Everything in life benefits from routine maintenance – your car, your body, your house. A cannabis cultivation facility is no different. When integrated into the routine, maintenance becomes second nature. But what about the things that only happen every so often? Like an oil change on your car, these are easy to forget to do, but can make a huge impact on the life of your system.

Surna Climate Control systems are designed for redundancy and easy maintenance, allowing resources to be focused on the daily operations of cultivation; however, as with any system, there are still small things that can be checked to ensure the system is running optimally.

The preventative maintenance suggestions below can be divided into two categories, equipment and facility, and can generally be applied to any system you may use in your cultivation facility. Some of the items need to be checked more often than others to ensure optimal operations, but all should be checked after every harvest, at the very least.

Equipment

Cooling
Double check the accuracy of thermostats by using additional humidistats and thermostats to verify they are producing the correct readings.
Check for air in the glycol system by shining a flashlight on the flow meter and looking for bubbles. Air in the system reduces efficiency.
Check any filters, screens and condensing coils within the system to ensure they are clean.
Verify that all fans on the condensers and air handlers are working properly.
Monitor the system’s operating pressure to ensure it is within the ideal range, per the user manual.
Monitor and replace glycol per the user manual.

Lighting
Check light levels with a light meter to ensure reflective material hasn’t degraded.
Clean reflectors after each harvest – bulb, glass, all interior surfaces – to ensure proper reflection.
Change bulbs based on the manufacturer’s recommendation. This ensures the proper light spectrum reaches plants.

Air Sanitation
Change UV bulbs once a year to get the most out of your biosecurity.

CO2
Check for proper CO2 levels to ensure CO2 equipment is working correctly.

Dehumidification
Check for hot air coming out the back of dehumidifiers, this shows they are working.

Facility

Clean and sterilize rooms between harvests.
Check for proper environment, especially temperature and humidity levels.
Check all surfaces for mold growth, especially in wet areas.
Check rooms for light leaks, holes in the wall or lights on equipment can lead to low-quality plants.
Verify timers are set to the correct time, it is possible for them to drift over time.
Check for consistent temperature and humidity from floor to ceiling.

These small steps will go a long way towards making sure your cultivation facility is fully operational at all times. Added redundancy adds an extra layer of protection as well, ensuring that if anything unexpected goes wrong, your facility is protected.

Take a look around your facility and see what other preventative measures can be put in place in order to ensure all equipment and processes run as smoothly as possible at all times.