Exploring Challenges in Existing Building Automation… | P2S Inc.
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Associate Principal & Engineering Group Leader

James Del Monaco

PE, LEED AP BD+C, CxA

Exploring Challenges in Existing Building Automation Systems

ASHRAE Journal, April 2021

  • Article Preview

    Often, engineers design with a focus on the "peaks and valleys " when working on building automation systems (BAS), said James Del Monaco, P.E., Member ASHRAE, chair of ASHRAE Technical Committee 1.4 Control Theory and Application. But he says, "to properly design the system we need to also understand all points in-between."

    From designing BAS to work properly from the start or troubleshooting issues after construction, engineers need to know common system challenges and misapplications when working with existing BAS. Del Monaco and other engineers dive into accessible tips to diagnose problems efficiently and provide recommendations and best practices for assessment tools and techniques.

    Most Common Issues

    Righ Component, Right Place

    "Make sure you've got the right component for the job and that it's put in the right place" said Chris Benson, P.E., Member ASHRAE, member of TC 1.4. For instance, Benson, an associate director of sustainability and energy at the University of Utah, said building pressure sensors are poorly located, which can result in issues with stability and personal comfort.

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  • Delivery Method: Design-Build
  • Cost: $370 Million
  • Size: 450,000 SF

P2S is providing MEPT engineering services for the Riverside University Health System (RUHS). The currently underdeveloped site will be renovated to include five buildings with a total area of approximately 450,000 SF and a parking structure. The project is pursuing LEED Silver to focus on reducing energy consumption and waste, managing resources efficiently, and reducing operating costs and environmental impact. The Village provides for an entire continuum of behavioral health and wellness care, from urgent treatment to supportive housing, including outpatient care, education, and social services. It includes various park settings, activity areas, and outdoor gathering areas. Amenities include a market, cafe, and pet hotel. It will provide much-needed community, social, behavioral, wellness, and medical services to the local population.

  • Delivery Method: Design-Bid-Build
  • Cost: $1 million
  • Size: 101,000 SF

North Valley Hospital is currently undergoing a large-scale HVAC renovation to improve occupant comfort and indoor air quality. Three large rooftop air handling units as well as multiple energy recovery ventilators, variable volume terminal units and exhaust fans are slated for replacement to upgrade an aging infrastructure. The goal of the commissioning process is to ensure that systems are operating at their peak and to reduce issues that are commonly related to design and installation. P2S is meeting these goals by providing design review, site visits, pre-functional verification, functional performance testing, test and balance verification and trend data review on the project. P2S also seeks to keep the owner involved in the process with regular commissioning meetings and project updates to track the progress and effectiveness of the commissioning process. This project is in progress, but is currently on time and on budget.

  • Delivery Method: Design-Build
  • Cost: $1.7 Billion
  • Size: 501,000 SF

P2S is providing mechanical and plumbing design for the 352-bed Inpatient Replacement Tower which will house acute care patient beds and essential services, such as inpatient radiology, pharmacy, patient kitchen, labor and delivery rooms, intensive care units, acute psychiatric, medical-surgical beds, and observation beds for short-stay patients. The new warehouse, approximately 11,000 SF, under the jurisdiction of OSHPD, will support the campus' supply chain operations. This project is targeting LEED Gold Certification.

  • Delivery Method: Design-Build
  • Cost: $3.4 million
  • Size: 1,500 SF

P2S Inc. was part of a progressive design-build team tasked with building a new hybrid bi-plane operating room (OR) at the University of Washington Harborview Medical Center. The space, which functions as an imaging suite and operating room, is within a functioning group of operating rooms and sub-sterile core environment. Construction required a complete renovation with multi-phase delivery to minimize downtime for the adjacent operating rooms, sterile core, and surrounding corridors. The existing floor slab and mezzanine levels were reconfigured to make the most efficient use of the space and to accommodate the structural requirements of new systems.

