Project Images
CREOL 3-story addition
Project Summary
Hanson provided commissioning services for the design, construction and acceptance phases of the heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC), plumbing and lighting controls systems for the University of Central Florida’s new CREOL Annex II project in Orlando.
The project includes a three-story, approximately 12,000-gross-square-foot addition to the existing CREOL building. The facility, which includes offices, laboratories and an assembly room, achieved LEED Gold® certification, v2009. This expansion increases UCF’s space for lab buildouts and allows the university to pursue additional research grants.
The systems Hanson commissioned for the project included chilled water pumps and air handling units; a process cooling heat exchanger and pumps; lab exhaust fans; variable air volume terminal boxes; lab supply, exhaust and fume hood valves; fan coil units; a variable refrigerant flow system (three fan coil units and one condensing unit); a bottle room exhaust fan; a custodial and restroom exhaust fan; an HVAC control system for the addition; an electric water heater; domestic water fixtures (sampling); and lighting controls (sampling).
The CREOL Annex II was designed with N+1 redundant laboratory exhaust hoods capable of operating independently or together. During testing, the project team discovered that the exhaust fans were not providing enough airflow at the lab exhaust air valves in the farthest labs; therefore, the team couldn’t verify that the airflow was maintaining the proper pressurization and exhaust within the space.
Hanson worked with UCF, the contractors, the lab exhaust fan manufacturer and the lab controls team to diagnose the problem. The leakage cause was found to be the connections and several exhaust air valves that were not secured tightly enough when only a single fan was running. Once this was corrected, the system passed a retest and operated as designed.