No drawings to start from
There were no reliable as-built drawings for the spaces we were working in. That is common on older campuses, and it means the design cannot start from paper. It has to start from the field.
So the project began with extensive site investigations, documenting what was actually installed rather than what someone remembered. Alares performed more than 70 percent of the design in house, which kept that field information and the design decisions in the same hands.
What the investigation turned up
Several buildings on the campus are heated and cooled by a geothermal system, and occupants had been dealing with comfort complaints for a long time. While we were documenting conditions for the air handlers, we traced those complaints to the geothermal system itself.
The causes were specific. Valves were not working properly. The sequence of operations, the logic that tells the system what to do and when, had errors. And some of the ducting was configured incorrectly. None of it was part of our original scope.
Fixing it inside the same project
Rather than writing it up as a separate problem for later, we evaluated the system in detail and designed targeted corrections as part of the air handler work. That way the fixes were drawn, bid and built alongside the new equipment instead of waiting for another contract.
The VA's contracting officer's representative noted that our level of investigation went well beyond what he was used to seeing from other firms.
The outcome
The four new air handlers were designed to VA guidelines and code. The geothermal corrections were designed to improve heating and cooling reliability and cut down on maintenance calls. And because the construction documents were built on verified conditions, the contractor submitted fewer change order requests.
Why it matters
The scope was four air handlers. The value was in looking past the scope. An investigation done properly finds the problems that are actually causing the complaints, and fixing them while the design is still open is far cheaper than finding them after construction.