Overview

National TAB Intelligence was hired to perform the testing, adjusting, and balancing of all HVAC equipment on a new elementary school in North Carolina.

Task

A new elementary school in North Carolina was preparing to open its doors to students and teachers. National TAB Intelligence got to work balancing all the HVAC equipment in the building.

This was a large project that consisted of several AHUs, VAVs, exhaust fans, and kitchen hoods with rooftop units. The building had hydronic systems, including hot water pumps, chilled water pumps, hot water reheats in the VAVs, and hot and chilled water coils in the AHUs.

Solution

Our field engineering team approached the building in sections. The AHUs and VAVs served each floor of classrooms, as well as the office area, gymnasium, auditorium, and lunchroom. Once we completed the balancing of the HVAC assets’ distribution systems, we performed a total setup and commissioning of each asset. Finally, we evaluated the effect of all the assets running simultaneously on the overall facility. Balancing is more than just testing and adjusting the HVAC system. The testing of your facility in maximum and normal loads, along with economize mode, is critical to building performance. Owners should insist this is performed with a summary of results.

One of the most significant impacts we made on the project was discovering that large deviations had been made from the drawings. We had to troubleshoot why we weren’t getting airflow. The problem came from a bridge piece of ductwork obstructing the airflow. At this point, it wasn’t an option to rip out the ductwork. Our team’s solution was to add an additional, properly sized drop from the hood to eliminate the issue and save the customer thousands of dollars in unplanned work.

Results

Our work is always measured by the impact we make on the end users. Our goal for this project was to ensure the overall comfort, health, and well-being of the space for the teachers, staff, and students. The CDC reported that 14 million school days were missed in 2013 due to respiratory illnesses. By ensuring that everything was per the engineer’s design, we could also guarantee that students and teachers would be comfortable, healthy, and could focus on teaching and learning.