Site Audit / Australia and the Pacific
UPS and CRAC Site AuditFind Out What You Have Before You Spend on It
Direct answer
A UPS and CRAC site audit is an independent inspection of the uninterruptible power supply, battery and precision cooling equipment at a site, producing a written condition report with measured values, identified risks and a prioritised list of what needs doing and when.
Indigi Power and Cooling audits UPS systems from 500VA to 2MVA and DX, chilled water and condenser water CRAC units across Australia and Papua New Guinea. Electrical work is done by licensed electricians and refrigerant work under ARCtick licence, to AS/NZS 3000 and AS IEC 62040.
An audit is the sensible first step when you have inherited a site, taken on a new lease, are approaching a maintenance contract renewal, or need to justify a capital request. Call 1800 046 344 or email sales@indigipc.com.au.
Why bother
You cannot budgetfor what you cannot see
The two questions an audit answers: what is actually in the room, and what is it going to cost me.
Almost every site we audit has at least one surprise in it. A UPS running on a battery string years past its rated life. A CRAC unit that has been in alarm so long the alarm is now ignored. A second unit that everyone assumes is redundant, which has not run since it was installed. A room whose IT load has quietly tripled since the cooling was sized.
None of these announce themselves. They surface during an outage, at the worst possible moment, and usually as an emergency purchase at emergency prices. The point of an audit is to convert those unknowns into a dated list with costs against it, so the spend happens on your terms.
The other reason is negotiating position. If you are renewing a maintenance contract, going to market, or being told you need a replacement, an independent measured report is the difference between accepting a quote and interrogating one.
When an audit earns its money
- You have inherited a site and have no history for the plant in it
- A lease is starting or ending and you need a condition record
- A maintenance contract is up for renewal and you want to compare like for like
- Someone has quoted you for a replacement and you want it verified independently
- You need to build a three year capital plan and have nothing to base it on
- The room has changed use or load since the plant was installed
Scope
What we measureon the power side
Measured values, not a tick sheet. Every figure below goes on the report with a date against it, so the next audit has something to trend from.
| Audit item | What it tells you | What we commonly find |
|---|---|---|
| UPS identification and firmware | Make, model, rating, install date, firmware revision and warranty position | Plant older than anyone at the site believed, and firmware years behind current |
| Load against rated capacity | How much of the UPS you are actually using, and headroom for growth | Units running at a fraction of capacity, or quietly overloaded after an IT refresh |
| Battery impedance testing | The condition of every block in the string, not just the string voltage | A small number of failing blocks dragging an otherwise serviceable string down |
| Battery age and runtime | Actual remaining autonomy against what the site assumes it has | Assumed runtime of 15 minutes that measures closer to 3 |
| Thermographic scan of terminations | Loose or degrading connections under load, before they fail | Hot joints on battery interconnects and switchboard terminations |
| Transfer and bypass testing | Whether the unit will actually transfer when it needs to | Maintenance bypass never tested since commissioning |
| Alarm and event history | What the unit has been complaining about and for how long | Recurring alarms that were silenced rather than resolved |
| Monitoring and notification | Whether an alarm reaches a person who still works there | Notifications routed to a mailbox belonging to someone who left |
| Single points of failure | Where the design depends on one component, switch or feed | Redundancy assumed in the room that does not exist in the switchboard |
Scope
What we measureon the cooling side
Precision cooling fails slowly and quietly. These are the readings that show it happening while there is still time to act.
| Audit item | What it tells you | What we commonly find |
|---|---|---|
| Unit identification and type | Whether the room is on DX, chilled water or condenser water, and the platform generation | Mixed platforms and generations in one room, with no parts commonality |
| Rack inlet temperature survey | What equipment actually experiences at top, middle and bottom of the rack face | A wide top to bottom spread, which is airflow rather than capacity |
| Supply and return air, delta T | Whether heat is genuinely leaving the room or air is recirculating | Low delta T caused by bypass air, not by a faulty unit |
| Refrigerant circuit measurement | Superheat, subcooling and head pressure on DX plant, under ARCtick licence | Slow charge loss that has been reducing capacity for years unnoticed |
| Condenser condition and clearances | The outdoor half of a DX system that nobody has inspected | Fouled coils, a dead fan on a multi-fan condenser, and hot air recirculation |
| Filters, coils and condensate | The wear items, and whether the drain path actually works | Filters well past change interval and condensate pumps that have never been tested |
| Humidification and reheat | Whether humidity control is working or fighting itself | One unit humidifying while another dehumidifies in the same room |
| Redundancy verification | Whether the standby unit will actually carry the room | An N+1 design where the second unit has not run in years |
| Heat load against installed capacity | Measured IT load in kW compared with the cooling actually installed | Cooling sized on nameplate ratings, so double what the room needs and short cycling |
Deliverable
What youactually get
A document you can hand to a financial controller, not a service docket.
Asset register
Every UPS, battery string and cooling unit on site, with make, model, serial, rating, install date and location. For a lot of sites this is the first time that list has existed in one place, and it is the thing that makes every future quote faster and more accurate.
Measured values with photographs
Battery impedance per block, load against capacity, superheat and subcooling, delta T, rack inlet temperatures, thermographic images of terminations. Numbers and images, not adjectives, so a second opinion can be formed from the report itself.
Risk register, prioritised
What is wrong, what it threatens and how urgent it is. Ranked so the first item is the one most likely to take the room down, rather than the one most profitable for us to fix. Where something is fine, the report says so.
Three year plan with costs
What needs doing now, what can wait a year, and what belongs in a capital cycle, with indicative costs against each. Written so it can be lifted into a budget submission without translation.
