HVAC Plumbing - Case Studies

Physical Company, an industry renowned firm in fitness & gym equipment supplies, who occupy a two-floor commercial office building in Stokenchurch, Buckinghamshire, in the United Kingdom (UK), approached SFE Services to install air conditioning systems in a number of their offices and reception area. multi split systems installed The client opted for Panasonic equipment and two multi split systems, with one multi split system serving the upstairs offices and the other system for the downst...

Ziker Cleaners on Byrkit Street in Mishawaka, Indiana is the central hub for ten store locations and four home pickup routes from which they serve the greater South Bend, Mishawaka, and Elkhart, Indiana areas. In 2017, not only was Ziker awarded the American Drycleaner’s (national) Plant Design Award, but they celebrated their 100th anniversary as a continuously owned and operated, fourth-generation family business—something that only 3% of all businesses succeeds in doing. In ackn...

Living far enough north to experience temperatures of -30 °F during the winter months, the people of Alexandria, MN know a thing or two about the importance of installing high-performance heating systems. That’s why, in June of 2009, when their school district decided to build Woodland Elementary School, it chose to install some of the most energy-efficient, environmentally clean, and cost-effective heating systems available: Condensing boilers; and Geothermal heat pumps Why Fu...

US$ 4.6 million in projected energy and operating cost savings empowered the Charleroi Area School District, a western Pennsylvania public school district to renew assets and improve indoor air quality for shared learning spaces. After their immediate responses to COVID-19, many schools reassessed ventilation assets and started vetting plans to ensure healthy indoor air going forward. To green light a fiscally responsible solution, Charleroi Area School District (CASD) needed a way to overcome...

In April 2017, Pabst Brewing Company opened a brewery, taproom, and restaurant on the site of its former home in downtown Milwaukee: the First German Methodist Church, built in 1874. In doing so, they reignited a tradition of excellence that began for the company 173 years ago, one that required great attention to detail every step of the way. At the outset, this included the careful selection of the equipment needed to heat water used to steep the grains. It required the purchase of a good bo...

Throughout its more than 100-year history, Rush Health Systems has expanded its services to address the growth in its community and the needs of the families that they serve, to become one of the largest healthcare providers and employers in the East Mississippi and West Alabama regions of the United States of America. Rush Health Systems Rush Health Systems is comprised of seven hospitals and over 30 clinics, historically noteworthy among them, the Rush Foundation Hospital, a 215-bed, acute-c...

Teknotherm Marine España S.L. (Teknotherm) has landed its first new building contract. Teknotherm Marine España S.L. will deliver the complete HVAC maintenance and service, including installation work, on a suction dredger, to be built by Nodosa Shipyard. HVAC service for Omvac Catorce Nodosa Shipyard will build and design the 63.3 meters dredger, called Omvac Catorce, for Canlemar. Canlemar is dedicated to carrying out all kinds of maritime works, such as deepening and maintenan...

Since fluorinated gases, due to their atmosphere warming potential, are subject to increasing regulations, global supermarket chains need future-proof concepts to cater to their commercial refrigeration needs. One of the great long-term options to meet these stores’ commercial refrigeration requirement is CO2-based system. CO2 (R744) has proven itself to be a reliable and cost-effective natural refrigerant. CO2 systems are the chosen HVAC systems for larger supermarkets, both for their en...

Located just northeast of Charlotte – North Carolina’s major commercial hub – lies the city of Concord, home to Twenty- Six Acres Brewing Co. Named for the original 26-acre plot on which the town of Concord was founded, Twenty-Six Acres opened its doors in November of 2016 in the wake of the region’s craft-beer boom. While Twenty-Six Acres faced the same start-up concerns as any craft brewery (sufficient capital, federal and local licenses, zoning, construction), they al...

With 3.9 million square feet to host events as large as 75,000 people at a time, the Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC) in downtown Atlanta is the world’s largest LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified convention center. But it took some doing to get there. The state agency that operates the convention center, the Georgia World Congress Center Authority (GWCCA), began the LEED certification process in 2005, has received LEED Silver certification in 2014, fol...

