Project:
Merillat Cabinets, Mount Jackson, Virginia
The Challenge:
As a cabinetmaker, Merillat produces its products in a large manufacturing space that also houses a cafeteria for its employees and offices. Smoking, while not permitted in the administrative area, is allowed in the cafeteria. Since the office and cafeteria were served by one HVAC system, smoke migration into the office had become a problem.
Merillat presented two proposals to ColonialWebb Contractors that would address the problem of air quality in the cafeteria and administrative space. We reviewed those plans and concluded that neither idea was economically sound or physically possible. With some further research, we submitted an alternative that the client accepted.
Our Approach:
ColonialWebb installed an energy recovery ventilator that exhausts 100 percent of the cafeteria’s air. Simultaneously, the same amount of clean fresh air is brought in from the outside.
Both the exhaust and outside air travel through a heat wheel, enabling 85 percent of the energy to be transferred to the incoming air. The air would then be warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
Once the system was operational, the cigarette smell no longer penetrated the office area and the entire facility had good, clean air.