Washington D.C. area hospital lauded for HVAC installation

DULLES, VA. — Mechanical solutions provider Shapiro and Duncan was recently recognized by the Washington Building Congress’ 2016 WBC Craftmanship Award program for its HVAC piping installations at HCA StoneSprings Hospital Center. The WBC Craftsmanship Awards bring public recognition to those who demonstrate exceptional workmanship and individual effort on a variety of project types on an annual basis.

This award is unique because it personally recognizes the contributions of the craftsmen. 

“Five craftsmen were selected by our team to receive the award for the HCA StoneSprings Hospital Center project — John Carter, Tim Butler, Chris Cook, Donny Matthews and Chuck Sperry. Factors such as complexity, schedule, level of coordination, and technical requirements are considered as part of the overall evaluation and judging by WBC,” said Mary Beth Kingsley, project manager, Shapiro & Duncan.

The five-story, 230,000-sq.ft. HCA StoneSprings Hospital Center sits on 51 acres and consists of 124 all private rooms, as well as a 24-hour emergency department, intensive care unit, labor and delivery unit, nursery, imaging department, laboratory, pharmacy, and cafeteria, as well as an on-site five-story medical office building.

Throughout the course of the project, mechanical contractor Shapiro & Duncan’s scope of work for the hospital center included full installation of plumbing and HVAC systems, including complex supply systems for medical gas, deionized water and steam. On the core-and-shell medical office building, our scope included construction and installation of five packaged rooftop HVAC units and 60 variable air volume (VAV) boxes.

The Shapiro & Duncan team installed 11 custom air handling units along with 400 variable air volume and Phoenix boxes in the hospital working amid a number of architectural challenges, such as limited available space to outfit key systems, strict compliance with duct cleanliness regulations, and a fast track project schedule. The Shapiro & Duncan team consisted of 160 field members under the experienced supervision of a senior foreman and three additional foremen to keep all activities on-schedule and within budget.

“To meet the expedited construction schedule, we assembled a 160-person field team and kept everything on track with heavy supervision,” said Kingsley.

“General contractor Brasfield & Gorrie led the project team using a very ‘hands on’ approach including holding detailed scheduling meetings, quickly turning around RFI’s impeding progress, and utilizing a team approach to resolve issues such as coordination conflicts,” said Kingsley.

The main challenges on this project were the fast-track schedule — the groundwork began in June 2014 and the hospital opened in December 2015 — and the coordination of mechanical, electrical and lighting components, ductwork, plumbing piping, HVAC piping, sprinkler piping, and pneumatic tubing transport system with structure in tight above-ceiling spaces.

“On a project of this size, coordination of the structural and architectural elements is always a major challenge,” said Kinglsey.

The project team utilized 3D building information modeling (BIM) process led by GC Brasfield & Gorrie and maintained high standards of quality required for a healthcare facility, adhering to the duct cleanliness procedures, quality control review of Shapiro & Duncan’s own and subcontractor’s installations, working closely with local Loudoun County inspectors and Fire Marshall for strict testing requirements such as witness of functionality of more than 400 fire and fire-smoke dampers.

“A key element of our solution was the smooth interface between the building information modeling (BIM) process headed by the general contractor and our 51,000-sq.ft. fabrication shop in Landover, Maryland. “Using the general contractor’s 3-D clash detection models, our fabrication team had no trouble prefabricating the piping systems that met the tight coordination requirements,” said Kingsley.

This project had very complex systems including medical gas, which required S&D to utilize specialized manpower resources such as certified medical gas installers. In addition to the domestic, storm, sanitary plumbing systems, some of the unique systems on this project were the steam, deionized water, acid waste, and fuel oil.  The design called for a standard four-pipe chilled water and heating hot water HVAC system. 

Other unique challenges included the magnitude of scope and management of varying subcontractors — ductwork, insulation, controls, fuel oil, rigging, cooling tower platform, vibration isolation floating pads for equipment, heat tracing, installation of water storage tanks, chemical treatment, and installation of radiant heating sub slab system. 

“We contracted, coordinated, managed and ‘QC-ed’ the installations of more than a dozen subcontractors on this project,” said Kingsley.

One of the main components of the design and installations is the redundancy and “back-up” systems required for a healthcare facility to remain functioning. There are two water cooled centrifugal chillers, with one chiller being able to handle the building load and the other as back-up, and there is also a heat recovery chiller. There are two steam hot water boilers, with one boiler being able to handle the building load and the other as back up. The boilers are fueled by natural gas with fuel oil as back up, along with a temporary propane pilot light connection.   

The finished plumbing and HVAC solution for the hospital center included the following components, systems and products supplied by three dozen subcontractors and vendors:

• USA Tanks Storage Systems installed the two 9,300-gallon storage tanks in courtyard

• Bay Associates installed heat trace systems and the heating radiant flooring system

• Miscellaneous Metals Inc. installed the cooling tower platform system

• Havtech furnished Daikin centrifugal chillers

• Boland Trane furnished Multistack air-cooled chiller and heat recovery chiller

• Cummins-Wagner furnished Bell & Gossett hydronic pumps and condensate return units

• H&B Products furnished Cook supply and exhaust fans

•  STH Inc. furnished Grundfos domestic water booster pump system

• Ferguson furnished Zurn plumbing fixtures

• Sam DeSanto Co. furnished the Aerco steam domestic water heaters

• W.G .Leesmann furnished the Beacon Medaes air compressors, medical vacuum pump and medical gas equipment

• Morin Company furnished the Baltimore Air Coil cooling towers, Lakos condenser water filter unit and heat exchanger

• Cleaver-Brooks gas fired steam boilers and dearators

• Emerson furnished the Liebert computer room AC units

• Berner heated air curtains

• Danfoss variable frequency drives

• Johnson Controls variable air volume (VAV boxes)

• Phoenix air valves

• York air-cooled chiller

• York packaged rooftop units

• York air handling units

For the medical office building solution:

• STH Inc. furnished the Grundfos domestic water booster pump system

• H&B Products furnished Cook exhaust fans

• Ferguson furnished Zurn plumbing fixtures

• Johnson Controls furnished:

   — JCI VAV boxes with electric heat

   — York packaged rooftop units

• Mitsubishi City multi variable refrigerant flow (VRF) system

Not only was construction of the complex HVAC and plumbing systems required for the StonesSprings Hospital Center and Medical Office Building completed on time, but the end results were a crystal clear reflection of the high quality workmanship for which Shapiro & Duncan is well known in the healthcare construction field. This positive outcome was ensured by a rigorous quality control plan and the day-to-day quality control mindset of Shapiro & Duncan foremen.

The building automation system is Metasys installed by Johnson Controls and allows the onsite building engineers to monitor the building automation system locally as well as the folks at HCA’s headquarters.