Building Automation Retrofit, Federal Office Building
Pneumatic and orphaned proprietary controls across nine floors replaced with open BACnet DDC — occupied throughout, Davis-Bacon compliant.
- Floors
- 9, fully occupied
- Points
- 2,400+
- Architecture
- Open BACnet, non-proprietary
- Compliance
- Davis-Bacon certified payroll
What made it hard
The building ran on three overlapping control generations: original pneumatics at the terminal units, a 1990s proprietary DDC system whose vendor no longer supported it, and unit-level controllers that had never been integrated. Operators had resorted to running major equipment in hand.
The facility stayed fully occupied throughout, tenant agencies had no tolerance for comfort complaints, and the project carried full federal compliance requirements including certified payroll, badging and escorted access in secured areas.
How we executed it
We built the new BACnet network in parallel and cut over by system rather than by floor — central plant first, then air handlers, then terminal units zone by zone — so no space was ever left without control. Temporary control strategies covered each transition.
As the retrofit exposed mechanical problems, we corrected them under the same contract: seized dampers, leaking control valves, fouled coils and terminal boxes that could not make minimum airflow. A controls-only vendor would have written those up as exceptions and left the savings on the table.
Graphics were built from verified as-builts rather than original drawings, and the point list, sequences and programming tools were handed over so the government is not dependent on us for future service.
What the owner got
All nine floors returned to automatic control with scheduling, economizer operation, static and temperature reset, and simultaneous heating/cooling eliminated.
Comfort complaints dropped sharply and HVAC energy consumption fell meaningfully against the prior baseline. Because the system is open BACnet with documentation turned over, the agency can competitively bid future controls work.
Bring us the hard one
Occupied buildings, no shutdown window, a survey finding with a deadline, a plant nobody wants to touch. That is the work we are built for.