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Facilities alarm notification for property managers and engineers

When a rooftop unit fails on a Friday night in January, your on-call engineer should hear about it then, not from a Monday comfort call. Welco texts the building, the unit and the fault from the alarm email your BAS front end already sends. You add one recipient, and no building gets new hardware.

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  • Works from your BAS alarm email
  • No hardware in any building
  • No per-user fees

Works by email with

  • Metasys
  • WebCTRL
  • Door forced & held open

Setup guide for

  • Niagara

A floor plan of Tower B: Dock (dock door) goes into alarm, held open, its room turns orange and Access server emails the alert. The email reaches Welco and the phone shows: “Welco: [Dock] Loading dock door HELD OPEN 15 min at 1:31 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.”

Animation: alerts arrive through the night and each goes to the right person. 10:57 p.m., to On-call building engineer: "Welco: [Tower B] Chiller 2 TRIP, low condenser water flow at 10:57 PM. Reply STOP to opt out." 1:31 a.m., to Security lead: "Welco: [Dock] Loading dock door HELD OPEN 15 min at 1:31 AM. Reply STOP to opt out." 5:12 a.m., to On-call maintenance tech: "Welco: New voicemail on Maintenance Line from (416) 555-0148, 1:12. Listen: welco.ai/v/k3Q9tz. Reply STOP to opt out."

What a property team gets from Welco

The on-call engineer gets the building, the unit and the fault by text, nights and weekends included. It comes from the alarm email your BAS front end sends today.

  • The engineer knows which building

    The text names the building, the RTU, AHU or chiller and the fault. The on-call engineer can judge from home whether it needs a drive in tonight.

  • Doors to security, HVAC to engineering

    A door held open alarm can text the security lead while chiller and boiler alarms text the engineer on call.

  • Comfort calls reach a person

    A message on the maintenance line arrives with a tap-to-listen link. See after-hours voicemail for on-call techs or the Grasshopper voicemail texts guide.

  • The front end stops alarming to nobody

    Alarms no longer wait on a workstation in an empty engineering office. One added email recipient in the front end is the whole BAS change.

A rooftop unit fails on a Friday night

One engineer covers three Mississauga office buildings after hours, and it is minus 15 outside. Here is how a heating failure plays out before anyone's Monday.

  1. The after-hours rule takes over

    On-call routing moves HVAC, water and power alarms from each chief engineer to the one engineer on call. Door alarms go to the security lead.

  2. Metasys emails a supply air alarm

    Alarm: Bldg3.RTU-2.SA-T Value: 5.1 C State: Offnormal Alarm Message: Supply air temp low

  3. The on-call engineer sees it at home

    Welco: [Bldg 3] RTU-2 supply air 5.1C, low limit at 9:14 PM. Reply STOP to opt out.

  4. The engineer answers before leaving

    Heading to Bldg 3, will reset RTU-2 and check the gas valve

  5. The reply comes back as email

    Replies by email go to the address the alarm came from. Send BAS alarms from the facilities mailbox and the chief engineer sees the plan.

    Reply from the on-call phone: Heading to Bldg 3, will reset RTU-2 and check the gas valve

  6. Saturday morning, a work order goes in

    The reply thread and the delivery report show who got the alarm. The chief opens a work order to replace the RTU igniter.

The times are made up, and mobile networks carry each text. A text reply leaves the point offnormal and unacked in the front end.

How to set up facilities alarm texts from your BAS

A building engineer or your controls contractor can do this. The BAS change is one email recipient.

  1. Sign up and verify your company

    Tell us who manages the buildings, whether a property manager or a condo corporation, and which alarms you'll send. Every account is checked first, so your number only carries alarms.

  2. Invite engineers and techs

    Each one opens the invite, enters their own cellphone and replies YES once. Superintendents and service contractors join the same way.

  3. Add Welco to the alarm email

    Add your Welco address beside today's recipients and approve the sender. Test mode shows each text before any phone buzzes.

Send tonight's RTU alarm to the engineer on call

Sign up, verify your company and approve your BAS sender.

7-day free trial, 15 message creditsCard required for verificationNo charge for 7 daysEmail reminder before billing

Text me my building alarmsBook a demo

Which building automation systems can send alarm texts?

Each guide shows the menus for Metasys alarm texts, WebCTRL alarm texts, Tridium Niagara alarm texts and Honeywell BMS alarm SMS. Standby power has its own generator alarm texts guide.

Alarms building engineers drive in for

These are masked examples. Long-term care maintenance teams and school campuses watch much the same equipment, as our industry alarm guides show.

