Case StudiesCustom HVAC Configurations for Custom Spaces

A new HVAC system significantly enhanced the comfort for the 178 students at St. James the Greater Catholic School. In fact, the school soon noticed that students increased their test scores because they were able to better focus on the teachers and not on the environment.

Franklin Park Middle School in Salem, Illinois, opened in 1980 and spans 82,398 square feet across two buildings. By 2021, four decades of use left many of the school’s facilities needing major renovations. Improvements would include expanded classroom space, a new parking lot, window replacements and, most significantly, an upgraded heating and air conditioning system to replace the outdated and inefficient system.

Hollis Primary School (HPS) has served its Hollis, New Hampshire community for generations. Housed within a brick masonry building constructed in 1952, HPS needed to be retrofitted to improve thermal comfort and the educational environment in a sustainable, energy-efficient way aligned with its community’s values. A new spray foam envelope for insulation, solar panels and Zoned Comfort Solutions® with Hyper-Heating INVERTER® technology proved essential to delivering energy-efficient comfort and transforming how happy students and staff experience their school. You’ll hear from the school principal and the energy-efficiency expert who worked with HPS and the school board through every stage of the retrofit.

The Covenant School was founded 30 years ago in Charlottesville, Virginia. The lower school, for students in pre-K through 6th grade, is located in a 65,000-square foot historic brick building dating back to 1935. With almost 300 students, faculty and staff members, the school needs to operate seamlessly. When an old boiler system became what board member Jay Taggart called a “ticking time-bomb,” the school knew a new heating system was needed. Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) from Mitsubishi Electric served as the ultimate answer to that need, providing zone control, air filtration and the added bonus of cooling. 

The Burton Center for Arts & Technology (BCAT) serves almost 800 high school students on its Salem, Virginia, campus. Students take classes on a wide variety of topics—including automotive technology, computer information technology, mechatronics, culinary arts, performing arts and cosmetology. When the school’s old HVAC systems needed replacing, the district’s attention turned toward technologies that could ensure comfort and efficiency. For the school’s front building—20,000 square feet of offices and classrooms—that meant Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) from Mitsubishi Electric.

The Hollis Montessori School (Hollis Montessori), Hollis, New Hampshire, is the first independent school in the country to receive Passive House certification. This certification denotes the school’s extreme energy efficiency and means the facility has met rigorous energy-saving standards. The certification also hints at the thoughtful education taking place inside the classroom walls. For example, students are welcome to interact with the facility’s various energy-saving systems. Students have been particularly interested in the equipment on the walls that keeps their classrooms comfortable and their school compliant with Passive House standards. That equipment is part of a Hyper-Heating INVERTER™ (H2i®) system from Mitsubishi Electric.

Kansas’ Dodge City Unified School District provides education to 7,000 students. As the district’s ten schools have gotten older and their noisy HVAC systems have impacted the students’ classroom experience, the district has set out to renovate the schools with sustainable HVAC technology. So far, three schools have been renovated; two schools have paired Water-source Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) from Mitsubishi Electric with geothermal technology. The resultant whisper-quiet operation provides these schools’ students with a better educational experience, while the energy efficiency provides the district with reduced utility bills.

Primrose Schools provide early childhood education at over 300 franchised locations across the country. One Florida location the Primrose School of South Tampa, serving students from six weeks old to first grade—stands out as a feat of engineering and construction. Its Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) system from Mitsubishi Electric is a big part of that showcase, and has helped the school earn LEED® Silver certification alongside impressive energy savings.

When Mark and Gretchen Biedron co-founded the The Willow School (Willow), Gladstone, New Jersey, their vision was to create a school that provides students with a space that celebrates learning and collaboration, and that fosters ethical relationships between people and the natural systems that support them. Sustainability drives both the curriculum and building design for Willow, so when the school was designing its fourth building – the Health, Wellness and Nutrition Center – the project team selected a Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) zoning system from Mitsubishi Electric.

St. Joseph School (St. Joseph’s), a small, private Catholic school in Pilot Grove, Missouri, has been in operation since 1902. Since its establishment, the school has been educating students between grades one through eight. After many years running on an outdated boiler system and noisy window units, the school needed to find a system that could efficiently cool and heat the 5,400-square-foot building year-round without disrupting day-to-day activities. The solution: Zoned Comfort Solutions® from Mitsubishi Electric.