DiMarco & Associates

HVAC systems are indeed a marvel of modern engineering in their ability to keep buildings of all shapes and sizes comfortable. An infrastructure of diligent machines working in perfect harmony brings us the ideal temperature, freshness, and air quality. As a veteran in the HVAC space for over three decades, DiMarco & Associates is well versed in the science of making buildings ‘breathe’ and provide ideal conditions for the occupants. The company offers a full line of commercial HVAC services, including basic installation, repairs, and ductwork pertaining to new and older buildings/systems. DiMarco & Associate’s team tests, adjusts and balances existing HVAC systems to ensure that they are running at optimal levels, in turn assisting clients in saving money on monthly energy bills. Further, the company goes beyond AC installation and repair to analyze a system and improve it, both in terms of air quality and energy optimization, which is a key issue that most building owners experience.

Solutions to Address Every Challenge

When it comes to HVAC systems, the lack of optimized performance is the main challenge that many large building owners and businesses face. “Poorly performing air handling systems is the number one problem that we see. This is where we focus more,” says Ben DiMarco, CEO of DiMarco & Associates. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, the average office building in the U.S spends nearly 7.5 percent of its annual operating expenses on heating, cooling, and ventilation. Reducing or eliminating areas of inefficiency can translate into major savings on their bottom line. Beyond the savings, a better quality of HVAC translates to productive office hours and comfort for occupants. A building should ideally make people want to be in it as comfortably and as long as possible. In addition to this need, a more recent event has changed the priority and face of what people expect from their HVAC systems. COVID-19 has brought about an increased emphasis on sound quality air handling systems, filtration, ventilation, and air treatment. The pandemic has brought forth a pretty big discussion point with a lot of DiMarco & Associates’ clients that include office buildings, schools, medical facilities, and even factories. Clients want to know how their air handling systems are being installed, repaired, and maintained. This has led to the need to identify poor duct design problems, imbalanced air handling systems, and duct leakage.

DiMarco & Associates find that very few systems are operating at their optimal levels, which opens up a whole world of difficulties ranging from poor air quality, high cost, and frequent breakdown issues. Given the current situation as offices and large spaces are returning to normal, buildings need to be working at their best to ensure the highest quality of air, with minimum downtime. An in-depth and thorough analysis must be performed to return the system to its ideal working state. This begins from the design criteria, either from the original design of the system/building or the unit itself.

The End to End Service Provider

In catering to their clients, DiMarco & Associates goes through a systematic process of visual inspection, testing, and verification and comes up with a game plan to put systems back into optimal use. Immediately after, their clients find that their indoor air quality, efficiency, and system longevity have improved. Poor maintenance is another key factor that plays into the inefficiencies of HVAC systems. In this regard, DiMarco & Associates draws the right maintenance plans that best fit each client.

To provide a one-stop-shop for all the clients’ needs, DiMarco & Associates employs three separate divisions—the repairs and maintenance department, the installation and construction department, and their Green Building Services Group. In addition to this, a separate group of people within DiMarco & Associates focus on balancing optimal performance and the indoor air quality components associated with HVAC systems.

To elaborate, when a customer calls in DiMarco & Associates, the company goes to work identifying any issues, and their team will go through a survey to find out if certain key items have ever been addressed in their building. These include identifying the system’s age, establishing if the system was ever fully commissioned, uncovering the related documentation, and finding out if the system/building was ever air balanced. If not, then the team goes into a line of questioning with the customer to investigate their issues and the pitfalls they see in their building—such as comfort, low performance, and high costs. With all the information collected and analyzed, DiMarco & Associates presents them with a plan. If it's a new system that is going in and the architects or the engineers have not specified HVAC, DiMarco & Associates will present their recommendation upfront with the installation. The company’s Green Building Services Group acts as a third party, called in by an architect or engineer or building owner to do air balancing and commissioning of the systems.

Demonstrated Excellence through Experience and Ingenuity

As a performance-based HVAC services company, DiMarco & Associates is well equipped to handle any commercial HVAC challenge or commission. The company’s focal point is to work with engineers while also having a team of engineers internally. “We don't just focus on doing a repair or doing an installation. We focus on total system performance and building commissioning, through a systematic process identifying where problems really exist,” says Ben.

Their work is time-tested and has borne definitive results for their clients. Ben recalls the company’s partnership with a group of nursing homes. When DiMarco & Associates first started working with these nursing homes, they had no prior history with the party. The company identified problems with equipment operation, poor comfort, ventilation problems, and so on. One of the buildings, in particular, had a poorly functioning makeup air system, which had never been balanced before.

There were problems within the boiler room because there was a depressurization of the boiler room from the air handling systems, and makeup air systems were not balanced. The client was unaware that they had carbon monoxide moving through the building periodically in certain zones. Other HVAC firms that the client consulted merely cleaned the boilers, which didn’t solve the underlying issue. DiMarco & Associates presented them with a plan to test the air handling and exhaust systems and the makeup air units. They found that everything was completely out of balance and began putting the components systematically back into proper operation, rebalancing them, and putting the proper ventilation through the makeup air systems. DiMarco & Associates also put in proper combustion air systems for the boiler room to ensure that the problems didn't erupt again. “We fixed the equipment itself and then we put them on a routine maintenance plan. With this, their service cost dropped by around 75 percent. We eliminated a lot of the routine repetitive service calls that were just a waste of time,” mentions Ben.

The Journey Forward—Making the World a Greener Environment for All

Having carved a niche in the HVAC space, DiMarco & Associates continues to move with the same vigor and attention to detail. The company is currently expanding its facilities to include live working HVAC systems that clients can come and experience for themselves. This will help the company show their clients how they function/operate and to understand how DiMarco & Associates conducts testing. The company believes that this would help showcase the benefits and outcomes of that testing and highlight the targeted solutions. Di Marco & Associates is also focusing on solutions for more enhanced indoor air quality, air handling, and ventilation systems for buildings as energy-efficiently as possible. In parallel, they are looking at other ways to collaborate with partners, including real estate firms, property management groups, and educational groups. The company is also putting in time and energy to encourage young men and women to adopt rewarding careers in the HVAC realm, given its importance and relevance in everyday life, now more than ever as we try and better manage this pandemic.

It’s a no-brainer then that in the post-pandemic world, the emphasis on air quality will remain, as would its role in preventing illnesses in the future from spreading. “The question we ask ourselves now is, how do we help the indoor environment heating and air conditioning systems make air healthier? How does that impact your health every day?” states Ben. Clearly, the responsibility is rather heavy, and DiMarco & Associates has the chops to bear it in spades.