Description
Person responsible for operation and maintenance
According to Article 11(2) and (8) of Presidential Decree No 412 of 26 August 1993, the person responsible for the operation and maintenance of the heating system is the occupant of the building unit, whether tenant, lessee, owner or comodatario, or by proxy of the latter, the person entrusted with the maintenance of the system (e.g. a specialised company with whom a contract is signed).
In the case of buildings with centralised heating systems, administered as a condominium, the obligations and responsibilities placed on the owner are to be understood as referring to the administrators. In the case of building units equipped with centralised heating systems, the figure of the occupant, in whatever capacity, of the building unit itself takes over, for the duration of the occupation, from the figure of the owner in the obligations and related responsibilities limited to the operation and maintenance of the system and the periodic inspections foreseen.
The person responsible for the operation and maintenance of the system, if he does not have the necessary requirements or does not intend to provide it himself, entrusts the maintenance operations to persons qualified for the extraordinary maintenance of thermal systems.
Plant maintenance and energy efficiency checks
The control operations and any maintenance of the system must be carried out, as envisaged by Article 7 of Presidential Decree no. 74 of 16 April 2013, by companies qualified pursuant to Decree no. 37 of the Minister for Economic Development of 22 January 2008, in compliance with the prescriptions and with the frequency contained in the technical instructions for use and maintenance made available by the system's installation company pursuant to the regulations in force.
If the installation company has not provided its own specific instructions, or these are no longer available, the control and maintenance operations of the appliances and devices that are part of the heating system must be carried out in accordance with the prescriptions and with the intervals contained in the technical instructions for the specific model drawn up by the manufacturer in accordance with the regulations in force.
As envisaged by Article 8 of Presidential Decree no. 74 of 16 April 2013, during the control and maintenance operations referred to in Article 7 on winter air-conditioning systems with a nominal effective heating capacity greater than 10 kW and on summer air-conditioning systems with a nominal effective heating capacity greater than 12 kW, an energy efficiency check is carried out on
- the generation subsystem as defined in Annex A of the legislative decree;
- the verification of the presence and functionality of the central and local temperature control systems in the air-conditioned rooms;
- the verification of the presence and functionality of water treatment systems, where applicable.
The results of the checks must be reported in the air-conditioning system booklet and form an integral part of the documentation that must be kept with the system and shown to provincial personnel in the event of an inspection. Facsimiles of the documentation of the Energy Efficiency Check Reports are available on the ministerial website, as well as the system booklet of which we also report the graphically customised provincial version as an attached document.
Example of maintenance carried out in March 2012 on a methane gas boiler installed in October 2010.
- Condensing boiler interior
- Boiler exchanger
- Detail of fouling
- Fouling found
- Cleaned hemispherical burner
The boiler was heavily fouled and combustion residues are evident, which have collected in the lower part of the exchanger.
If the heater is not regularly serviced properly, in the long run the fouling and combustion residue will lower the efficiency of the system and affect its safety. This is to the detriment of energy consumption and the safety of people. A properly maintained system reduces energy consumption and is safer.
In order to carry out proper maintenance, the maintenance technician must perform the following operations:
- remove the burner from the boiler body;
- scrupulously clean the exchanger, removing all incrustations also inside the various parts;
- clean the burner and reassemble it;
- clean the boiler of dust and foreign bodies both outside and inside;
- test the gas adduction system for leaks;
- do the flue gas test with indication of combustion parameters (including efficiency);
- check that the combustion parameters and the room where the heater is installed comply with regulations;
- visually check the condition of the chimney or smoke duct;
- check the pressure of the expansion vessels and restore the correct pre-charge pressure if necessary;
- check the hardness of the water and the presence (if necessary) of the domestic hot water treatment system and that of the heating circuit;
- always fill in the energy efficiency check report at the end of operations, regardless of whether the energy efficiency check (flue gas test) is carried out, which is not envisaged for winter air-conditioning systems with a useful thermal power output no greater than 10kW and summer air-conditioning systems with a useful thermal power output no greater than 12kW and for all those that use renewable sources.
Yields of boilers using gaseous or liquid fuel
Available on the Energy Observatory website is the INSTRUMENTAL TEST that allows the calculation of the efficiency of boilers using gaseous or liquid fuel according to Annex B of Presidential Decree 74 of 16 April 2013.
Boilers fired with solid fuels are excluded.
The result of the instrumental efficiency test has a tolerance of +/- 2.0, according to UNi10389-1. Therefore, to account for uncertainty in the measurement, the instrument readings must be increased by 2 points before being compared to the calculated values.
