Navigating the World of Engineering & Sales by Always Doing What's Best for the Customer

Point Blank

As a woman I take personal compliments very poorly, often brushing the comment off like lint stuck to my pants leg. Most women, and people in general, relish hearing all the plusses another finds in them. But I grew up in a military family with 4 other siblings and was a tom boy myself; compliments were often superficial and I hated having attention drawn to me.

However, I love to hear professional compliments and enjoy seeing end users, engineers and contractors find a need filled by one of the products MonMan represents.

Professional compliments, though, are usually said in passing as the occasional “Atta Girl”, “Great Work” and “Very Impressive.” These words confirm what I already know of myself (not to sound stuck up but I do take considerable pride in what I do). But on occasion, a professional compliment is paid that stands out and deserves to be retold!

The Pinch

Last week was the wrap up for the installation of an AHU for a hospital here in the Charlotte area. So far, we have provided (4) Air Enterprises SiteBilt units to this hospital system, meeting their need to replace AHUs in hard to access areas.

This unit is a 21,840 cfm unit that was literally built wall to wall in the mechanical room utilizing Air Enterprises SiteBilt, field erected, design. When I say this unit was wall to wall, I literally mean wall to wall; the unit had to be built, piece by piece, with both ends being built in place first and meeting in the middle.

Oh yeah, did I mention we only had a 3ft doorway to rig all the panels, bases and components through? Similar to a previous unit we provided for this hospital, the mechanical room was very small, in the middle of a Cardiovascular ICU ward, and had limited access to the room itself.

Building a unit this way would make most manufacturers shiver: “What if during the build the unit is off by just a fraction of an inch”? For some manufacturers, this could be catastrophic and cause major delays to the project as a whole.

In this scenario, most manufacturers’ safety net is to pre-assemble the unit at their factory, break the unit back down into small pieces and reassemble on site. This way they can rest assured the unit will fit together in the field. But if you have ever tried to rehang a picture in a previously drilled hole, you know that there is always a little play with the nail.

The same goes for an Air Handler but instead of having a saggy picture, you have a leaky air handler that is wasting electricity and forcing the motors to work harder, and it’ll only get worse overtime.

“Best I’ve Seen”

As I mentioned, while I was at the start up and commissioning for this unit, I was speaking to the commissioning agent with Horizon Engineers, Don Janus, about how our Air Enterprises units compared to other brands he has tested for this hospital system. His response:

“These units have been great, the best I have seen in a long time. The leakage and deflection rates are much lower than the specified allowances and better than most of the manufacturers I’ve seen (of similar quality and construction)”.

Wow! I mean really WOW! I know what great quality the Air Enterprises units are; I firmly believe in the product I represent, but what an amazing feeling to actually hear another person, a third party non biased person may I add, confirm what I have been saying all along: There are some other manufacturers that make a good looking unit, but do they have substance? Can they test with the absolute lowest air leakage rates? At what deflection? The answer: No! There may be a few units here and there that test low, but CONSISTENCY IS KEY, and none are more consistent than Air Enterprises provided by MonMan.

The Truth is in the Details

For this particular unit we tested out at 0.37% air leakage (specified 0.5%) with less than 1/16” of deflection (specified 7/16”).

Actual Test Report Data:

Design CFM	Specified Acceptable Air Leakage %	Actual Air Leakage %	Actual Air Leakage CFM	Specified Deflection	Actual Deflection
16,280 cfm	0.5%	0.19%	30.9 cfm	7/16”	1/16”
21,840 cfm	0.5%	0.37%	81.5 cfm	7/16”	>1/16”
16,600 cfm	0.5%	0.24%	39.4 cfm	7/16”	>1/16”
9,900 cfm	0.5%	0.23%	23 cfm	7/16”	>1/16”

 

As you can see, Air Enterprises custom air handlers consistently test out with very low leakage rates and low panel deflection. But why should you even care?

Low air leakage is vital to your business because it is the hallmark of a more efficient unit. With our low leakage rates, we are providing a very real, tangible benefit: reduced energy use. 

With low leakage and low panel deflection, your HVAC technicians will be pleased with the quality of the units. You’ll have less operating expenses with a high quality unit like Air Enterprises, saving those dollars for other facilities projects.

Facilities managers love our air handlers because it makes it easy for them to show real costs savings in their department at every budget review meeting. The consistent quality and efficiency of Air Enterprises units provide you with peace of mind you can bank on, year after year, for the life of the unit.

Oh, did I mention our units come with a 40 year casing warranty?