Engineering
Mechanical, Electrical, & Plumbing (MEP) Engineering
MZA offers a comprehensive approach to designing, managing, and maintaining building and facility assets, including equipment, utilities, and building infrastructure. In taking a systems approach to buildings, MZA provides a broad range of engineering services for facility owners and managers, including electrical, plumbing, structural, and civil engineering. All of these engineering disciplines, in conjunction with our building science and environmental expertise, are available on any building or construction-related project in commercial, governmental, educational, hospitality, and industrial facilities.
MZA provides comprehensive engineering project planning services, including feasibility studies and scheduling, cost estimating, and budgeting services on new projects as well as on renovation or site restoration projects.
Taking advantage of the synergy between our mechanical engineering capabilities and our industrial hygiene expertise, MZA has addressed unique analytical issues which typical engineering or industrial hygiene firms by themselves would not be qualified to handle. For example, MZA has studied the relationship between building ventilation rates and indoor air quality in many South Florida schools, which will potentially have far-reaching implications for building owners on IAQ, building performance, and energy efficiency. Using an ASHRAE methodology, MZA environmental experts have collaborated with MZA engineers to conduct evaluations of the schools' mechanical systems.
Industrial facilities also take advantage of MZA's engineering services. Services related to P&ID, environmental control, and worker protection requirements are also addressed in industrial environments.
Mechanical engineering services include gas systems and HVAC design for chilled water and split systems, package units, water and air cooled chillers designed specifically for the hot humid climate of South Florida. Electrical design services include building power and lighting, site lighting, and special systems such as telephone, data, life safety and fire alarm, paging, and security. Plumbing design services include domestic water and sanitary systems. Fire protection design services include wet and dry chemical systems.
Following is a more complete list of services offered:
Mechanical Engineering Services
- Mechanical and plumbing design
- Mechanical equipment condition analysis and field inspection services
- Chiller plant analysis and design
- Air flow study (NEBB certified)
- Water flow study (NEBB certified)
- Building commissioning services and Test & