Laboratories
In a research or testing lab, the ventilation and exhaust are most of the work. We deliver lab MEP design, prepared for your engineer of record’s review, developed room by room — air changes, pressure cascades, and fume-hood capture engineered to support containment, environmental control, and occupant safety.
Ventilation and Safety, Built Around the Bench.
Air-change rates, directional pressure relationships, and fume-hood capture help decide whether the science is valid and the people are safe — and a lab conditions and exhausts air around the clock, so energy and safety pull against each other on many decisions. We design the ventilation and containment each space actually needs, with VAV exhaust and utilities routed so the layout can change as the research does — coordinated with your team and sealed by the licensed engineer of record on your project.
Lab Ventilation & Fume-Hood Exhaust
Capture and containment engineered at design, not balanced into compliance later.
- Fume-hood, snorkel, and canopy exhaust per ANSI/ASSP Z9.5 and NFPA 45
- Face velocities (typically 80–100 fpm, not exceeding about 120, above which containment can degrade) set at design and verified by ASHRAE 110 as-installed (AI) testing
- VAV fume-hood control holding face velocity across sash positions, with room air turned down to its minimum ACH when hoods are idle
- Manifolded exhaust with redundant (N+1) fans and failover sequences designed to maintain required exhaust after a single fan failure
- High-plume dilution stacks — 3,000+ fpm discharge, at least 10 ft above the roof — sized to limit re-entrainment
- Once-through (non-recirculating) supply matched to the chemical hazard
Pressure Cascades & Containment
Directional airflow that protects the product, the sample, and the people.
- Room-by-room pressure relationships — negative for containment, positive for product protection
- Dedicated, code-segregated hazardous-exhaust paths kept off general systems
- Tight temperature and humidity tolerances for analytical and metrology work
Critical Power & Instruments
Power that keeps samples, instruments, and exhaust alive through an outage.
- Standby/emergency power for critical exhaust fans, ULT freezers, and incubators
- UPS coordination for sensitive instruments and continuous data acquisition
- Bench and equipment power-density planning, with equipment grounding and bonding coordinated with instrument needs and isolated-ground receptacles where justified
- Power and controls per NEC; classified-area classification and explosion-proof wiring by others — we design the conventional power and controls around it
Lab Plumbing & Life Safety
Lab-grade water and safety fixtures done right.
- RO/DI and lab-grade water distribution; polishing packages by the vendor
- Acid waste neutralization coordinated — the packaged system is vendor-engineered; we design the lab plumbing and connections around it
- Emergency showers and eyewash per ANSI/ISEA Z358.1 — including the tepid-water (60–100 °F) supply and 20+ gpm drench flows that drive the domestic-water design to those fixtures
Flexibility & Coordination
Labs change faster than buildings — we design for it.
- Casework, utilities, and waste routed on a flexible grid for reconfiguration
- Overhead service carriers and modular bench/utility coordination
- BIM coordination with casework, equipment, and process-vendor packages
- ASHRAE 90.1 energy compliance balanced against safety-driven minimum airflow
- Distribution sized so the next renovation can be a connection exercise, not a demolition
Controls, Alarms & Verification
Lab safety depends on what the controls do when something fails — so the design writes it down.
- Fume-hood flow monitors with local audible and visual alarms at every hood
- Room offset control (airflow tracking) maintaining each room's specified pressure relationship to the corridor as sashes and hoods change
- Fault sequences: loss of exhaust shuts down the associated supply to reduce the risk of positive lab pressure, and airflow valves fail to a position chosen for the hazard
- Exhaust-fan and stack-discharge monitoring with alarms to the building automation system
- Occupied/unoccupied air-change setback only where the lab’s ventilation management plan under ANSI/ASSP Z9.5 allows it
- Sequences and airflow schedules written for the TAB contractor and the commissioning agent
We set face velocities at design per ANSI/ASSP Z9.5 and the owner's lab-safety criteria — typically 80 to 100 fpm, kept below about 120 by common practice — and size the exhaust and make-up air to hold them across sash positions. On VAV hoods we coordinate sash-sensing turndown so containment holds while energy drops. We then specify ASHRAE 110 as-installed (AI) testing so hood performance is verified with tracer gas in the field, not assumed on paper.
Yes. We design room-by-room pressure relationships — negative for chemical or biological containment, positive for product protection — with dedicated hazardous-exhaust paths and the air-change rates each space requires. Classified cleanroom suites — cGMP, USP 797/800, ISO 14644 — are designed by a cleanroom specialist; we design the base-building HVAC around that envelope.
Those two goals fight each other, so we resolve them in the design. Manifolded exhaust with N+1 redundant fans and standby power is designed to keep critical exhaust running through a fan or utility outage, while VAV hoods and lab-air controls turn the system down to safe minimum air changes when hoods are idle. High-plume dilution stacks then discharge at 3,000-plus fpm, with stack height and location set relative to nearby air intakes, to limit re-entrainment, all reconciled against ASHRAE 90.1 without falling short of the hazard-based minimum airflow the design establishes per NFPA 45 and ANSI/ASSP Z9.5.
Yes. We design RO/DI water distribution, and emergency showers and eyewash per ANSI/ISEA Z358.1. Acid waste neutralization is a vendor-engineered packaged system — the basin and the neutralizing media are sized and supplied by the manufacturer, so the system itself is by others. We coordinate it: connection points, vent routing, space and the conventional lab plumbing around it.
We route casework, utilities, and waste on a flexible service grid from the start, because labs change faster than the buildings around them. Overhead service carriers, spare exhaust and utility capacity, and modular bench coordination mean the next renovation can be a connection exercise rather than a demolition — which can reduce downtime and change orders for reconfigurations within the documented capacity and service grid.
That is decided in the design, not left to the controls contractor. Exhaust runs as a manifolded N+1 fan system designed to maintain required exhaust after a single fan failure; on a loss of exhaust the associated supply shuts down to reduce the risk of the lab going positive to the corridor; airflow valves fail to a position chosen for the hazard; and every hood carries a flow monitor with a local alarm. The sequences are documented so the commissioning agent can test each failure mode. The licensed engineer of record on your project reviews and seals the set.