Our recent critical systems retrofit at VMWare for their data center Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) room had a lot of challenges to overcome. Our scope of work included a turnkey addition of supplemental cooling to their POD 3 UPS, involving the addition of (2) 30-ton rooftop units and significant subcontractor scope including line voltage electrical, fire protection, DDC controls, fire alarm, structural, and roofing. The original designer did not properly account for the heat load of the UPS’s when in full-conversion mode, leaving this critical facility with a significant liability to deliver on its customer commitments.

In addition to the rooftop units, we had supply air ductwork to route, as well as hoods and chimneys that we installed atop the UPS cabinets to create a layer of stratification in the room. Our lead sheet metal foreman, Robert Wagner, did a tremendous job planning this out in such a way as to minimize duct transitions and waste, and accommodate interferences with installed systems. The lion’s share of our work was completed by Robert’s team, including Vic Anderson, Terry Bishop and Chris Hollingsworth. TAB and Commissioning were completed by Noah Walker who did an impressive job with all of the other subcontractors onsite.

This project will allow us to keep our VRLA UPS batteries at optimal temperature for best performance and lifespan, maximizing the value of this mission critical component. We enjoyed working with MacDonald-Miller to make this happen, says Matt Simpson, Building Engineer for VMware.

This project had an extremely tight timeline. Our work was to be completed, started, and commissioned in just a month. Most of our work occurred in the overhead of an active UPS room at a data center.  “As you might imagine, the area is very sensitive and our work was 20+ feet in the air,” says Rob Painter. Talk about mission critical!

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