School District U-46 High School

South Elgin, IL
Type of Work: Heating and Air Conditioning
Architect/Engineer:
Armstrong, Torseth, Skold & Rydeen, Inc.
Minneapolis, IL
Contract Amount: $5.077 million

With a total of 58 buildings, including 5 high schools and 8 middle schools, School District U-46 is the second-largest school district in Illinois. IPS installed a complete HVAC system in District U-46’s new high school in South Elgin. The system is comprised of two absorption chillers, two boilers, and 18 air-handling units. Begun in March of 2003, this project was completed in June of 2004.

What made the project challenging? IPS had to have all its equipment onsite, because the HVAC system is in the center of the building. With such large pieces of HVAC equipment on the first and second floors (directly above each other) the system had to be in place as the building was built. Timing was critical, and there was no margin for error - with equipment this big, you couldn’t remove it without tearing it apart!

“If all of our mechanical contractors were like IPS, I’d probably be out of a job! They’ve done several of our elementary schools, and our high schools, and their work is always top-notch.

Normally, contractors do just what their contract calls for. IPS goes above and beyond that. They take a proactive approach, helping us to avoid problems down the road by pointing out potential pitfalls and ways we can make our projects more efficient early in the design process - when we can still do something about them.

I’ve been working with IPS for 10 years. They have a proven track record for construction, and they perform excellent service work as well.”

- John Kohler, Director of Construction Management, School District U-46