Hospitality & Hotels
In hospitality, MEP failures become online reviews — a fan-coil that hums all night, a lukewarm shower at 7 AM, a smoky kitchen line, a clammy pool deck. We deliver MEP design, prepared for your engineer of record’s review, that is sized for a sold-out property, not just a design-day spreadsheet.
Guest Comfort Is an Engineering Spec.
A hotel combines many occupancies under one roof — guestrooms, commercial kitchen, ballroom, laundry, pool, back-of-house — each with its own air, water, and power profile, all sharing risers and a peak that hits at the worst time. We design to guestroom noise criteria, size hot water for the morning shower surge with design measures supporting the owner's ASHRAE 188 water-management program, and coordinate pressure relationships to limit kitchen, trash, and pool air reaching the corridors — all behind the seal of the licensed engineer of record on your project.
Guestroom & Common-Area HVAC
Quiet rooms guests sleep through, and common areas that hold comfort across wildly different occupancies.
- Guestroom VTAC, PTAC, vertical fan-coil, or VRF selection driven by noise criteria — NC-35 typical, NC-30 for luxury — with placement and attenuation to hold it
- Corridor make-up air keeping guestroom corridors slightly positive, so room odors stay out of the corridor instead of migrating room to room
- DOAS with energy recovery delivering ventilation per ASHRAE 62.1 / IMC occupancy rates
- Ballroom and banquet zoning for the swing from empty to packed, with CO2 demand-control ventilation
- VRF heat-recovery and central-plant options weighed against first cost, maintenance, and brand standard
- Vibration isolation and acoustic detailing keeping equipment noise out of sleeping areas
Commercial Kitchen & Laundry
The back-of-house systems that, balanced wrong, smoke up a dining room or pull doors shut.
- Type I and Type II hood selection and grease-duct routing per IMC and NFPA 96
- Make-up air balanced to the hoods so the kitchen holds neutral-to-negative and the dining room doesn't whistle
- Fuel-gas piping and regulators reconciled line-by-line against the kitchen equipment package per IFGC / NFPA 54
- Commercial laundry exhaust, make-up air, and dryer venting sized to the equipment
- Hood fire-suppression interlocks and shunt-trip coordination with the suppression vendor
- Grease interceptor sizing and indirect-waste routing to the local sewer authority
Domestic Hot Water & Plumbing
Hot water sized for the 7 AM shower surge, with measures supporting the owner's Legionella risk-management program.
- Peak-demand DHW plant sized to the morning surge — storage, recovery, and balanced recirculation so the farthest room isn't the coldest shower
- Water-management design support for the owner's ASHRAE 188 program: hot storage near 140°F (ASHRAE Guideline 12), an ASSE 1017 master mixing valve tempering distribution to about 130°F, and ASSE 1016 shower valves and ASSE 1070 devices at tubs and public lavatories (120°F max at showers and tubs; tempered water at public hand-washing fixtures under the IPC) for scald protection
- Recirculation loops held above the Legionella growth band end to end — returns designed to stay at or above roughly 125 °F at the farthest point — with the recirculation-pump controls ASHRAE 90.1 and the IECC require kept in the design and the energy cost documented
- Booster heating for dish lines and laundry
- Backflow prevention, floor drains, and indirect waste per IPC / UPC
- Storm and sanitary coordination through stacked guestroom and podium risers
Pool, Spa & Wellness
Natatorium and spa air that protects the guests, the structure, and the finishes.
- Dedicated pool dehumidification units sized for evaporative load, holding 4–6 air changes per hour
- Negative-pressure natatorium design that keeps chloramine-laden air out of guest corridors
- Corrosion-resistant ductwork and materials, with supply sweeping the deck and glazing to limit condensation
- Pool and spa make-up water through an air gap or RPZ backflow assembly per health code, backwash drainage, and pool, spa, and water-feature equipment power and controls coordination
- Spa, sauna, and locker-room exhaust and humidity control
- Outdoor-air rates per ASHRAE 62.1 for indoor aquatics
Electrical, Life Safety & Brand Standards
Power across mixed occupancies, code-compliant egress, and the franchise prototype reconciled to local code.
- Service and distribution sized for guestroom load diversity plus kitchen, laundry, and amenity demand
- Lighting and dimming/scene control across lobby, guestroom, and amenity, designed to brand and IES levels
- Fire alarm, egress, and life safety across assembly and residential occupancies per NFPA 101
- Sprinkler coordination to NFPA 13, or NFPA 13R where the adopted IBC permits, with the fire-protection engineer or contractor, who designs the system
- Emergency and standby power for egress, elevators, and life-safety systems
- Brand prototype standards (franchise PIPs) reconciled with the adopted local code before submittal
Yes. We design to the flag's prototype MEP standards and reconcile them against the adopted local code before submittal. Where a brand spec and the AHJ conflict, we flag it early and document the code requirement so your team can seek an approved brand deviation where needed. On conversions and PIP renovations we work from the existing building back to the new standard.
We size the domestic hot-water plant — storage, recovery, and recirculation — to the real morning surge, not a design-day average, so the building holds temperature when it's full. Then we design the temperature controls the owner's ASHRAE 188 water-management program relies on: hot storage around 140°F (per ASHRAE Guideline 12), an ASSE 1017 master mixing valve tempering distribution to about 130°F, and ASSE 1016 shower valves and ASSE 1070 devices at tubs and public lavatories (120°F max at showers and tubs; tempered water at public hand-washing fixtures under the IPC) for scald protection, and recirculation loops kept above the Legionella growth band end to end, with returns designed to stay at or above roughly 125 °F at the farthest point. That costs energy, so we keep the recirculation-pump controls ASHRAE 90.1 and the IECC require and document the basis for the licensed engineer of record on your project.
Yes — Type I and Type II hoods, grease-duct routing, and fire-suppression interlocks per the IMC and NFPA 96, with fuel gas reconciled to the equipment package under IFGC / NFPA 54. The make-up air is balanced to the hoods so the kitchen stays slightly negative, which helps keep smoke and odor out of the dining room and guest corridors. We coordinate the whole package with your kitchen consultant.
By engineering the pressure cascade across the building. Guestroom corridors are pressurized positive; kitchens, laundry, pool, and trash rooms are held negative with dedicated exhaust. We map those relationships at design rather than balancing them into compliance later, so air moves away from guest areas under normal operation.
Yes, and it's a space that punishes a generic approach. We size dedicated dehumidification for the evaporative load, hold the room negative to keep chloramine air from migrating into adjacent spaces, sweep supply air across the glazing and deck to limit condensation, and specify corrosion-resistant materials throughout — designed to ASHRAE guidance for indoor aquatic facilities so the structure and finishes last.