DESCRIPTION
This is one of the initial design plans for the installation of a 400,000 MBH variable refrigerant flow system in Boston’s Park Street Church. It involved the installation of 4 condenser units, 20 evaporators, and thousands of feet of pipe, and almost 1,000 hours of labor.
VRF System Installation Design Plan
PROCESS
While working at EMCOR, Park Street Church reached out to us about finding a way to get off of the city steam. Over several months a sales engineer and I explored several different alternatives including a gas hot water system, an electric hot water system, using steam from a different building, and eventually settled on the variable refrigerant flow system. The design processes of these iterations involved researching the options, sizing the rooms, getting quotes for materials and equipment, comparing different layouts, estimating labor, solving installation issues, creating proposals, and much more. It was a long and intensive project but the salesman and I eventually sold the job thanks to the amount of effort we put into giving them the options and answers they wanted.
LESSONS LEARNED
In this project I learned about project management, organization, sales, and estimating a construction job. I also learned the importance of listening to the customer and putting in extra work even when you aren’t sure if it will pay off.
