Bull Valley Golf Club faced a primitive HVAC system in great need of efficiency improvements. Located in Woodstock, Illinois, Bull Valley Golf Club is a private club that’s consistently ranked among the top courses in America. In addition to hosting the club’s 250 members for 14,000 rounds per season, Bull Valley accommodates about 50 weddings every year for as many as 200 guests at a time — all from their 37,000-square-foot clubhouse.

With thousands of people visiting every year, Bull Valley needed to address deficiencies within the HVAC system of the 32-year-old clubhouse: in particular, the rooftop units.

“In the summer especially, the office would get really hot, practically unbearable,” said General Manager Brad Hisel. Employees would set the thermostat to 62°F to force it to be cooler, but the next day, they’d be locked out of the air conditioning completely.

One of Bull Valley’s own members — Mark Stranges of Rabine Mechanical — happened to work in the HVAC industry. He recommended the Siemens Climatix Rooftop Unit solution.

Bull Valley was evaluating the Climatix RTU solution at the height of pandemic-related closures in the spring of 2020. Before installing the Climatix RTU, Bull Valley wasn’t allowing people into the clubhouse, even to use the restrooms. The Siemens solution’s fresh air purge function, set to run once a week or on demand, gave the club the confidence to reopen. All throughout 2020, there were no COVID-19 cases that could be traced back to Bull Valley, and even on the hottest days in August, the offices upstairs are cool. Bull Valley grew its membership by 100% in 2020, due in part to the peace of mind afforded by the Climatix fresh air purge functionality.

Another priority with the project was to gain more visibility and better insights into what was happening with the equipment. The Climatix RT controller and mobile app create a combined, cloud-based solution that enables remote monitoring, which reduces unnecessary truck rolls associated with service and maintenance. When it’s time to commission a new unit, the mobile app’s guided wizard simplifies the setup procedure, making it easy to commission an entire system. Stranges said it now takes just 2 to 3 hours, with at least a 50% reduction in labor.

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