Building Automation / Energy Saving

Does anyone have any experience with building automation systems?  I am looking into the beneftis vs costs.  I was thinking it would be beneficial to be able to look at logs of how long a HVAC unit or boiler had ran during the past year or get a warning email that a boiler had failed etc.  More specific programming of temperature setbacks would also allow for a more comfortable building and hopefully reduce energy consumption.  It would also be nice to be able to do all adjustments from any computer at any location.  Thanks!

You've got a job on your hands.  A company I used to work for built automation systems, one for material-handling and the other to retrofit older machine tools.  I did no coding for those systems, but supported the engineers who did.  It was all done in SUSE (Linux) due to licensing costs.  We had a number of engineers working on both projects, so it must've been expensive. 

Knowing nothing of your needs, any advice I can give is limited.  You might talk to an HVAC pro about any retrofits they know of, and maybe even new systems.  Sales engineers are typically quite knowledgeable and if you play it right, they give away a lot of info.

One of my sites as a building automation system for HVAC and some major lighting systems like parking lot lights and large room light systems.

It was installed and retrofitted when they did a major building remodeling.  The PLC (logic controllers) that run the place were custom for building automation, and use a DOS based program to interact with the system for set up and monitoring.  A quote to simply upgrade the system to a WEB based console was $16k and it did not change any functionality. (needless to say I am working some NPO magic to provide the console screen on a XP computer and available remotely over the Internet.)

The suggestion to talk to HVAC and Mechanical building engineers is a good start to get some scope and budget ranges.

Dave

Thanks for the tips!  I had not thought about integrating lighting system.  My quotes so far have been free (my scenario is probably much less complicated).  I am only looking at 5 HVAC and 2 boilers with complete web based system.  Price will be less than your quote Dave.  From what I have been told so far, basically just need the brain, run wires to all existing stats from the brain and purchase new stats.  If the boiler fails when it is below freezing it would be nice to get a warning email before the building temperature drops significantly.  I was thinking if one unit is running much longer than normal that might go on for a long time but with this type of system it would be evident much sooner.