Posts From June, 2018

Behind the Scenes: Support Columns

Photo is in the basement of a prominent museum in Philadelphia, PA. As part of the Core Phase project, the museum is performing a lot of excavating to make way for increased usable space for galleries, classrooms and support areas. In some areas, they have found that the footings below some of the 90 year old support columns need to be deeper and/or repaired. The shoring is in place on either side of the support column so that they can install new footings. The scale of this is pretty impressive when you consider the bottle of water on the right hand side of the photo.

By: Michael Palumbo, CCP, Senior Project Engineer

Questions? Contact us at info@horizon-engineering.com.

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Featured Deficiency! June 2018

This deficiency was recently spotted by Phil McCrory, Field Engineer II

What is wrong in this photo?

Answer: A thermostat should never be placed directly above a heat source. We find this in offices, as we do commissioning, when a thermostat is near a coffee maker, copy machine, etc. that generates heat, it throws off the thermostat readings. An accurate space temperature reading will never happen with this set-up.

Questions? Contact us! info@horizon-engineering.com.

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Michael Palumbo

Q/A with Michael Palumbo, Senior Project Engineer Employee of the Month: May 2018 If you could vacation anywhere on the planet, where would you go? Italy (Amalfi Coast). What is something about you that would surprise people? I... Read More
 

How To Avoid Ambiguity During the Construction Process

Mission Critical Commissioning: The Commissioning Plan

Often times the process of commissioning can be an ambiguous event that can have a different meaning for the variety of players involved on the project (e.g., owner, design engineer, contractor, etc.) Developing a commissioning program and documenting it in a commissioning plan helps clear up a lot of that ambiguity in order for all contractors, the commissioning team, the design team and the owner to understand the requirements and determine the expectation level for the project. The commissioning plan ensures that everyone agrees that the project will operate in accordance with contract documents and approved scope of work. The commissioning plan will highlight important general project information (location, building type and the construction period), critical abbreviations and definitions, identifies which systems or components are being commissioned and also identifies the project team members involved (including their contact information). The commissioning plan intends to focus on the commissioning process throughout the various phases of a project: design phase, construction phase, acceptance phase and post acceptance.

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