This project, submitted by Going Green Home Solutions, was a complete HVAC renovation of a three-story house in Maywood, Illinois. The customer wanted to keep everything on a single zone, so load calculations determined proper sizes for second and third stories to ensure adequate airflow. Supply and return trunks were custom fabricated to accommodate the space requirements, and several transitions and offsets had to be fabricated to make it work. “We will still use a supplier for some standard straight duct and fittings, but most specialty fittings, transitions, and uncommon straight duct sizes we fabricate on our own,” says Going Green owner Christopher Muhammad.

“We try to design jobs with the most efficient fittings possible and that’s usually not possible with standard stock at HVAC supply houses.” Structural limitations were the most challenging part of the project. “Making duct layout very challenging,” says Muhammad. “Soffits had to be constructed and so we had a very small area to run supply and return trunks, without affecting the developer’s floor plan. We discussed several possibilities initially, but the decision was made to keep it single zone so that square footage would not have to be lost by adding a second unit to the second and third floors.”