Thread: HVAC Help Please
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Old 07-24-2007, 01:07 AM
Phillip Stojanik's Avatar
Phillip Stojanik Phillip Stojanik is offline
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Location: Houston, Texas
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Re: HVAC Help Please
Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt Hawley View Post
Thom,

Thanks for your reply.
I'm doing these inspection as QA inspections for a builder. He said the AHU only have the upper third supported and not the lower third.

The AHU are suspended with metal factory straps at all four corners connected to the units.

I'm not sure what he means when he says they do not have lower third support.
Matt,

Either your builder is testing your understanding of the code or he's inadvertently asking you to test his own understanding because he really just does not know himself. (I suspect the latter.)

What "you said"/"he said" make no sense to me personally in regard to HVAC equipment without further explanation and possibly some pictures.

I say this as a long time licensed HVAC contractor in the state of Texas and an ICC code certified mechanical contractor.

I don't personally live in Florida myself but I gather from Jerry Peck (who does) that Florida currently follows a locally appropriate hybrid of the International Residential Code (IRC).

Your builder is most likely working entirely out of context (just as Thom Walker pointed out earlier). M1307.2 within the IRC (and I suspect within the adopted FBC variation) has more to say about earthquakes and horizontal/lateral movement/displacement of top heavy installed appliances in seismic design categories E, D1, and D2 than it does specifically about horizontally installed HVAC equipment in Florida which resides in the same code based seismic zone as Texas where the posed threat of lateral/horizontal displacement where pipe breakage poses little or no specific threat.

Ask the Florida builder to take a look at the seismic maps associated with the FBC/IRC code from chapter 3 and see if Florida resides in seismic design categories E, D1, or D2 as opposed to C, B, A.

Matt,

Our primary concern here along the Gulf Coast [From FLA to TX] is from windstorm damage and not from earthquakes. Tell that builder to wake up and smell the coffee as it relates to his particular geographical area!

He would not be a West Coast "transplant" would he?

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