Spotlight on Fultech: Smart Solutions, Cost Savings and the Ease of Green AV


	...Where Green Ideas Become Great Ideas

Spotlight on Fultech: Smart Solutions, Cost Savings and the Ease of Green AV

Project Overview:

After 15 years in the commercial and residential automation business, Fultech Solutions and CEO Dan Fulmer want everyone to know that "smart homes [and corporate facilities] are not just fancy widgets." The smart facilities that Dan and his team at Fultech create exemplify environmental responsibility and longevity without sacrificing technology and performance.

The Fultech showroom in Jacksonville, Florida has earned rave reviews from CEPro and the USGBC. Fultech built the showroom to demonstrate that Building Management Systems and smart integration are not just the domain of HVAC. Systems can scale up to manage lighting, security, and IT to conserve and manage energy, improve performance and save money over time.

In designing the showroom, the company went "far and above what we do to be Green," procuring Energy Star 93 rated equipment, local sources for flooring and other building materials, recycled beer bottle countertops, and creating a totally integrated Fultech facility that saves 25%-30% on electric bills.

Dan says that the showroom is an eye opener for customers:"Most people really just don’t realize that you can even do what we do and are amazed at that. Next, they are shocked that this is done with systems and equipment most are already purchasing in one form or another."

According to Dan, the standout Green AV feature of the showroom and by extension, many of Fultech's solutions, is "the ability for everything to act as a single system and be passively controlled... no one has to actively remember to do anything.” Dan has found that passive control “is the key to any BMS system” because “if someone has to remember everything and [manually] shut things on and off, it just won’t happen."

As Dan explains it, creating a "passive system [in which] no one has to do anything out of the ordinary" ensures that the systems will be used correctly for optimum functionality, energy savings and environmental responsibility. More than just the ability to monitor usage, the automation systems that Fultech designs and features in its integrated showroom command equipment to run efficiently, to turn off when not in use. The systems do not leave room for energy loss due to human error.

Fultech started in automation long before environmental responsibility was high on the list of priorities for customers or colleagues but Dan has always seen the environmental benefits and the logic of environmental responsibility in the products he uses and the systems he creates.

Programs and applications that build on control systems that are already in place mean that equipment does not have to be replaced often (or in some cases, ever). "Taking what we already have and building on it" allows Fultech to implement new technologies and provide enhanced security features, AV system controls, energy saving features and more to provide customers and the company's own facilities with flexibility and the opportunity set up a system that programmers can build on as needs and environmental goals change or new ideas arise.