What happens if the motors, belts and other moving parts in your fans fail? If a faulty RTU adaptor design was to blame, would the warranty coverage become invalid, leaving your customers to pay top dollar for repairs? And even if the fan does keep working, how much extra will they pay in maintenance costs and energy bills to run the thing at full power all the time? Your commercial clients and contractors need to understand the importance of proper airflow management — the kind that only a perfectly integrated curb adapter can provide.
External static pressure is a big factor. This is the air pressure exerted by the walls of the curb adapter’s inner surfaces that the fan must overcome to push or pull the air in the right direction at a sufficient CFM (cubic feet per minute). Negative static pressure pulls air, while positive static pressure pushes it. So you can guess what happens if your curb adapter doesn’t match up with your curb and/or rooftop unit, or employs the wrong design for optimal efficiency. The external static pressure may turn out to be stronger than the designed flow, forcing you to run your equipment harder to get decent results.
An efficient curb adapter design takes friction, shaft diameter, fan power and velocity, air density, and other factors into account. The less effort required to push air at a given CFM, the less work the parts have to do and the longer they will last — without blowing the warranty coverage. And the ability to run at lower power levels is its own reward when it’s time to pay the utility bills. At Curbco we determine the precise airflow metric for a particular system, and then create a curb adapter designed to perform accordingly. That’s smart airflow management!
