AEM Blog - Archive

Your New Construction Project Requires a Great Deal of Planning & Coordination. There will be a multitude of trades involved in the construction of your new commercial or manufacturing facility. A lack of coordination and cooperation between these trades can cause delays and cost over-runs. AEM Mechanical Services Inc. works well with other trades in a mutually beneficial spirit of cooperation. This means fewer headaches and possible cost savings for you. From the Ground Up. One commercial project we worked on was for a manufacturing facility with office area, lunchroom and restrooms. Prop...

Large Burner Installation & Repair A large burner failure has the potential to cause serious problems for you and your business. You may loose productivity, encounter customer complaints and be forced to deal with many other headaches that all translate into reduced profitability. It is always a good decision to perform regular maintenance to prolong the life of expensive equipment and reduce failures. Repair and maintenance on newer equipment can be straight forward with a ready supply of parts. However, older equipment can often be a problem with obsolete parts and unique fittings that r...

Reduced Airflow Can Kill a Furnace or Air Conditioner. What is the single most beneficial thing you can do to extend the life of your furnace and help prevent costly repairs? It is simply to change your air filter on a regular basis between your seasonal tune-ups . The reason is pretty straight forward. If your filters are plugged the furnace has to work extra hard to circulate air through the system. That translates into shorter equipment life and more frequent repairs. How Frequently Must I Change My Filter? There are several factors that come into play that determine how long a filter will ...

Your Food Service Exhaust Hood . . . Not "The Hood" Bro Yes, we are talking about the exhaust system that deals with smoke and grease, not the greasy dude from the inner city that smokes two packs a day. Your exhaust hood is the central component to the design and layout of your restaurant ventilation system. Responsible for removing steam, smoke, soot and grease vapors, it is a key factor in safety, cleanliness and comfort. No one wants to sit in a restaurant that smells of aging grease and looks like it is waiting to spontaneously combust. Your specific ventilation needs are determined by st...

A Furnace Failure Could Harm You and Your Family According to the Department of Health, twenty-two people died of accidental carbon monoxide poisoning in Minnesota in 2014.  The number has been steadily increasing since 2010. Setting aside the mortality rate of Carbon Monoxide poisoning, many more people suffer illness as a result of non-lethal levels of Carbon Monoxide. Such cases are usually preventable with annual furnace checkups combined with the use of carbon monoxide detectors. Imagine preventing something as tragic as this by having a simple annual inspection done to your furnace ...

High Capacity Commercial Humidification Controlling the humidity of your commercial facility is an important part of your building's health, industrial process and profit. Whether your industry is related to food production, food preparation, manufacturing, computer server / data centers or other specialized commercial applications . . . each industry has its own unique indoor climate control needs. The problem you encounter during colder months is a lack of humidity in the air. The colder the temperature is outside, the more heating is typically needed inside. The addition of heat to your ind...

Preventive maintenance can avoid many problems. It is a widely understood truth that poorly maintained equipment uses more power, suffers more failures and operate for longer periods of time to produce the same effect as well maintained equipment. Poorly maintained equipment translates into: Higher repair costs. Higher utility costs. Lost sales. Reduced customer satisfaction. Lost inventory. Lower profitability. When you are running a bar / restaurant the last thing you need to deal with is equipment failures. The best way to avoid trouble is to be proactive and implement a preventive maintena...

Why dust collection systems are crucial to your business. A little dust around the plant or even the office shouldn’t be a big deal, right? Wrong! Dust has the power to cause employee health problems, equipment degradation, and even possess the potential for explosion and fire. How can such a little thing do such big damage? Breathing in dust The human nose is a great dust filter. It traps particles and keeps them from reaching the lungs. When a person sneezes or blows their nose, the dust is then eliminated. However, some particulates do get past the nose and airway cilia and enter the lungs....

An expensive lesson learned. From a dairy to a water treatment plant to a chemical manufacturing facility, process piping is an integral and critical component of a successful operation. But what happens if the wrong process piping is used? Recently AEM Mechanical Services, Inc. was contracted to replace the process piping in a galvanizing plant. The original contractor incorrectly used plastic piping instead of steel as was dictated by the piping application. What should have lasted twenty to thirty years, barely made it ten. Adding salt to the wound, the cost of replacing the piping througho...

Is it time to replace or simply repair? If you’re in the business of serving or selling perishable food items, your commercial refrigeration system can literally make or break your success. Although replacement or repairs can be costly, if you start to notice your refrigerator compressor is running non-stop, your unit is running hotter than normal, or your inventory isn’t remaining fresh as long as it should, you need to act fast. Replace or repair? A properly functioning commercial refrigeration system is critical to your operation, so when it’s malfunctioning, it’s important to determine the...

How to Avoid Disaster & Keep Your Business Running If your data center is anything like 40% of data centers nationwide, then your computer server exists in a place that it was never intended to inhabit. Quite likely, it’s operating in an empty office, a mechanical room or even a closet where space is limited and its temperature could increase faster than your cooling system is capable of decreasing it. This very real and risky possiblitiy could force your server to shut down, potentially disrupting your business for days or even weeks. How can you avoid that kind of disaster and keep your ...