Fighting Heat and Noise for the Retired Residents of St. Louis

Back in the summer of 2017, McCormack Baron Salazar, the nation’s largest for-profit developer, was in the thick of a substantial renovation of a St. Louis retirement facility.

The project was still far from completion, but the facility couldn’t wait for construction to wrap and a permanent HVAC system to be installed. The developer needed an interim positive air flow solution, particularly as the heat of summer settled in. Without that positive air flow, pockets of stagnant hot air can form and raise the temperature of the indoor facility well above that of the air outside. That’s not ideal in any facility but particularly one that serves the elderly.

The developer called in Sunbelt Rentals to help.

When our representative arrived on site, he determined that alleviating the heat was priority No. 1. Also on the list of priorities was noise reduction: The building under construction is a retirement facility, and the area where the equipment had to be set up was small and located very near an entrance and exit used frequently by residents.

Retirement facilities are an area of specialization for McCormack Baron Salazar, which has built more than 21,000 high-quality homes for families, children, seniors, and veterans since it was founded in 1973. And part of the mission in building facilities for retirees is ensuring a sense of peace and calm. That meant the positive air flow solution had to be effective, but quiet.

With that in mind, our representative got to work, engaging engineers, electricians, mechanical contractors, the developer, and the site owner in a series of conversations to design the best possible solution. Then, he brought in a 6000CFJ HCU Hybrid Desiccant Dehumidifier — which features high energy efficiency and the ability to optimize refrigeration-based A/C and desiccant-based dehumidification performance — and a 700K BTU Propane Heater, capable of heating tens of thousands of square feet for when the summer months faded to winter chill.

Over the course of a day and a half, our crew installed the necessary equipment and got it up and running. Then we brought in every demo barrier available throughout the Sunbelt Rentals network, each outfitted with noise reducing panels, to fence in the equipment and mitigate the accompanying sound effects.

More than a year later, our solution is still there, filling a temporary need while the developer finishes the work of providing something even better to serve the retired residents of St. Louis.