Hyundai New Corporate HQ Opens on Schedule, Thanks to Aeroseal
Hyundai’s new U.S. corporate headquarters was scheduled to open for business in just a few weeks. Furniture was arriving and the finishing touches were being made to the interior of the 6-story 500,000 sq. ft. building in Fountain Valley, California. So no one was happy to learn that building engineers could not get official sign off for the project because of excessive leaks in the structure’s four smoke evacuation shafts and the outside air shaft.
In Brief:
- Building: Hyundai US. Headquarters
- Location: Fountain Valley, California
- Engineer of Record: Glumac Aeroseal Provider: Aeroseal West Coast
- Goal: Meet code requirements for duct leakage. Stay on schedule.
- Before Aeroseal: 14,861 CFM of leakage
- After Aeroseal: 808 CFM of leakage
- Results: Code required 5% or less leakage. Aeroseal reduced leakage from 20% to 1.1% (a 95% reduction). The building opened on schedule.
Options for reducing the leakage and getting the shafts to pass code were examined. A top contender involved constructing scaffolding inside each of the 8’ x 6’ shafts and using a spray foam to seal the visible leaks in the drywall interiors. Calculations determined this would take months to accomplish and cost as much as $1,000,000 to complete. Still, there would be no guarantee that this would sufficiently reduce leakage. Then an engineer at Glumac mentioned a new technology called Aeroseal that seals leaks from the inside of pressurized ductwork. Glumac had used Aeroseal’s patented technology for a similar project in Las Vegas with successful results.
Hyundai engineers had never heard of Aeroseal. Skeptics thought it just seemed too good to be true. But with few alternatives and time running out, they decided to conduct a trial. At its conclusion, the computer printout of the results (created as part of the Aeroseal process) proved that it worked.
It took Aeroseal West Coast a couple of weeks to complete all five shafts. Leakage rates were reduced from 20% to 1.1% – well below maximum code requirements. The cost was just a fraction of the next lowest cost alternative. Best of all, the work was completed in time and Hyundai’s new U.S. corporate headquarters opened on schedule.
Testimonials
“I was more than skeptical. It sounded like one of those miracle products that slices and dices. The difference is that this actually worked perfectly. All the shafts were quickly sealed to levels well within the code requirements. Since it is a pressurized delivery system, it will find and seal all the leaks. It was a real project saver and I would definitely use Aeroseal again” (Bob Evans, Senior Project Manager, Hyundai U.S.A.).
“Fixing those leaks and getting signoff on the project meant nothing short of tearing into the newly constructed vents and starting over. This scenario would have the unacceptable consequence of delaying the building’s opening and running up costs. Then we learned about Aeroseal and it literally proved to be the project saver. With Aeroseal, we were able to effectively seal the leaks in just a matter of days. The entire cost of aerosealing was about equal to the cost of the scaffolding alone that we would have needed for the alternative option” (Brian Berg, Engineer of Record, Glumac).