OLEY VALLEY SCHOOL DISTRICT

Oley Valley Middle School

Project Architect: AEM Architects, Inc., Reading, Pennsylvania
Project Engineer: RPA Associates, Wyomissing, Pennsylvania

The Oley Valley Middle School project located in the Oley Valley School District consists of a new 700 seat auditorium, gymnasium, library, and kitchen and classroom instructional spaces within the 102,800 square foot building. The mechanical systems designed for this facility includes series fan powered Variable Air Volume (VAV) systems for the administrative offices, media center, and all classroom and instructional spaces. The gymnasium and auditorium are served by constant volume air handling systems. The heating and cooling of the facility is provided by a central hot water heating and chilled water cooling system.

Eastern Air Balance Corporation, hired under a professional services agreement with the school district was contracted to perform testing, adjusting and balancing of all air and hydronic systems, conduct all duct leak testing of the medium pressure duct associated with the VAV Systems and act as the commissioning authority for the school district.

In our role as the commissioning authority, Eastern Air Balance Corporation was involved with the school district from the inception of the design process and provided review and comment on all design development documents related to the mechanical systems. After the award of contracts, Eastern Air Balance Corporation was responsible for review and comment on all mechanical systems submittals, review of sheet metal shop drawings and review of all Automatic Temperature Controls (ATC) submittals and sequence of operation.

Eastern Air Balance Corporation successfully developed the commissioning plan for the project including pre-functional checklists which were utilized by the installing prime contractors to document actual systems installation and start-up. Our technicians conducted testing and certification of the installation and operation of all fire dampers and combination fire / smoke dampers. Our firm was also responsible for the development and implementation of the functional performance tests which validated the operation of all HVAC equipment and calibration and operation of all Automatic Temperature Control components and sequence of operation. Additionally, our staff took the lead role in working with the design engineer and ATC contractor to successfully develop the sequence of operations necessary to utilize the air handling units to provide the facility with a working smoke removal system.