In 2019, Catholic Charities of Baltimore moved into a new office space in Timonium, Maryland.

The 144,000 square-foot location required a remodel so that it could serve as a new administrative office space for the local nonprofit organization.

Approximately 90% of the building’s Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system was antiquated and needed to be replaced with high-efficiency, higher-performing systems.

Fidelity Mechanical Services was contracted by the project’s General Contractor — Plano-Coudon Construction — to complete the HVAC portion of the building’s renovation.

Fidelity Mechanical Services' team of mechanical and plumbing engineers started by designing a detailed layout of the project. In addition, Fidelity Mechanical Services’ automation division, Benchmark Automation & Controls, was delegated to begin designing and installing the control systems for the new HVAC equipment.

To meet the objectives of increasing the performance of the building’s HVAC and mechanical systems, Fidelity Mechanical Services replaced the original Constant Air Volume (CAV) systems, which only offers one point of control for temperature, to Variable Air Volume (VAV) systems, where each zone throughout the building has its own temperature control. This change, as well as replacing the chiller and various air handling units, gave the building improved zoning control and conditioning, and much-improved energy-efficient performance.

Benchmark Automation & Controls installed the Schneider Electric EcoBuilding Struxture (EBO) software and hardware Building Automation System (BAS). This hardware utilizes state-of-the-art BACnet IP routers, switches, controllers, sensors, and end devices. It also consists of 38 VAV units for individual control of space conditions. At the core of the EBO BAS is a SmartX server (AS-P), which performs key functionality — such as control logic, trend logging, alarm supervision — and supports communication and connectivity to the I/O and field buses. The distributed intelligence of the EBO BAS ensures fault tolerance in the system and provides a fully-featured user interface through the work/web station.

This detailed automation system gives Catholic Charities the ability to monitor the site from anywhere in the world using common web browsers on Windows PCs, MAC OS computers, Android and iOS tablets, and smartphones. It also gives them the ability to view and manage graphics, alarms, schedules, trend logs, reports, and user accounts.

Through a detailed strategy, strong and consistent communication with Plano-Coudon Construction, and approaching each portion of this project with a Proactive World-Class Service mentality, Fidelity Mechanical Services completed the project on time and within budget.