A recent Mitsubishi Electric survey of educational facilities owners found that when researching HVAC systems, the most important factor taken into consideration is the energy savings of a specific product.

This factor outweighed quality and reliability, operating efficiency, and both equipment and maintenance costs.

Survey participants work in buildings of various sizes; the majority in buildings with fewer than four floors and around 20,250 square feet with an average of about 77 rooms.

When asked about their cooling and heating preferences as well as their challenges, K-12 school, college and university officials noted that one of their major challenges was not only delivering conditioned ventilated air and comfortable temperatures to a diverse group of people located in adjacent spaces, but also maintaining a temperature that was agreeable to all.

Another challenge educational facilities face is a lack of proper maintenance manpower should an outage occur.

Representatives from the Mitsubishi Electric HVAC Advanced Products Division claims that its products meet all of the challenges posed by the Clear Seas Research findings. The company also said that its City Multi systems provide opportunities for education facilities to attain Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design points when designing and applying the system.

The survey was conducted by Clear Seas Research, a division of BNP Media, parent company of Snips magazine.