Project Profile - Industry: Hospital Type: Diagnostics Square Footage: 60,000 Comprehensive Description - (click for detailed PDF) If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader, download it here.

Project Description -

MSC was contacted by a client with a complaint that there was inadequate air flow on the first floor of a three story building containing patient rooms. The building had been renovated in phases (by floor) with a different engineering firm and a different contractor used for each phase. The first phase included renovation of the penthouse and the third floor. The penthouse was previously an old “built up” type system with fan rooms and the renovation included new walls and equipment, but it remained as a “built up” type system. Then the second floor came online, and finally the first floor three years after completion of the first phase. The problem became apparent when the first floor was occupied. With so many people having been involved, the client could not determine who was responsible.

MSC was given the assignment of determining what was wrong and we proceeded with our normal planned step by step diagnostic. We gathered information by taking air flow measurements, investigating the performance of the parallel vane axial fans, the construction of the penthouse, and the ducts and appurtenances exiting and entering the penthouse. In the end, we determined that the parallel supply fans were not capable of overcoming the system resistance and were operating in an unstable condition known as fan surge.

The next step was to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what was happening and why, since our presentation was to be made to the hospitals’ engineering staff and the original designer. The attached pdf of our report takes the reader from the statement of the problem, through the diagnostics, through the theory and onto the conclusions. This report, when reviewed by the engineering staff and the original designer, left no question of what the problem was and the possible solutions. We could have made the report more succinct, but chose instead to include a thorough explanation of the theory in order to use it as a teaching tool for our field technicians and it became the topic of discussion for a rather lengthy shop training meeting at our office. Correction of the problem was left in the hands of the designer and the last we heard was that they were modifying the penthouse and duct systems to remove high loss fittings and restrictions.