Burke Hall houses Dartmouth’s Chemistry Department and delivers tempered 100% outdoor air to the laboratories. This air is then exhausted back outside through lab fume hoods. As originally installed, energy was not recovered from the exhaust air stream, resulting in high operating costs, which is why Dartmouth decided to upgrade the facility.

In addition to ensuring increased energy recovery, it was imperative that commissioning activities allowed facility operations to continue as usual. Cornerstone was hired as the commissioning agent, and work progressed in three phases. Phase I included the replacement of steam absorption chillers with two larger high efficiency electric chillers. Phase II involved the interconnection of these new chillers to the central chilled water plant. Phase III combined all lab exhaust for energy recovery through a Konvekta heat recovery system with upgraded laboratory controls.

Cornerstone worked closely with the owner, the construction team, and the building inspector so that commissioning could take place in an organized and comprehensive manner. The building inspector often relied on Cornerstone for certain tests and verifications. To minimize disruption, many activities took place after-hours.

Project results included building energy use reduced by more than 60%, and an overall decrease in campus oil usage by 12%.