RMF Engineering has a long standing relationship with The State University of New York (SUNY), with an ongoing body of work that includes the engineering firm's completion of four major AHU and infrastructure replacement projects over the past decade with one additional currently in progress. All five projects were based on HVAC systems that were over 40 years old, some of which were constructed as far back as the late 1960s, that had far surpassed their expected service life.
LocationStony Brook, New York
ServicesMEP Building Engineering
MarketHigher Education
RMF’s team of engineers studied original drawings of each of the impacted buildings, as well as those of the systems themselves, to determine the best path forward. Given the nuances of each system and the limitations posed by the existing structures that housed them, customization was critical to RMF's approach. The resulting strategies were uniquely tailored to their existing mechanical spaces through the use of custom all aluminum foam insulated knock down units and fan array technology that provided system redundancy, longevity and ease of maintenance.
In order to limit the amount of disruption on campus, RMF's approach was phased with the use of temporary air handling equipment solutions to ensure no building, campus service, or field of research study was taken offline during the series of upgrades. RMF utilized temporary AHUs in different buildings to help keep the spaces operational while construction was in progress. Additionally, hydronic pumps and high temperature hot water (HTHW) heat exchangers were replaced in several of the buildings to improve water flow and temperature control. All systems were provided with state-of-the-art controls to maximize energy savings including variable frequency drives (VFDs) for all pumps and fans, temperature resets for all AHUs and HXs and carbon dioxide sensors to control and optimize outside air during non-economizer cycles.
One of the key methods of the renovation and quality control was the use of knock down construction. New AHUs were assembled and tested at a manufacturing plant and broken down into multiple pieces for shipping and reassembly on the Stony Brook campus. This allowed the team to de-construct and construct targeted units while strategically keeping existing units on-line and utilize temporary units to serve the de-constructed units. The knock-down construction method was used consistently on the campus for each renovated building and using the building’s existing elevators and building entrances to bring the unit components into the mechanical room to be constructed in-place.