The Olkiluoto Nuclear Power Plant is located on the Olkiluoto Island on the Eura River and it is owned by Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO). The nuclear power plant units Olkiluoto 1 and Olkiluoto 2 (OL1 and OL2) consist of two BWRs (boiling water reactors), each producing 890MW of electricity. OL1 was first connected to Finland’s national grid in September 1978 and OL2 followed in February 1980. Since then, Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) has systematically modernized the OL1 and OL2 p...

Adirondack Beverages is headquartered in the small town of Scotia, New York, which is in the southernmost foothills of its namesake, Adirondack Mountains. Here, they produce several varieties of beverages, under their own trade name, with another half of their business contracted to manufacturers of third-party beverages that bear private labels. These labels are applied to beverage containers, using a shrink sleeve applicator machine (also called labeler). Adirondack Beverages' manufacturing...

SHI FW Energia FAKOP Sp. z o.o., a subsidiary of Sumitomo SHI FW and Heatmasters Poland once again carried out a joint-defined solution annealing heat treatment process for high alloyed stainless steel coil assemblies. Despite its long-lasting practices and procedures, the details of this process have again been improved due to evolving industry drivers and the existence of continuous improvement practices in both companies. In-depth knowledge, experience, teamwork and focus on details have all...

Along the Appalachian Trail next to Harriman State Park in the Hudson Valley Region of New York State lies the Town of Monroe, home to KJ Poultry, the largest kosher poultry plant on the Eastern Seaboard. With a staff of over 250 employees, KJ is committed to delivering the highest quality, all-natural poultry products, the success of which is proven by their loyal customer base and steady expansion of sales throughout the United States. New ready-to-eat meat deli plant In the Fall of 2016, t...

Physically located just a few miles inland from the eastern banks of Lake Ontario, where some of the heaviest snowfalls on record in the U.S. have occurred, the people of Pulaski, New York, know a thing or two about the importance of heavy-duty heating systems engineered for the long haul. That’s why when they needed to replace the aging boilers at their local middle- senior high school as part of a major infrastructure upgrade (beginning in 2010 and ending in February of 2016), they chos...

Almost 70 years ago, the NYS Legislature created Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) to provide shared educational programs and services to school districts within the state. This led to the establishment of the Oswego County BOCES, now called the Center for Instruction, Technology & Innovation (CiTi), located in Mexico, NY. Serving over 1000 students in programs that include Adult, Alternative and Exceptional as well as Career and Technical Education, CiTi underwent a just u...

For every pour of a premium beer, there’s a story of the brewing technology that brought it about. This is especially true for Empire Brewing Company, an award-winning brewery that pioneered the brew-pub and craft brewery business in New York State some 22 years ago and that has enjoyed greatly renewed success with their recently opened farm brewery in Cazenovia, NY. For this latest brewery (est. 2016), the brewing technology needed to be first-class and, if possible, locally sourced. So,...

Since its founding in 1963 as Hartmann’s Old World Sausage, Artisan Meats in Canandaigua, NY has grown to become a nationwide distributor of over 75 varieties of gourmet sausage and specialty meats. In so doing, they have demonstrated great success in executing a niche marketing strategy that blends old-world know-how with new-world technology. Old-world know-how for Artisan is best represented by its co-owner, Josef Brunner, who, growing up in Austria, earned the highly-skilled artisan t...

Nestled in a valley in Northeastern Ohio about 50 miles southwest of Cleveland and ve miles southeast of Wooster is Green Field Farms, a farming co-op formed in 2003. The members of the co-op, who are also members of Amish and conservative Mennonite churches, use horses and buggies as their main transportation. They came together to form the co-op in 2003 with the dual purpose of preserving small family farms as well as providing wholesome food products to a growing marketplace. While their pro...

The Prosperity Company, established in 1915, was the manufacturer of commercial laundry and dry-cleaning equipment in the Central New York Region for most of the 20th century. But when Prosperity’s VP of Sales, Fred Sauerbrey, and fellow company executive, Lester Kienzle, was nearing retirement, they chose to start their own company – one that dry cleans clothes. This company was meant to be a showplace for potential clients to see the presses and other equipment that Prosperity was...

