patients running on treadmills at the Brooks Rehabilitation Center

A Breath of Fresh Air for Rehab Patients

Brooks Rehabilitation Air Handler Replacements and Commissioning

Client

Brooks Rehabilitation

Location

Jacksonville, FL

Expertise

Healthcare, Building Engineering & Commissioning

Services

Commissioning

Contact Us

Brooks Rehabilitation, a leading provider of medical rehabilitation services, needed upgrades to their HVAC system. The organization called on Gresham Smith to replace two aging air handlers serving the East Tower at their Rehabilitation Hospital in Jacksonville, FL. By streamlining the installation process to eliminate hospital downtime and working with the Agency for Health Care Administration (ACHA) to navigate facility standards, the new equipment meets the hospital’s operational needs and provides a breath of fresh air for rehab patients.

2
air handlers
25k+
CFM

All in a Weekend’s Work

Our team had to replace the air handlers while the rehab hospital was operating, which meant we needed to replace them quickly. To streamline the installation process, the contractor installed the new equipment controls while the units were still on the ground, which reduced the time needed to actually install the units on the roof. The hospital was back up and running much sooner than if we had installed those components once the air handler was in place on the roof.

new air handler on the roof of the Brooks Rehabilitation Center

A Money-Saving Solution

Neither of the original air handlers were connected to the hospital’s emergency power supply, so we added one of the new units to the emergency generator. However, it looked like the hospital may need to purchase a new generator with more capacity to support the new system. We worked closely with ACHA to develop a long-term plan that satisfied the hospital’s future emergency power needs, as well as ACHA’s safety concerns, but didn’t bust Brooks’ budget.

additional new air handlers and equipment located behind the Brooks Rehabilitation Center

Installation Certification

At the end of the project Gresham Smith’s commissioning team verified that the air handlers were installed correctly and that the new equipment operated efficiently and according to the owner’s project requirements. After preparing pre-functional checklists and performing functional performance tests, we confirmed that the system was good to go and ready to provide a breath of fresh air for rehab patients. It was so good to go, in fact, that Gresham Smith is currently working on replacing eight additional air handlers at the hospital.