The rise in temperatures means a rise in the number of guests using their air conditioning units. Is your hotel ready? Here are some maintenance tips…

SPRING is here, bringing with it new flowers and warmer temperatures. As more hotel guests will be turning on the in-room A/C unit, hoteliers must be sure the units are serviced and running properly.

The most common type of unit in the midscale hotels with little food and beverage is the Packaged Terminal A/C, or PTAC. These are the horizontal units that are seen under guest room windows. PTAC units also count for a big chunk of a hotel’s overall energy costs.

‘PTAC in those hotels will equate to 50-60 per cent of the energy bill,’ said Jeff Jasuta, product manager with Goodman Manufacturing, which produces Amana air conditioners. ‘Guests will leave them running all day, housekeepers may turn them on while they work and forget to turn them off.’

Simple maintenance can also cut energy costs. ‘Clean units at least once per year and time that cleaning in the spring before you get the pollens and dust into the coils and the heavy traffic,’ Jasuta said. ‘It’s extremely important to follow the manufacturer’s guidelines on cleaning the systems.’ LG recommends using low-pressure water to clean out the rear coils, use coil cleaner and straighten out the coil fins. Proper maintenance can extend the life of a PTAC to around 12 years.

Keeping the PTAC unobstructed is also key in extending the life of the unit. A certain amount of space is required between the PTAC and other furniture, and the units cannot be covered up due to airflow and the subsequent accumulation of moisture on the surfaces.

Vertical PTACs are beginning to appear in more hotels. ‘They can better condition the hotel room by use of ductwork or can condition multiple rooms with one unit,’ said Bill Huber, sales manager for Friedrich, which manufactures its own line of A/C units. ‘This allows it to have a much more residential feel with a single unit and a thermostat.’ Many properties have a combination of vertical and horizontal PTAC systems. Vertical PTACs are less of an eyesore in rooms – and are also much quieter than traditional PTACs.

Newly-built PTACs are also seeing a change: As of the beginning of 2010, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) required that all A/C units – residential and commercial – be made with a more environmentally-friendly refrigerant.

Because the R410A refrigerant requires higher pressurization, all newly-manufactured air conditioning units will have to be redesigned to accommodate the change. ‘It will require a completely different compressor, it must be more robust to handle the pressure and everything must accommodate air flow in the unit,’ Huber said. ‘The whole refrigerator system must be redesigned to accommodate the refrigerant. It’s a pretty large undertaking – our company has been working for more than two years on the transformation.’