During the final months of 2020, the Wizards of Metal left Finland and headed towards Uruguay during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Equipped with Heatmasters heat treatment units, the specialists would be working with Andritz personnel to replace bends and ties on several superheaters, during which on-site heat treatment work was required. These works happened during the plants’ annual outage maintenance project, officially called “PGP 2020 (Parada General de Planta)”. Montes...

Heatmasters’ heat treatment operators were on site at the Kymijärvi III bio-heating plant before its commissioning in 2019. Now, they were back on site for on-site heat treatment works during a project involving the installation of additional piping. The Kymijärvi III bio-heating plant uses certified sustainable woody biomass as fuel, providing Finland’s most environmentally friendly district heating to the city of Lahti. Lahti – European Green Capital 2021 Lahti h...

Heatmasters has finished the commissioning of a gas-fired furnace in Saudi Arabia. Featuring 2100 kW of heating power, and a movable wagon, this furnace was designed according to the customers’ needs to expand their production facilities’ in-house heat treatment capabilities. The customer is an experienced pressure vessel, tank, and steel structure manufacturer for the oil and energy industry. Temperature control system In addition to their famous digital temperature control syste...

Manchester Underwriting Management Ltd (MUM Ltd), an insurance company occupying the first floor of a commercial office building in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, in the United Kingdom (UK), approached SFE Services to initially assist with installing a new mechanical ventilation system. Their goal was to improve the well-being and safety of staff, prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The client also advised that they had an old ceiling cassette air conditioning system, which was no longer working in t...

Two Lochinvar Copper-Fin2® Commercial Pool Heaters were center stage for a 12-day swimming competition in Omaha, Neb., in June 2021. Spear Corporation in Roachdale, Ind., tapped Lochinvar to supply the critical pool heating equipment to ensure top athletes could perform in optimal conditions. Set up directly on top of the basketball court in the facility’s main arena, the two pools – a warm-up pool and a competition pool totaled more than 1.8 million gallons of water. In less th...

The mining industry uses a variety of corrosive chemicals in the extraction process of minerals such as gold, silver, platinum and other valuable raw materials. In the extraction of gold, for example, chemicals that are used in the process (ie., sodium hydroxide and sodium cyanide),  require to be constantly heated at certain temperatures in large containers (up to 50,000 gallons). Replaceable heating elements These temperatures also require precise controls in order to maintain their con...

Houston Methodist Hospital, a world-class hospital, and medical research institution require a constant, reliable, and affordable energy supply to meet its critical needs. That became even more obvious to administrators at Houston Methodist Hospital after Hurricane Katrina and other major storms from the following years. The hospital required the ability to create its own energy to maintain operations during the blackouts that can occur with major storms that regularly slam into the Texas gulf c...

Amid the sprawling cornfields of northern Iowa, the community of Fort Dodge is often subjected to brutal winters; low temperatures can easily dip below zero for days at a time. Yet, even in the midst of an arctic blast, some indoor environments require cooling. Such is the case at the Friendship Haven senior care community, where the server room in one of its buildings calls for cooling every day, year-round. Challenges Year-round cooling was a situation that, at one point, posed a significant...

Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. was founded in 1980 in Chico, California, near the majestic mountain range that inspired its name. Since its inception, the progressive, resourceful brewery, known for creating some of the country’s finest craft beers, has been passionate about sustainability and consciously mindful of its environmental footprint. Challenges The brewery's old system was comprised of constant-speed, four-screw, and three-scroll chillers. Installed at various times, the equipment...

With help from celebrity investors like Dan Aykroyd and Aerosmith, House of Blues has been an iconic franchise in live music since 1992. The popular Boston location that opened in 2009 next to Fenway Park is a prime spot for concerts and private events. A packed schedule that leaves little downtime for the repair of the club’s HVAC equipment means that reliability and ease of maintenance are extremely important factors when making purchasing decisions. In 2016, energy recovery wheels in t...