El Centro de la Raza (the Center for People of All Races)
We recently replaced an ancient (and likely original) fan with a new custom fan wall in the old Beacon Hill Elementary School, a building constructed in 1904. Our customer, El Centro de la Raza, is an organization that provides 42 services to our community. It has resided at this Beacon Hill location since 1972, providing a food bank, bilingual preschool, meeting spaces and classes.
The above-mentioned artifact fan and the building are rich with history. Last winter, MacMiller came out for a temporary repair when the bearings failed, leaving the facility one failure away from no heat. Marcus Lee ran the fan wall replacement project, and it went flawlessly – but it wasn’t easy.
Removing the ancient equipment from the basement of the building was no easy task. It was estimated that the fan housing, motor, and wheel were about 80 years old. The blower wheel was 6 feet tall, 8 feet wide and weighed about 1,000 lbs. It had to be cut into pieces with a plasma torch and saws in order to be removed.
The shaft was 4 inches thick, 12 feet long and solid steel, weighing in at about 320 lbs. As you can imagine, it also had to be cut into pieces to be removed from the building.
- The demo crew removed about 6 tons of sheet metal,concrete, and motors from the mechanical room by hand in wheel barrels (NW Metals)
- We removed (1) large fan and installed (6) 5-HP fans for redundancy and efficiency
- The new fan wall weighed 2,220 lbs and can move approximately 35,000 CFM
- 560 hours for all trades total to get this project wrapped up
KUDOS to our Electrical team: Clayton Parker, Eugenio Vila, and Mark Lesmeister
SHOUT OUT to our Sheet Metal crew: Tim Felton, Rick Wolf, and Andy BurlinghamThe project was a huge success, and our customer is very happy. They know they can count on us to assist with any mechanical need, and we help keep a bright spot in our community warm all year long.
