Client Portfolio
Washington, D.C. · MEP Engineer: MIN Engineering, Inc. · Completed November 2014
Heffron was the mechanical partner to Pepco Energy Services on a design-build energy retrofit at the Harry S. Truman Building — the 2.5 million square foot Washington, D.C. headquarters of the U.S. Department of State — engineered to dramatically reduce GSA steam consumption across the entire facility.
The work was sequenced into a single summer cooling window, with one non-negotiable deadline: every new heating system had to be installed, commissioned, and operational before the winter heating season began.
Inside the Project
One Day, Nine Boilers
The Lift
Heffron scheduled one day to rig nine new condensing boilers from 23rd Street into the building’s new mechanical room. A 600-ton crane handled the boiler lifts alongside at least fifteen additional lifts that day — ranging from random-length 6-inch pipe to the new roof hatch itself.
Each of the nine boilers weighed more than 10,000 pounds. Every pick had to land on the first attempt, in sequence, with the street and the surrounding federal campus operating around the lift zone.
The Crew
Inside the building, more than forty Heffron pipefitters, welders, and plumbers installed 15,000 feet of pipe — working alongside Heffron’s subcontracted tradesmen running the support infrastructure for the new heating and domestic hot water systems.
The crew moved continuously across at least ten active work areas on different floors — including the roof — spread across two city blocks of occupied federal space.
Mechanical Scope
Heffron demolished five existing steam domestic hot water heat exchangers, six domestic hot water storage tanks, two cold water head tanks, and the remaining ancillary DHW generation equipment. Approximately sixty steam coils serving fifteen air handler units — spread across five mechanical rooms throughout the building — were removed in the same window.
In their place, Heffron installed two banks of four high-efficiency gas-fired hot water heaters for domestic hot water generation, and replaced the steam coils with new hot water coils served by nine new 6 MBH gas-fired condensing boilers. Three new 75-hp pumps with variable frequency drives and supplemental harmonic protection moved the new hot water through the building.
Mechanical Scope
Coordination
Heffron had to navigate the logistical realities of operating at every corner of a 2.5 million square foot building one block from the National Mall. Ten-plus work areas across multiple floors and the roof were active for the entire duration of the project, each at a different stage of progress.
The schedule held because of the coordination between Pepco Energy Services, the State Department’s Facility Management Team, the Facility Security Detail, the Building Operations and Maintenance Contractor, and Heffron — and because of the daily discipline of a team that has been delivering federal work in Washington, D.C. for over a century.
Partner with Heffron
From design-build energy performance contracting to live-site boiler swaps in occupied federal headquarters, Heffron self-performs the mechanical work your schedule can be built around.
