Chapter 7 of the International Building Code (IBC)1 requires life safety dampers to protect duct and air transfer openings within building separations — fire walls, fire barriers, fire partitions, horizontal assemblies, smoke barriers, and smoke partitions. 

It takes an enormous amount of electricity to cool a data center. According to Global Market Insights, on average, cooling systems represent 40% of total data center energy consumption.

Futureproofing, fallback options, and drawing out any client custom requirements early can point you toward success in these high-traffic, high-stakes facilities.

Modern data centers are evaluated not just on reliability but also on the efficiency of the cooling plant that supports them, so the cost to cool data center space is a key issue that must be addressed during design and system selection.

Due to the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) program, Department of Defense facilities across the country were consolidated to improve efficiency and reduce operating costs.

This month’s Facility File will focus on the B2B November test for HVAC applications to replace an existing cooling tower at a pharmaceutical facility.

Last month, I wrote about the design team’s commitment to making a profit on each job.

With a continuous pressure to decrease turnover time while also providing the medical staff with utmost flexibility, the design of the HVAC systems for today’s operating rooms requires not just special attention but also complex analyses.

Today’s operating rooms are inefficient and overcrowded, and the turnover between cases is often lengthy and variable.

A colleague of mine was the project manager on a commissioning project for a build-out at a five-story, 150,000-sq-ft laboratory building at a large university.