About this Project
The Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) Gutman Library is one of six main campus buildings and serves as the hub of the campus. The building is active 7 days a week and houses the campus café, the Gutman Conference Center, numerous classrooms and conference rooms, the library, student facing offices, and faculty and staff offices. As a vibrant and active facility, the mechanical upgrades required careful planning and minimal disruption.
TG Gallagher replaced the building’s original centrifugal chiller and gas-fired boilers with a new WaterFurnace modular chiller and four high-efficiency Aerco boilers. This project was unique because it incorporated a heat-recovery design: instead of rejecting waste heat from the chillers to the atmosphere through the cooling tower, that heat is captured and transferred to the building’s heating system. Every bit of recovered heat reduces demand on the gas-fired boilers, improving energy efficiency and lowering operational costs.
To support the installation, all chilled water, hot water, condenser water, and process (cooling tower) piping for HVAC was prefabricated, along with the gas piping to the new boilers for the plumbing scope. This approach minimized onsite disruption and improved quality and safety.
There were several safety and access challenges. Large pieces of equipment had to be demolished and rigged out of areas with limited access. For the chiller replacement, a louver on the penthouse wall was removed so the new equipment could be rigged through the opening, and the existing chiller was cut into smaller sections for removal. For the boiler work, all rigging had to be performed through a single rooftop doorway into the boiler room, requiring the existing boilers to be dismantled into manageable pieces.
Both the chiller and boiler replacements were tied to seasonal heating and cooling demands, so the team worked under a tight schedule. To meet critical deadlines and keep the library operational, TG Gallagher crews worked extended hours, including overtime and weekends.
