How many overrides does your building have?

Every building I audit has overrides left in it.

It usually starts with a callout. Someone logs into the BMS, forces something to get the building operating again and sorts out the immediate problem. The override then gets forgotten about, as the technician has other fires to put out.

The problem is that many of these are done in the back end rather than through the graphics, so from the front end everything can appear to be running normally. There may be no alarm against it, and it may never show up in the monthly reports.

What you tend to see instead is a system that still works, just not as well as it should, which is a much harder thing to notice.

I've found plant running 24/7 off a forced point, and control strategies that were signed off at handover but had been bypassed for years.

If you've got a BMS maintenance contract, it's worth asking your provider for an override report so you can see what's currently forced and why. Some systems produce this easily, others need someone to go through manually.

I'd have override checks written into the maintenance scope rather than waiting for a complaint or a power bill to prompt it.