Essential HVAC Products for Commercial Buildings

A Project Checklist for Architecture, Engineering, and Construction Teams

Installing an effective HVAC system in a commercial building requires a comprehensive network of components. Each of these components works interdependently to deliver results for your environment, whether you require air distribution for comfort or to protect people and business assets.

In this comprehensive guide, we explore the essential products needed for a commercial building’s HVAC system, along with specialized components built by trusted HVAC manufacturers. These special products are required to comply with particular guidelines or standards, achieve superior indoor air quality (IAQ), and meet energy-efficiency benchmarks.

Central Heating and Cooling Equipment

Certain products play a role in controlling and moderating air temperature to ensure comfort and protect additional infrastructure from the effects of high or low external temperatures.

Chillers: Water- or air-cooled chillers reduce building temperatures by chilling water in a cooling tower or using fans to cool air before it enters the facility.
Boilers: Hot water boilers circulate heated water through the system’s HVAC components to warm air before it passes into the building’s ductwork. Steam boilers are used when high-humidity or steam is required for specific environmental conditions, such as manufacturing processes.
Rooftop units (RTUs): A familiar sight for any bird’s-eye view of a building, these enclosed systems, fueled by natural gas or electricity, gather air with high-powered fans and conduct heating, cooling, and air handling through their components to deliver HVAC’s benefits throughout a commercial facility.

Air Distribution

Air distribution brings conditioned air into the spaces in your facility at the proper rates of flow, pressure, and temperature. To ensure effective air distribution, commercial HVAC systems require:

Air handling units (AHUs): At their most basic, these units use fans to move air through ductwork.
Variable air volume (VAV) boxes: To ensure that specific rooms can choose their thermostat settings, these devices further chill, heat, or maintain air temperature without affecting air volume and pressure.
Ductwork: Ductwork creates a distribution network to deliver air to a building’s rooms. Ductwork includes several different components, fittings, and types to effectively guide air, reduce noise, and limit pressure losses.
Diffusers and supply grilles: Ceiling, slot, and sidewall diffusers or grilles are used to evenly distribute air to a room based on their design.
Return grilles: These grilles bring return air back into the ductwork, balancing room pressure and controlling air volume.
Louvers: These products are “long-throw” supply grilles that ensure air distribution into larger rooms.
Dampers: Easy-to-adjust dampers include a lever or control, allowing you to alter airflow by hand.
Air extractors: When airflow is needed in a particular setting, these products use curved blades to pull and deliver air to a particular location.

Air Filtration

When IAQ is critical for a facility, air filtration systems and products aid in the trapping of contaminants, so only clean air reaches certain environments. Businesses like pharmaceutical manufacturers, chip fab facilities, and laboratories often have strict requirements for air quality and leverage products designed by leading HVAC manufacturers to meet their benchmarks.

Air filtration products include:

HEPA and ULPA filters: The primary components for air filtration, HEPA and ULPA filters, which are made of woven fibers, prevent contaminants from entering or exiting a room. Contaminant particles may include bacteria, viruses, dust, smoke, mold, or volatile organic compounds (VOCs). ULPA filters trap finer particle sizes than HEPA filters.

Fan filter units: An essential component for air filtration systems, these units contain their own motor to blow air into or pull air out of a particular space and through a HEPA or ULPA filter. Variations on these units include ceiling-mounted FFUs and those designed for mobile use, providing flexibility and targeted filtration.

Hinged filter grilles: These components allow easy access to filters and filter banks for maintenance, replacement, or cleaning.

Structural ceiling systems: Structural ceiling systems provide an all-in-one solution that delivers targeted airflow and offers equipment mounting to increase space for critical processes.

Suspended ceiling grids: These grids serve as a low-plenum ceiling that houses fan filter units, lighting, and access panels.

Hydronic Components

Hydronic systems support a commercial building’s HVAC system by supplying water to regulate temperatures.

Pumps: Pumps circulate water to allow the HVAC system to reduce airflow based on volume needs, helping facility teams to lower energy costs.

Piping: When hot or cold water is needed to ensure air temperature, insulated pipes reach central HVAC equipment and additional equipment, and machinery.

Valves: Valves are used to balance airflow into specific zones.

Specialized Monitoring, Control, and Automation Products for Commercial HVAC Systems

The ability to monitor, control, or automate your commercial building’s HVAC system is critical to ensure performance and quality in your indoor environments. These products include:

Sensors: These devices monitor and enable precise temperature and humidity levels, so processes and products maintain optimal and even essential environmental conditions.
Local controls: Control boxes that adjust air quality specifications, lighting, FFUs, and more can be installed for a particular room.
Building automation systems (BAS): These central systems integrate and remotely operate individual systems, including HVAC, utilities, security, and more. HVAC systems, like fan filter units, can include building automation system protocols for seamless integration, protecting them from potential downtime.
Humidification and dehumidification: Much like a home system, but built with features that are relevant to various industries’ environmental needs, humidification and dehumidification systems add or remove moisture from the air for comfort or to maintain indoor air quality standards.

Considerations During the Commercial HVAC System Design Process

Facilities must make determinations based on their industry, operations, and facility needs. Although some considerations are mandatory due to regulatory compliance, others are driven by specific facility goals or initiatives, such as meeting energy-efficiency benchmarks.

These general checkpoints are useful when getting started on a commercial building’s HVAC system design:

Determine load calculations to specify the proper equipment.
Assess IAQ requirements based on your industry.
Explore efficiency options through your chosen HVAC manufacturer.
Ensure compliance with building codes and follow guidance from organizations like the American Society for Heating, Refrigeration, and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) or the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
Select products with service-friendly features for construction, installation, commissioning, and maintenance.

Choose Expertise When Designing Your Commercial HVAC System

Significant architecture, engineering, and construction knowledge is required to ensure that any building’s infrastructure is safe and effective. When dealing specifically with a building’s HVAC system, facility teams derive critical expertise by selecting specialized teams to handle the many unique aspects of air distribution and filtration.

Commercial HVAC manufacturing teams that design air filtration products, including ceiling systems, ceiling grids, diffusers, filters, and FFUs, provide expertise for design, placement, customization, installation, and commissioning to deliver excellent indoor air quality. These teams’ support is particularly crucial for environments that require clean air, including hospitals, manufacturing plants, and research laboratories.

Although this guide to commercial building HVAC systems and products plainly outlines system and product possibilities, this important infrastructure cannot perform as intended without the support of specialists.