Commercial
What an auditcosts
Quoted on scope, because a single comms room and a multi-site fleet are not the same job.
A single unit inspected against the full checklist with a written report is $720 ex GST in metro Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. That is the same rate as a one-off service, because the work is the same work: the difference is that an audit is scoped to tell you what you have rather than to leave the unit serviced.
Whole-room and multi-site audits are quoted per site. The per-unit rate falls as unit count rises, and regional or remote sites attract a mobilisation charge, which is why we combine nearby sites into a single visit wherever the schedule allows.
Where an audit leads directly into a maintenance plan with us, we credit the audit fee against the first year. That is not a discount tactic, it is because the audit work is genuinely the first visit of the plan.
Compare ongoing options on UPS maintenance plans, or see what a routine service covers on UPS maintenance and CRAC maintenance.
Coverage
Site auditsacross Australia and the Pacific
Brisbane and QLD
Brisbane CBD, Tingalpa, Woolloongabba, Eight Mile Plains, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Ipswich, Townsville, Cairns.
Our HQ. High ambient makes condenser condition the first thing we check up here.
Sydney and NSW
Sydney CBD, Parramatta, North Ryde, Macquarie Park, Western Sydney, Alexandria, Newcastle, Wollongong.
Tenanted buildings, where base building coordination usually sets the audit date.
Melbourne and VIC
Melbourne CBD, Port Melbourne, Docklands, Dandenong, Tullamarine, Geelong, Ballarat, regional Victoria.
Wide seasonal swing, so head pressure control gets verified across the range.
Perth and WA
Perth CBD, Fremantle, Kewdale, Kalgoorlie, Pilbara, regional WA.
Coastal corrosion and dust set the real remaining life on plant out here.
Canberra and ACT
Canberra CBD, Civic, Fyshwick, Hume, Barton, Tuggeranong, Queanbeyan.
Departmental comms rooms, with Supply Nation and ICN Gateway registration for Commonwealth procurement.
Adelaide, Darwin, Hobart and remote
Adelaide, Port Adelaide, Whyalla, Darwin, Palmerston, Katherine, Alice Springs, Hobart, and remote sites.
Remote sites benefit most, because an unknown fault is a mobilisation rather than a callout.
Questions
Site auditquestions
What is a UPS and CRAC site audit?An independent condition report
An independent inspection of the uninterruptible power supply, battery and precision cooling equipment at a site, producing a written report with measured values, photographs, a prioritised risk register and a three year plan with indicative costs.
It differs from a service visit in intent. A service is scoped to leave the unit maintained. An audit is scoped to tell you what you have, what condition it is in and what it is going to cost you, whether or not we do the work afterwards.
How is an audit different from a maintenance visit?Assessment, not servicing
A maintenance visit follows a checklist and leaves the equipment serviced: filters changed, connections torqued, batteries tested, refrigerant checked. An audit uses many of the same measurements but the output is a decision document rather than a completed service.
In practice the two often merge. Where a site has no history at all, the sensible sequence is an audit first to establish what is there, then a maintenance plan scoped from the findings rather than from a guess. See UPS maintenance plans.
How long does a site audit take?Usually one visit
Most single comms rooms and server rooms are done in one visit. Larger sites with multiple UPS systems, several cooling units and a switchboard to trace take longer, and multi-site fleets are scheduled as a program rather than a visit.
The report follows the visit rather than being handed over on the day, because the value is in the analysis and the trending, not in a form filled out on site.
Do we have to shut anything down?Rarely
Most of an audit is non-invasive: identification, load readings, thermographic imaging, temperature survey, refrigerant measurement, alarm history and visual inspection all happen with everything running.
Two items can require agreement. Battery impedance testing is done live and is non-invasive, but a genuine discharge test is not, and transfer or bypass testing exercises the unit deliberately. We flag both before the visit and they only proceed with your written approval and a maintenance window, never as a surprise.
Will the report try to sell us equipment?No
The risk register is ranked by what is most likely to take the room down, not by what is most profitable to replace. Where something is serviceable, the report says so, including where a unit that has been quoted for replacement has years of life left in it.
You are under no obligation to buy anything from us afterwards. Plenty of audits end with a list that another contractor executes, and that is a legitimate outcome.
Can you audit equipment you did not install?Yes, any brand
Yes, and that is the majority of the work. We audit Eaton, Vertiv Liebert, APC by Schneider Electric, PowerShield and Socomec UPS systems, and Liebert, Vertiv, STULZ, Schneider Uniflair and legacy Atlas and Hiross cooling.
Vendor is not a constraint. Where a platform is discontinued we confirm parts availability as part of the audit, because a unit that cannot be supported is a different risk from one that simply needs work. See precision cooling spare parts.
Who is qualified to carry out the audit?Licensed and ARCtick
Electrical work is carried out by licensed electricians and refrigerant handling under ARCtick licence, as required by the Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas Management Regulations. Findings are assessed against Australian Standards including AS/NZS 3000 and AS IEC 62040, and cooling performance against the ASHRAE recommended 18 to 27 degrees Celsius envelope at the rack inlet.
Indigi is an Indigenous and Veteran-owned Australian business, registered with Supply Nation and listed on ICN Gateway.
How much does a site audit cost?From $720
A single unit inspected against the full checklist with a written report is $720 ex GST, metro. Whole-room and multi-site audits are quoted per site, with the per-unit rate falling as unit count rises. Regional and remote work attracts a mobilisation charge.
Where an audit leads into a maintenance plan with us, the audit fee is credited against the first year, because the audit work is genuinely the first visit of that plan.
Related
Tell us the site, roughly what is installed and why you are asking, and we will scope the audit and quote it. Call 1800 046 344, email sales@indigipc.com.au, or send us the details.
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