It’s an experience so many of us are familiar with. It’s the middle of winter. You’re standing on the side of the road and you’re freezing. Knees shaking, teeth chattering, face pressed into the inside of your scarf, desperate for some warmth. Then, the bus arrives. You step into it and you’re almost immediately enveloped in heat. You find your seat and get cozy as your nearly frozen limbs thaw and the bus takes off toward your destination. This is the experience that BCC keeps in mind with every HVAC system we install.
Making sure people stay comfortable on BCC outfitted buses year-round is always the goal, but winter is when it really counts. That’s why every year, our engineering team gets to work winterizing the fleet, carefully preparing for the cold days ahead.
Warmth stays in, cold stays out
Winterization occurs in the fall during a yearly maintenance check up. This ensures there’s plenty of time for technicians to work through a fleet of buses and make sure they're ready for the coming season. The process is made up of a few steps:
- Cleaning and servicing all heating equipment
- Ensuring all components are operating correctly in unison
Within these steps is nuance. For instance, all BCC products must be properly cold tested before they even make it into a bus. This involves subjecting our equipment to -40 degree weather and seeing if it still runs properly. On top of this, while making sure our systems are working in the absolute coldest weather is important, they also need to operate well in more reasonable temperatures. By tailoring our testing to local climate data from the places our systems are operating, we can see how our components function in all types of cold conditions.
Another factor our engineers consider is when and where to be sending heat. The last thing a customer wants when stepping into a bus is to be blasted with cold air because the engine hasn’t sufficiently warmed up yet, or to be stuck in a cold spot because the bus is heating unevenly. Perhaps worst of all, if not enough heat is being sent to the windscreen, the buildup of condensation and ice can render the bus undrivable. Making sure components are heated in the right order and to the right temperature is essential.
Coming in from the cold
Preparing equipment for winter isn’t an easy job, but the work that BCC puts in to ensure that every bus outfitted with our systems is ready for the weather will always be worth it. Just knowing that, no matter how cold it gets outside, you can rely on a BCC equipped bus to be warm and comfortable is enough to keep us going.
For more on how we prepare for winter, read our blog on the cold testing process. And to learn about our pursuit for peak HVAC performance, check out BCC’s engineering services page or contact us.
