University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Laboratory Exhaust
At the new, 110,000-square-foot UC Berkeley Helios Energy Research Facility, a multidisciplinary team of researchers will focus on finding solutions to global climate change. At the five-story facility under construction in downtown Berkeley, academic experts and energy industry leaders will collaborate on research in biofuels and in synthetic and computational biology. Being built to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certification, the building will house the UC Berkeley Bioengineering Program and the Energy Biosciences Institute.
Critchfield Mechanical, Inc. (CMI) of San Jose proposed an innovative exhaust transfer solution to deal with extremely constrained space above the ceiling on all five stories. Firespray’s Flamebar BW11 factory-coated, galvanized steel ductwork proved effective, by eliminating the need for a drywall enclosure or fire wrap. Well suited to the horizontal application, the alternative approach reduced the ductwork’s footprint by more than a foot horizontally and vertically, compared with conventional solutions. Pacific Firespray provided nearly 3,000 square feet of fire-rated ductwork, which CMI fabricated and installed.
Firespray’s lab exhaust solution allowed for easy transition from the plan’s enclosed ductwork system, trimming time from the construction schedule while saving valuable space. Firespray has also provided Flamebar BW11 ductwork for two completed projects at UC Irvine.