  • Delivery Method: GCCM - MCCM
  • Cost: $27.8 Million
  • Size: 100,000 SF

The approximately 100,000 SF renovation occurred in the blue building. Originally constructed in 1990, the blue building has a total of six levels of patient care. This project renovated the level two labor delivery recovery postpartum rooms, and the level four NICU and converted level five patient rooms to antepartum rooms. In addition to the renovated floors, a new Emergency Department dedicated to the labor and delivery function was designed to support newborns and families.

  • Delivery Method: Design-Bid-Build
  • Cost: $75 Million
  • Size: 150,000 SF

P2S provided MEP, Technology, and Low Voltage design services for the project. Additionally, P2S helped with utility service accommodation, site improvements for the surrounding buildings, and a 3D laser Scan of the interior of the first floor of the existing building. Connected to the 3-story building, a new 50,000 SF facility houses the Transplant Recovery Facility which has roughly triple the capacity of the previous recovery center in Redlands - making it the largest facility of its kind in the country.

  • Delivery Method: Design-Build
  • Cost: $223 Million
  • Size: 505,000 SF

The Martin Luther King Jr. Behavioral Health Center project is an adaptive repurposing of the former MLK hospital building. The 5-story, 505,000 SF building was demolished to the structural members and floors, then rebuilt with new MEPT services and distribution systems with supply service points of connection in the existing campus central utility plant. The renovations provide mental health services, including urgent care, outpatient, psychiatric health, substance abuse, and rehabilitation. The design-build team was led by HOK and Bernards in partnership with Los Angeles County Public Works.

  • Delivery Method: Design-Bid-Build
  • Cost: $106 Million
  • Size: 135,000 SF

The new VA San Diego Facility is an outpatient clinic that consolidates and expands the Veterans Affairs existing medical space in San Diego. It is expected that 600-800 patients will be treated daily at the facility. P2S provided mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and technology design as well as construction support services.

  • Delivery Method: Design-Bid-Build
  • Cost: $500 Million
  • Size: 600,000 SF

Kaiser Permanente Baldwin Park Medical Center is set to undertake an estimated $300 million infrastructure upgrade project. As part of the Design-Assist team, we’re providing our mechanical and plumbing design expertise for this replace and rebuild effort at the hospital, central utility plant building, and medical office building. Our team is working with the project general contractor and subcontractors in a “big room” setting, regularly coordinating with Kaiser’s Facilities Strategy, Planning and Design (FSP&D) Department and the project team to ensure design functions as intended.

We’re replacing existing air handling units, chillers, heat exchangers, cooling towers, humidifiers, fan coil units, exhaust fans, and controls. In the first phase, we are providing design options which will include sustainable design for each system to lower the building Energy Use Intensity (EUI) from 230 to 160. The strategies will include heat recover chiller design to save heat energy on the domestic hot water system, convert constant air volume distribution to variable air volume system, design air handlers with separate cold and hot decks to optimize economizer mode to name just a few of our improvements. The new Direct Digital Control (DDC) system will optimize the building’s energy use and will automate the entire HVAC and plumbing systems to minimize maintenance. This project received a CEC grant for its sustainable design to de-carbonize a large healthcare facility.

  • Delivery Method: Design-Assist
  • Cost: $230 Million
  • Size: 215,000 SF


Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas began construction on the new acute care Lusardi Tower and Lusardi Pulmonary Institute in June 2023. The $263 million project represents the final phase of a multi-phase expansion (Phase 1 included the Leichtag Foundation Critical Care Pavilion, completed in 2016). The project comprises a 224,000 SF new construction building with a full basement and 64 new med surge/ICU patient beds. Other major departments include six operating rooms, radiology (IR, cath lab, MRI, Spec CT), med surg, PACU, kitchen/cafeteria, pharmacy, clinical laboratory, and sterile processing. The tower will open by 2025, taking the hospital to over 230 patient beds.


The project consists of multiple construction phases and increments to minimize the impact on the existing acute care facilities on the campus. Multiple make-ready projects were required to house impacted staff and operations before demolition.


