Mayfair Woods Project

Rooftop unit crane pick at Mayfair Woods—Wauwatosa, Wis.

Grunau takes the LEED

Project earns Silver rating

In 2006 Grunau received the HVAC design-build contract for the Mayfair Woods office building in Wauwatosa, Wis.

The five-story, 170,000 square foot facility offered Grunau its second opportunity for a LEED certified project. The project involved LEED-related details including system redundancy, air quality, and energy monitoring and management.

“Being part of a LEED certified project was a new experience for each member of the project team,” said Project Manager and HVAC Engineer Rachel Rueckert. “Overall, the project was a success. We all worked well and learned together.”

Grunau employees handle rooftop unit for
LEED project—Wauwatosa, Wis.

Given the numerous components for a LEED building, Grunau took the lead in the fundamental commissioning of the building’s energy systems. Team members prepared and performed pre-functional and functional verification testing procedures.

“It was a good design-build project,” said Grunau Project Executive Larry Loomis. “It was also very good LEED experience.”

Grunau selected HVAC equipment and components that met the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) requirements. It upgraded the rooftop units to utilize refrigerant R-407C, base-building measurement and verification, outdoor air delivery monitoring, and more.

Mayfair Woods has four rooftop units with an interconnecting duct loop on each floor. “If one unit is down for maintenance or failure, the other three continue to push air into the system,” Rueckert said. This offers a safety factor or redundancy to the system.

Temperature heat dampers installed at
Mayfair Woods office building
—Wauwatosa, Wis.

The outdoor air delivery monitoring stations ensure proper outside air enters the building through the ductwork system. The remaining three units increase their outside air volume to replace the fresh air of the missing unit.

For base-building measurement and verification, Grunau placed a select amount of current transformers (CTs) on main electric panels to allow the client track all electrical energy utilized in the building.

As future tenants are added, smaller CTs will be added to their specific panel. This lets the client accurately bill the tenant for true energy use. The system also allows the client identify potential problems if energy spikes occur in specific areas of the building.

When it was completed, the Mayfair project became LEED Silver certified.