is eternal hostility between good maintenance department and aggressive managers. if maintenance department works properly, there would be big troubles in short term even if you neglect maintenance for a while. aggressive managers use that as opportunity to cut costs and present themselves as heroes in one fiscal year, but next year negligence increase costs enormously. manager got fired and maintenance department needs to establish new long term program to reestablish stability