  • Water: Welco: [Tower A] Leak detector RISER 12 wet at 12:48 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.
  • Freeze: Welco: [Bldg 4] AHU-3 freeze stat tripped, fan off at 5:47 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.
  • Data closet: Welco: [Suite 300] IDF room 32C, split unit off at 11:09 PM. Reply STOP to opt out.

A phone showing these alert texts: Water, "Welco: [Tower A] Leak detector RISER 12 wet at 12:48 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."; Freeze, "Welco: [Bldg 4] AHU-3 freeze stat tripped, fan off at 5:47 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."; Data closet, "Welco: [Suite 300] IDF room 32C, split unit off at 11:09 PM. Reply STOP to opt out."

Which building alarms should text the engineer on call?

Text the alarms that cause water damage, frozen coils, a security gap or a lost tenant day if they wait until morning. Comfort drift and maintenance reminders can stay on the front end.

Worth a night text

  • A chiller or boiler trip, or an RTU that locks out.
  • A freeze stat trip, or supply air below its low limit.
  • A leak detector or a sump pit at high level.
  • A door forced, or held open longer than your set time.
  • The generator running, or hydro power lost.
  • A data or IDF room running hot.
  • A new voicemail on the maintenance line.

Leave on the front end

Space temperatures a degree or two off setpoint, filter status and runtime alerts. Alarms from vacant suites during setback can wait as well.

Sort alarms by building first

Start each alarm with the building name, the way your BAS already names points. One rule per building then picks the engineer, and a night rule covers them all. Keep a contact sheet for who covers which building.

A Metasys air handler alarm as a text

Building automation emails show the point name, value, timestamp and state on separate lines. Welco folds them into one text the engineer can read at a glance.

Alert email from metasys@bas.example.com, subject “Alarm: AHU-07 RAT”. Welco trims it to one text of 87 characters: “Welco: [Bldg 2] AHU-07 return air 29.2C, offnormal at 2:14 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.”

Text received: Welco: [Bldg 2] AHU-07 return air 29.2C, offnormal at 2:14 AM. Reply STOP to opt out.

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Animation: the alert email "Alarm: AHU-07 RAT" is trimmed into one text: "Welco: [Bldg 2] AHU-07 return air 29.2C, offnormal at 2:14 AM. Reply STOP to opt out."

A one-line alarm text keeps the building, the point and the value. Priority and state stay in the email.

After-hours building alarms, then and now

The Monday surprise

  • Alarms stack up on the front end in an empty engineering office.
  • The first sign of a dead RTU is a tenant comfort call at 8 a.m.
  • Maintenance line voicemails wait for someone to log in.
  • Every return to normal lands in the shared inbox too.

With Welco

  • The building, the unit and the fault on the engineer's lock screen.
  • Door alarms to security, mechanical alarms to engineering.
  • Voicemails arrive as a link that plays in the browser.
  • Return to normal stays in email overnight.

Frequently asked questions

We manage many buildings. Can each send alarms to a different engineer?

Yes. Most building systems put the building name in the alarm email. Write one rule per building that matches that name and picks the engineer. At night, one rule can send every building's alarms to the single engineer on call.

Is there anything to install in each building?

No. Welco has no hardware, gateway or software for your buildings. You add your Welco address where each system already sends alarm email, and only senders you approve can trigger a text. Everyone who gets those emails today keeps getting them.

Our BAS also sends return-to-normal emails. Will those text people?

Only if you want them to. A rule can drop any email with words like Return to Normal, so it stays in email. When a cold snap trips a dozen points at once, flood control caps the burst of texts.

Can our HVAC service contractor get the chiller alarms too?

Yes. Invite the contractor, who joins with their own cellphone and replies YES to one text. Then add them to the chiller rule. They can reply STOP when the contract ends, or you can remove them yourself.

Does the engineer need an app to read or answer an alarm?

No app. The alarm arrives as a normal text on any cellphone. If the engineer replies, the reply is emailed back to the alarm's sender. It does not acknowledge or clear anything in the BAS.

What does Welco cost across a whole portfolio?

There are no per-user fees, no hardware and no setup fee, so adding superintendents and property managers costs nothing by itself. Each alarm text spends message credits from your monthly plan, and you can change plans yourself as the portfolio grows. Start with 15 credits over a 7-day trial; the verification card is charged only after you approve a plan. Plans and pricing lists every plan in US dollars.

Does Welco take the place of our alarm monitoring company?

It does not. A monitoring company is a separate service, and Welco is not a replacement for code-required fire alarm monitoring or emergency services. Welco only texts a copy of building system alarm emails to your own engineers. Keep your monitoring contract as it is.

Let tonight's facility alarms reach the engineer, not an inbox

Approve your BAS sender and add your on-call phones.

Text me my building alarmsBook a demo

7-day free trial, 15 message creditsCard required for verificationNo charge for 7 daysEmail reminder before billing