  • Delivery Method: Design-Bid-Build
  • Cost: $22 Million
  • Size: 60,000 SF

Our healthcare team worked on various aspects of this project designing systems for both the shell/core building and the tenant improvement buildout. We designed dry utilities and the greywater water system for the core building and coordinated with the LA Department of Water and Power for expanded electrical power utility at the building. For the tenant improvements, we expedited the process for the architect and designed low-pressure air distribution and ventilation systems; power distribution and lighting design; fire alarm and fire protection systems; and submitted all Title 24 energy calculations.

  • Delivery Method: Design-Bid-Build
  • Cost: $13 Million
  • Size: 5 Campus Buildings

The project for Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California, incorporates utility assessments and upgrades across multiple buildings across the hospital campus includes a new 12kV electrical utility service distribution lines on campus, to support the complete Master Plan development, and the rerouting of existing building service lines through underground tunnels and seismically complaint spaces. Building emergency power services are upgraded through new 4160V site distribution for increased capacity to support interior renovation projects and the connection of existing HVAC systems. Our work also included upgrades to the existing cooling systems in the Central Utility Plant for additional chilled water and condenser water capacity. Our team executed various designs around active acute care operations without impacting patient care including cutovers associated with exhaust and supply air systems in several buildings.

  • Delivery Method: Design-Assist
  • Cost: $50 Million
  • Size: 72,000 SF


Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas needed a new building to accommodate its growing demand for capacity. P2S helped design the new $94 million, 72,000 SF Leichtag Foundation Critical Care Pavilion (CCP) and central plant. In line with the Hospital’s focus on future development, the design called for constant re-assessment and forward-thinking considerations about the needs of the community in the next 50-100 years. The 2-story CCP includes 26 treatment rooms, a 36-bed medical surgery nursing unit, and airborne infection isolation rooms.


Because the hospital was so focused on preparing for future development, the design called for constant reassessment and forward-thinking about the needs of the hospital community in the next 50-100 years.
  • Delivery Method: Design-Assist
  • Cost: $215 Million
  • Size: 273,000 SF

The University of Washington’s Montlake Tower is a medical tower housing diagnostic imaging, surgery, and patient beds, including a 32-bed adult acute care unit, a neonatal intensive care unit providing care for 47 newborns, and an inpatient oncology unit. The eight-story superstructure has three inpatient floors and a dedicated interstitial space for mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems. A second design phase completed shell space in the Montlake Tower and renovations in the Pacific and Muilenburg Towers. This work involved five universal and two hybrid operating rooms, two intensive care nursing units, a medical/surgical nursing unit, and support areas.

  • Delivery Method: GCCM
  • Cost: $150 Million (estimate)
  • Size: 267,000 SF

The patient-centered principles of Virginia Mason's lean production system were used to design and construct the new Floyd & Delores Jones Pavilion in Seattle. This 19-story medical campus addition included emergency and critical care units, a new lobby entrance, and a pedestrian bridge. Double-tall floors on multiple levels provided a connection to the existing 17-story hospital tower. The design emphasized flexibility, allowing any floor to function as treatment, diagnostic, surgery, or patient space.


Scripps CCB (Done) (2013-6973)


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P2S provided Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing engineering design for the two-story Critical Care Building (CCB) with a new Central Utility Plant and emergency airlift helipad. The CCB consists of a new emergency department, procedure rooms, and med-surge patient beds. Because the hospital was so focused on preparing for future development, the design called for constant reassessment and forward-thinking about the needs of the hospital community in the next 50-100 years.

Scripps CCB (Done) (2013-6973)


Bold Text:Regular Text (For Specs)
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P2S provided Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing engineering design for the two-story Critical Care Building (CCB) with a new Central Utility Plant and emergency airlift helipad. The CCB consists of a new emergency department, procedure rooms, and med-surge patient beds. Because the hospital was so focused on preparing for future development, the design called for constant reassessment and forward-thinking about the needs of the hospital community in the next 50-100 years.