Commercial · Duluth, Superior & 45 miles around

Building Automation & HVAC Controls — Twin Ports

Our building controls do not do what they are supposed to, or nobody knows how to use them.

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$89 diagnostic, credited toward the repair when you approve the work. Answered 24/7.

Short answer

Can better building controls cut our energy bills in Duluth and Superior?

Most commercial buildings we survey are losing money to controls rather than to equipment: schedules that never got updated, setpoints fighting each other, failed sensors driving bad decisions, and sequences left at factory defaults. Fixing controls is usually the cheapest efficiency work available in a commercial building.

The money is in the sequences, not the hardware

When we audit a commercial building's controls, the findings are remarkably consistent, and almost none of them require new hardware.

Schedules that do not match the building's actual use — equipment running full occupancy hours on Sundays, or a tenant space conditioned overnight because the schedule was set during a different lease. Heating and cooling setpoints too close together, or overlapping, so one system fights the other and both run. Simultaneous heating and cooling in the same zone, which is more common than owners would believe and burns fuel and electricity at the same time.

Failed or drifted sensors, which is insidious because the system behaves logically on bad information. An outdoor air sensor reading 20 degrees off will wreck every economizer and reset decision in the building, and nothing appears broken.

Economizer and reset strategies left disabled or at factory defaults, so the building never takes the free cooling our climate offers, and never lowers boiler water temperature in mild weather. Overrides put in place years ago to solve a complaint and never removed — a zone locked into occupied mode since a tenant complaint in 2019 is a real thing we find.

Fixing these costs labour and pays back fast. We would rather sell you a controls audit than a new system, because on most buildings the audit produces the larger saving per dollar.

What we do with controls

Audit and re-commissioning on existing systems: review the sequences against what the building actually needs, verify and calibrate sensors, correct schedules and setpoints, re-enable and prove economizer and reset strategies, find and clear stale overrides, and document what the system is now configured to do — which is often the first time that documentation has existed.

Repair and replacement of failed controllers, actuators, valves, dampers and sensors. On mixed-vintage buildings this is much of the work, because a controls system is only as good as its field devices.

Remote monitoring and alarming, so a failure generates a notification rather than a tenant complaint two days later. For maintenance customers we can receive alarms alongside you, which turns an overnight fault into a same-night response.

New and expanded automation where it is justified: usually multi-zone buildings, multi-tenant properties where scheduling and billing separation matter, and buildings with boiler plants or air handling units complex enough that manual operation is genuinely leaving money on the table.

We also train your people. An automation system nobody in the building knows how to operate reverts to a very expensive thermostat, and that is the most common ending for a well-intentioned controls investment. We leave documented sequences and make sure someone on site can actually use it.

When to call us

Tenant complaints in some zones while others are fine
Equipment running outside occupied hours
Heating and cooling appear to run at the same time
Nobody currently in the building knows how to operate the control system
Overrides are in place and nobody remembers why
Energy costs out of line with comparable buildings
The controls contractor who installed it is long gone and it has not been touched since
You cannot tell from the system whether a unit is actually running

What building automation costs in the Twin Ports

Quoted per project

Quoted per project. A controls audit and re-commissioning of existing equipment is modest and typically has the fastest payback of anything we do. New or expanded automation systems are scoped per building. We will always look at fixing what you have before proposing to replace it.

Ranges are typical installed costs in the Twin Ports area, not quotes. We give you a firm price in writing before any work starts.

Building Automation & Controls — questions we get asked

Is building automation worth it for a small commercial building?

Full automation often is not. A controls audit and re-commissioning of what you already have almost always is — schedules, setpoints, sensor calibration and economizer sequences are where the money is, and fixing them costs labour rather than hardware. We look at that first.

Our system is old and the installer is gone. Can you work on it?

Usually. We work with the common platforms and with mixed-vintage buildings where several generations of controls coexist. If a proprietary system is genuinely dead-ended we will tell you and lay out the options rather than nursing it indefinitely.

What is re-commissioning?

Going back through an existing building's control sequences and verifying they do what the building needs today — correcting schedules and setpoints, calibrating sensors, re-enabling economizer and reset strategies, and clearing stale overrides. It is the highest-return HVAC work available in most commercial buildings.

Can we get alerts when something fails?

Yes — remote monitoring with alarms to your phone or email, and for maintenance-agreement customers we can receive them too. That turns a Friday-night failure into a Friday-night response instead of a Monday-morning discovery.

Related services

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We also do residential heating and cooling

Furnaces, boilers, air conditioning, cold-climate heat pumps and water heaters for homes across Duluth, Superior and 45 miles around — with 24/7 no-heat service.

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We answer 24 hours a day, every day of the year — Duluth, Superior and every town within 45 miles, in both states. $89 diagnostic, credited toward the repair when you approve the work.

Call (218) 461-1049 Request service