Flandreau High School

HVAC Upgrades | Flandreau, SD

“West Plains Engineering was very easy to work with. They simplified the process and language to make sure everything was easy to understand. Our Energy Efficiency Project went very smooth.”
– Rick Weber, Superintendent, Flandreau School District

In 2015, West Plains Engineering partnered with Flandreau School District to update the aging building’s HVAC.

Mechanical upgrades included replacement of the school’s central heating and cooling plant utilizing a hybrid geothermal system.  This system included a 121 well geothermal field adjacent to building, gas fired hot water boilers, pumping equipment, and all accessories.  The hybrid system was utilized to limit dependence on either electrical or natural gas as a utility resource.  In addition to providing building conditioning from this system, a new domestic water heating system was connected to the hybrid system, which allowed for more efficient water heating.  On the ventilation side, all new air handling equipment was installed to accommodate the existing building, which included a mixture of rooftop units, indoor air handlers, and fan coil units.  These units were all fed chilled and heating water from the central system.

In addition to the new mechanical components incorporated, the design also had incorporate thought for phasing and implementation, as this project was phased over two summers. For Phase I, the central hybrid plant and pumped distribution were piped throughout the building, will piping capped at each location of new ventilation equipment.  In Phase 2, all of the new ventilation system equipment was installed and connected to the central system.

In addition to the electrical upgrades for the mechanical system, a new 480V main service was installed.  The new electrical gear utilized circuit breakers instead of fused switches to not only increase the ampacity of the service but to allow for additional circuits to be installed in the same footprint as the old electrical gear.

All the lighting in the school was also replaced.  General lighting was updated with high efficiency fluorescent ballasts and 28 watt T8 lamps.  With the fixture upgrades, occupancy sensors were also installed in many spaces to further reduce the electrical usage.  Included in this upgrade were new emergency and egress lighting to meet current Life Safety Codes.