What is Building Drift, and How Can You Fix It?
Organisations with large property portfolios often invest in building management systems (BMS), sensors, and front-end control systems. When new buildings are constructed, mechanical and electrical engineers usually commission these systems locally, configuring them to operate within set schedules or parameters, with the aim of optimising asset performance.
Over time, these systems undergo continuous maintenance updates from various internal and external contractors, and occasionally, some settings may be adjusted. When such changes accumulate over an extended period, buildings can experience what is referred to as "building drift". This drift can negatively impact business performance and profitability.
What is Building Drift?
Building drift refers to the gradual deviation of operational systems from their optimal performance settings. This drift can occur due to various factors, including adjustments made during routine maintenance by contractors, changes in building occupancy or usage patterns, and even shifts in weather conditions.
Over time, these incremental changes reduce the efficiency of building systems, leading to increased energy consumption, higher operational costs, and maintenance challenges across the estate, such as false alarms or unexpected breakdowns.
How Does Building Drift Affect My Business?
When building drift is left unchecked, it can result in a range of inefficiencies across your business operations. This often happens due to a lack of real-time monitoring or centralised data collection, leaving organisations unaware of the performance issues within their systems. Key challenges associated with building drift include:
- Increased Energy Consumption – Without optimised building management systems (BMS), assets may run inefficiently, for example, continuing to operate when the building is unoccupied or during non-business hours. While the extent of energy waste depends on factors such as building size, type of equipment, and climate, uncoordinated systems almost always result in unnecessary energy use and inflated energy bills.
- Missed Optimisation Opportunities – A lack of centralised control and data can prevent businesses from fully understanding how their assets are performing. When building drift is managed using software solutions, it is possible to achieve substantial savings by streamlining operations across multiple sites. The potential for increased profitability depends on the scale of the estate and the level of improvement possible, but even modest optimisation can yield significant cost reductions over time.
- Maintenance Inefficiencies – Drift within systems can trigger false alarms or obscure real issues, leading maintenance teams to spend time investigating problems that don’t exist or missing critical issues. Modern building management systems often have built-in diagnostics, but if these systems are not properly maintained or monitored, the benefits of such features can be lost. Unchecked, this inefficiency increases maintenance costs and leads to preventable breakdowns.
How Can I Address Building Drift?
To correct building drift, it is crucial to re-establish control over your systems, ideally by leveraging modern software tools that simplify data collection and asset management. The steps include:
- Centralise Data – Create a central repository of data from all your building management systems (BMS) and assets. This allows you to track current performance against original specifications. Solutions like those offered by LoweConex can automate this process, integrating with existing infrastructure via API connections. By consolidating data into a single platform, businesses can gain a comprehensive overview of their entire estate and identify areas that need improvement.
- Standardise Asset Aliases – Once data is centralised, standardising naming conventions and asset categories is essential. This step ensures that similar asset types across the estate can be controlled in a consistent manner, enabling mass coordination and more efficient operation.
- Improve Data Usability for End Users – The final step is to ensure the data is accessible and actionable for a wide range of users within your organisation. This could involve creating dashboards or visual representations to simplify complex data, making it easier for teams to identify inefficiencies and take corrective action (a feature we offer at LoweConex).
What Are the Potential Benefits?
By gaining greater visibility and control of your estate, you can begin to reverse many of the negative impacts of building drift. This can lead to energy savings, improved efficiencies, and reduced maintenance costs by optimising existing processes
If you need support in resolving building drift get in touch with our team.