How are air conditioning and mechanical upgrades delivered in occupied buildings?

A mechanical upgrade in an occupied building touches almost every other trade. Electrical capacity, structural penetrations, ceilings, fire services and the building fabric all move with it.

That is why it is usually the job that reveals what else the building needs.

The switchboard decides the scope

The first question is not which units to install. It is whether the building can power them.

Older schools and council buildings were supplied for the loads that existed when they were built. Adding air conditioning across a building is a significant new load, and in many cases the existing board and supply cannot carry it.

Where that is the case, the mechanical upgrade becomes an electrical upgrade with mechanical work attached. Establishing this before equipment is specified is the difference between a defined project and a variation.

Staged by zone

The building keeps operating, so the work moves through it rather than across it.

A zone is isolated, the existing plant removed, the new equipment installed, and the zone returned before the next one starts. Occupants relocate temporarily within the building where the timetable allows it.

This is slower than doing the whole building at once and it is the only version that keeps the building open.

What goes in the holidays

Some parts of the work cannot be done next to occupants at all.

Core drilling and penetrations. Plant installation and craneage. Ductwork through occupied ceilings. Commissioning, which involves running the system through its full range including alarms.

These are scheduled into holiday periods or out-of-hours windows. For a school that usually means the holiday window, with the building returned for the first day of term.

Penetrations and fire compartments

Ductwork and pipework crossing a wall or floor may be crossing a fire compartment, and every penetration through one has to be fire-stopped to maintain the rating.

This is a documented item, not a detail left to the installer, and it is inspected. On refurbishment work in older buildings it is one of the more commonly found defects from previous trades.

Ceilings and what is above them

Opening a ceiling in an older building frequently finds something else: asbestos-containing material, redundant services, or structure that constrains where equipment can go.

The hazardous material process takes precedence when it is found, and the programme has to allow for the possibility rather than assume a clear ceiling space.

Commissioning and handover

A mechanical system is not complete when it is installed. It is complete when it is commissioned, balanced, and demonstrated to work across its operating range.

The occupant also needs to know how to run it. Controls handed over without instruction produce a service call in the first cold week.

Commissioning records, warranties, manuals and as-built documentation are handed over as part of the close-out, held in the Integrated Management System through to the end of defects.

See Monument's capability across building services.