Going Vertical with Ecommerce

Vertical Ecommerce Mechanical Infrastructure Thoughts

I was emailed a copy of an article that was published in Building Design + Construction magazine that stimulated some thought.  The article spoke about the trend in Ecommerce buildings to go vertical in order to fit their large square foot requirements into a smaller footprint.  This allows the Ecommerce company to put distribution and order fulfillment closer to their customers and meet the expectations of same day and next day deliveries.

This approach is obviously appealing to developers and the Ecommerce companies themselves.  However I would suggest that it can create some difficult challenges for the mechanical and electrical infrastructure.  By reducing the footprint of the building the available square footage for mechanical and electrical equipment on the roof is also reduced significantly.  Given that most of these buildings would be built in urban locations and will require large parking areas there will also be very little room on the ground for the infrastructure.

Another characteristic of Ecommerce buildings is the clear height requirements for racking and conveyor systems.  Although the building might be as tall as a normal 8 story building it might only have 3 levels inside.  This complicates the approach to the heating and cooling of the space and creates large volume spaces that must be conditioned for worker comfort and efficiency.

A traditional approach to an Ecommerce space is to install multiple packaged HVAC units on the roof with simple overhead air distribution systems.  The challenge that I see with the vertical ecommerce buildings is the lack of roof space for the packaged HVAC solution.  Even if the square footage could be allocated for large packaged units they will need to be located closer to the center of the roof and require huge ducts to move the air toward the exterior walls (so as not to interfere with racking systems) and then down through each floor.  Branch ductwork from these large main ducts would then be needed to serve the area of each floor.  The construction costs for such systems could be quite high...if it were even possible to use the large packaged HVAC units on the roof.

Mestex has been manufacturing a solution called Air Turnover for over 20 years and it seems this might be a better fit for these vertical buildings.  The Air Turnover concept places the HVAC distribution systems on the floor close to where they are needed...a similar concept to why ecommerce is going vertical...in order to put the source closer to where it is needed.

Since Air Turnover equipment can be built with cooling coils and electric heat internally the only equipment needed on the roof would be a single air cooled chiller.  The piping system from floor to floor would consume much less space (and require much smaller floor penetrations) than the duct system and would actually perform more efficiently due to the thermal characteristics of water.  Air Turnover units would typically be mounted along an outside wall and could even take advantage of fresh air cooling by installing wall louvers adjacent to the units.  The floor space required for the Air Turnover units would not be much greater than that required for the large duct systems and Air Turnover would also not require the branch duct systems.

There are other major advantages to the Air Turnover system in the areas of performance, efficiency, ease of maintenance, ease of installation, etc...but this article is long enough now.  If you are interested in those details please contact us at www.mestex.com and we can explain the advantages in more detail.