SMACNA - Arizona Chapter
Sheet Metal & Air Conditioning Contractors National Association
SMACNA-Arizona Innovation on Display at Data Center Louvers Project
Comments : Off
Several data centers in the valley needed a large-scale installation of louvers with minimal disruption to the facilities’ ongoing operations. This louver installation was a massive undertaking, but the team at Bel-Aire Mechanical Inc. (Bel-Aire) was up to the task.
Under normal circumstances for this type of installation, contractors would send the raw materials to the site and then dozens of workers would attach and install each louver individually. But because sites like data centers are very clean and controlled environments they require as little disruption from construction as possible, both in terms of workers and raw materials on site. Just the sheer amount of packaging for the materials required on a project of this size would have disrupted the operations at the data centers.
Adapting to this need from the client, the team pre-fabricated nearly 1,000 louvers at Bel-Aire’s off-site fabrication facility, and then devised an innovative method to transport the connected louvers to the job site for a quick installation via forklift.
Darrell Fox, Vice President of Bel-Aire, and Kevin Huber, the Sheet Metal Superintendent for the project, discussed how the team tackled this unique project.
“The entire management team is proud of the ingenuity needed to come up with a whole new system to fabricate these louvers into complete pieces at our shop, and on top of that how to transport these huge shutters to the jobsite,” said Darrell.
Kevin was impressed when he saw the final product come together. “At the end it was amazing to see the completed project after all the work that went into it,” he said.
“From pre-fabricating these huge pieces, to the custom trailers needed to deliver the units to the site, to remodeling the forklift to being able to install them, this project was a real achievement in efficiency and innovation,” said Kevin.
Projects like this highlight the continuous adaptability and ingenuity of SMACNA-Arizona contractors. Bel-Aire continues to innovate by utilizing its pre-fabrication shop to provide efficient deliverables to clients.
