University of Utah

Merrill Engineering Building Fume Hood System Upgrade

The original fume hood system included more than 40 constant volume fans, each dedicated to individual labs and hoods. For the most part, these fans ran 24 hours a day, seven days a week with no back-up capacity, and very limited controls and monitoring. The new system combines the fume hoods for the entire building into 3 central systems. These systems are variable flow systems to provide energy savings, but also include back-up capacity and increased control and monitoring. The end result is a system that is safer for individual users by providing local readings to verify hood performance, a system that is more energy efficient utilizing sash sensors and occupancy sensors to reduce flow when not required, and more maintenance friendly by consolidating the systems and including back-up ability at each system.

In addition to phasing this project in order to accommodate full owner occupancy, WHW Engineering Inc. has also managed a wide array of departmental requested renovations that involved multiple disciplines, demanding schedules, and other unique requirements. These types of requests demonstrate WHW Engineering’s ability to not only provide expert mechanical engineering services to a design team, but also our ability to manage a project as the AE prime consultant.

WHW Engineering, inc. performed as the prime consultant to the University of Utah.