The project was an existing building that was originally designed to have heating only.  The building had been retrofitted over the years to include unit ventilators with hydronic heating and cooling.  The owner’s scope of work only included changing out the hydronic piping and unit ventilators; however, our team demonstrated to the owner that the existing system could be completely redesigned and installed with new central air handling units and terminal boxes for less money than the scope proposed by the owner.  The owner got a new mechanical system that met their design criteria for new schools for less money when compared to the scope they were proposing.  The new system designed by our team will also offer better indoor air quality to the students and lower energy bills for the owner.

As with any retrofit of a building that was not designed to have a full HVAC system, placement of equipment and ductwork was a challenge.  We did extensive field surveying of the existing building and worked with the architect up-front to find spaces to locate our systems.  We also worked with the contractor during construction when any hidden challenges were exposed to modify our plan as needed.