NEW YORK—Not surprisingly, given the state of the struggling economy, suppliers of Packaged Terminal Air Conditioner units displaying at last month’s International Hotel/ Motel & Restaurant Show here focused on PTACs’ cost-effectiveness, especially features that increase dollar savings on energy. The current product lines from suppliers like LG Electronics, Amana and GE, for example, offer wireless wall thermostats since most franchise companies today require some type of wall-mounted thermostat or digital controls at the least. “Our wall thermostat has a built-in occupancy sensor that senses both motion and heat,” LG’s Northeast regional manager for commercial air conditioning, Mel Harris, told HOTEL BUSINESS®. By allowing an owner to manage energy use in the room, the system ends up saving the hotel money. “It lets you set what’s called a set-back. In effect, you’re telling the machine you don’t expect occupancy for an hour, so turn off and let the temperature come up to a pre-set number of degrees. You’re telling the unit to maintain the temperature at that level. Don’t let it get any warmer in the room than that,” Harris explained. When guests re-enter the room, they can change the setting back to where they want it if they’re dissatisfied. The unit works the same way in heating mode. Harris said that, in more temperate areas, LG models have a further set-back where, if the sensor doesn’t detect anybody for one more hour, the unit shuts off completely. “However, the unit won’t let the temperature in the room ever go below 41 degrees, so owners don’t have to worry about the pipes freezing,” he noted. The thermostat is completely wireless and takes about 10 minutes to install. Amana PTAC division commercial sales manager Scott McGrady estimated that owners who have installed his company’s PTAC systems can expect to save in excess of 30% on their energy costs thanks to the units’ occupancy sensors. “You save roughly 32% on the energy going through the heating/cooling devices,” explained McGrady, who added that Amana’s current product line features a three-step, time-versus-temperature set-back routine. Cost savings overall can be significant. McGrady used the Mid-Atlantic region of the country as an example because of the energy costs there. “With a PTAC system, we look at a typical return on investment in as little as 14 months,” he said. Amana’s cost projections estimate that an average 85-room limited-service hotel in the region spends about $9,000 to $10,000 per month for electricity. “Conservatively, you’re looking at saving 30% of that, and that’s $30,000 a year,” McGrady noted. “It’s going to have an impact on properties’ RevPAR and ADR and other margin aspects of the operation.” The current state of the economy just makes these savings even more of an imperative. “Owners aren’t getting any more money out of their rooms nowadays. They’re not getting any higher occupancy, so they’ve got to do a better job of controlling costs,” he said. Additional cost savings come from PTACs’ flexibility. “When one malfunctions, you simply slip it out of its sleeve under the window and replace it with a functioning unit,” explained GE Consumer and Industrial Division’s marketing manager for air conditioning products, James Benz. “If you have a 120-room property, we recommend you keep three or four spares on hand for this purpose. By contrast, when it’s time to replace a whole central air conditioning system, it’s a huge capital expense. The whole building has to shut down.” Proper preventive maintenance can extend the life of a PTAC unit and, therefore, help delay the need for capital expenditures to purchase new ones. “Filters should be cleaned once a month, while the entire unit typically should be removed from its sleeve for cleaning about once a year,” Benz explained. Efficiency is one of the PTAC’s strongest selling points. “Their efficiency is critical. And there have been huge improvements in efficiency in recent years,” Benz added. The units’ life expectancy is roughly 12 years, according to LG’s Harris. “Most owners, however, have to change them out between five and seven years because they don’t clean them properly,” Harris confirmed. “During the once-a-year cleaning, we recommend you run low-pressure water through the rear coils. Use some coil cleaner and straighten out the coil fins, if needed. If kept in good condition, the units pay for themselves 20 times over in energy savings.” LG units also come with corrosion protection as standard equipment. Amana, which is part of Goodman Air Conditioning & Heating, offers a Web-based program that wirelessly monitors the health of its PTAC units. “The program allows hotels to adjust certain energy management settings as well as get a daily room report as to which units aren’t working properly, have dirty filters and so on,” McGrady explained. “It helps with the preventive maintenance, which is really tantamount to having an efficient system. If you buy an efficient system and don’t maintain it properly, it’s not an efficient system.”