The Situation
Laverty Pathology is a comprehensive medical laboratory and pathology practice; they have 24 laboratories and over 550 collection centres across NSW and ACT servicing over 4million patients each year.
With such a high volume of tests carried out in the laboratory, and with temperature control paramount to preserving the integrity of the samples for accurate testing, it was important that a reliable solution was put in place when Barotech(Laverty’s HVAC team) needed to carry out maintenance to their chiller.
The Challenge
Active Air Rentals were called in to come up with a temporary solution to enable Laverty to continue to operate during their chiller maintenance. From 11 am daily collected samples begin to arrive at the laboratory and right through until 1am the lab is very active, processing results from these samples. A solution would need to be prepped and installed outside of these times.
The equipment that carries out the blood testing produces a lot of heat, meaning climate control is crucial to keep temperatures consistent and at optimal operating levels.
Due to the layout of the building and cooling capacity required it was decided a 750kW Air Cooled Rental Chiller was the only option available. However, the existing chiller and pipework were located in a central plant room so getting access to installing a temporary solution would not be easy.
The Solution
Working with the team at Barotech, Active Air designed and installed permanent insulated pipework that cut into the existing chilled water lines and ran to a location outside the building where the rental chiller could be located.
The team prepped the solution over the weekend; the changeover took 6 hours, but the downtime was minimised to 2 hours and completed before 11 am.
The temporary chiller was in position for seven days, and the client was extremely happy with the conditioned maintained within the building.
Once the project was completed, the new chilled water lines were kept in place to ensure any future requirements for a rental chiller could be easily accomplished.