Skyline Elementary School is a state-of-the-art facility located in Tacoma, Washington. Recently, the school required a new HVAC system as a part of a larger construction project. To ensure that the facility had the best in terms of indoor air quality, energy-efficient technology, and comfort for all, the school districts reached out to AirReps and BCE Engineers to take on the project.

Here at AirReps, we worked closely with BCE Engineers and our partners at Oxygen8, a leading manufacturer of high-efficiency counter-flow heat recovery ventilators, and Daikin, a leader in the HVAC industry, specializing in water source heat pumps, to get the job done!

Click on the link below to read the entire case study and to learn more about how we accomplished this project!

Systems Unlimited, an Iowa City, is an Iowa organization that provides supported living services, job training and employment to adults with disabilities. The building is a 38,400 sq. ft. facility that houses administrative offices, training rooms and work areas for the organization.

The owner was concerned with energy costs and indoor air quality. As a result, we combined the strengths of three leading technologies: ground-source heat pumps, dedicated outdoor air system, and radiant heating and cooling panels.

The system includes 8,000 cfm, 30-ton Venmar CES integrated ground-source heat pump energy-recovery ventilator with AHRI Certified™ performance from a total-energy wheel air-to-air heat exchanger; three five ton ground source heat pumps supplying ceiling-mounted radiant heating and cooling panels

Architects William Pereira & Associates chose the pyramid shape not just for its unusual look but also to meet a specific need: a pyramid casts a smaller shadow than a conventional high-rise building, allowing more light to filter to the streets below. At the time, that met the requirements of a special “shadow ordinance” in this foggy city on the bay. The building’s cutting-edge tradition continues today: upgrades and retrofits have earned a LEED® Gold certification for the Transamerica Pyramid. And a recent upgrade to one section of the building’s HVAC system is equally inventive.

The aging air-handler fans serving floors one to 18 of the building required continual maintenance because of their age. Building management sought a replacement that would cause minimal disruption to tenants, simplify and reduce costs for installation in the existing mechanical space and contribute to energy efficiency and redundant operation. Replacing the old housed fan with a new one was quickly ruled out. It would have required extensive demolition and reconstruction and disrupted tenants.

Instead, AEGON opted to replace the old fan with FANWALL TECHNOLOGY®, a modular fan system introduced in 2004 by Huntair, Inc., a CES Group company. The multiple fans generate the 202,000 cfm required, but the modular design allows individual fan cubes to be navigated through the building and 3-foot doorways and stacked in place. The resulting system is more energy-efficient and quieter than the existing huge fan, while also providing redundancy.

Known for its accommodations and hospitality, the Hilton San Francisco in Union Square also takes top marks as a venue for business gatherings. The 46-story hotel with 1,908 guest rooms was voted Best Hotel for Meetings and Best Hotel for Business Service in a 2009 survey by Executive Business magazine.

Keeping the hotel’s large meeting areas comfortable with the right blend of ventilation and conditioned air is no small matter for hotel engineering staff. Yet a recent upgrade project to improve airflow and circulation to four ballroom foyers on the second floor not only met project goals, it established a whole new paradigm for easy retrofit, energy savings and system reliability through redundancy.

It’s a hospital facility engineer’s nightmare: All of the patient rooms and many key surgical suites of a health care building are served by a single vaneaxial fan. That fan and its drive motor are in a penthouse structure. Consulting engineers estimate it would take up to a week or more to remove and replace them in the event of a motor failure. Such an event would shut down the medical center.

That’s what worried Rick Barney, project supervisor, Sutter Roseville Medical Center in Roseville, Calif. What happened next is a blueprint for vastly improving airside plant reliability, while keeping the required air handler in service. The Sutter Roseville Medical Center is a modern, 350,000-square-foot facility that provides a wide range of medical and surgical services to the Roseville area, northeast of Sacramento.

With a new building already under construction, a children’s healthcare facility in Dallas made a change in the design of one of its critical air handlers. That change will provide greatly increased reliability in limited equipment space, as well as reduce the acoustic signature. The change, the installation of a HUNTAIR FANWALL TECHNOLOGY product within a Temtrol air handler, was initiated by the facility owner at the suggestion of trusted advisors.

Iron Mountain® operates a secure data storage facility, including a data center, in a former limestone mine in rural Pennsylvania. The data center maintains servers that provide secure information back-up for clients around the U.S. and internationally. In order to meet the precise cooling needs of the growing data center in an efficient manner, Iron Mountain needed a reliable chiller that could operate efficiently under part- or full-load conditions.