Fan Coil Replacement

IMEG provided engineering design and services for heating coil, cooling coil, and filter replacement in the primary air systems serving Koshland Hall at UC Berkeley. Koshland Hall houses laboratories from the Department of Molecular & Cell Biology and the Department of Plant & Microbial Biology. The air systems needed to stay operational during this replacement to continuously serve the laboratories and on-going research. 

Two primary air systems each contained two separate coil banks. Unfortunately, the primary air systems were not cross-tied together. Each air system was dedicated to half of the building, so when an individual coil bank was taken down half the building would maintain full airflow and the other half would maintain approximately 50-75% airflow. 

During design, IMEG recommended that UC Berkeley blank-off half of the primary air tunnel to simulate what would happen during construction. Engineers then ramped up the fans to confirm how much supply air could be provided through the remaining half of the air tunnel. The exhaust system serving the laboratories was not modified or reduced during this test, so the main point was to confirm that the laboratories, or the overall building, would go overly negative where ADA door pulls or other safety measures would be jeopardized. This test demonstrated that pressures would remain acceptable and generally the laboratories would not even notice the reduction in supply air. 

IMEG produced a full four-phase plan demonstrating how to isolate each 25% of the system to allow replacement while the building remained occupied and in operation.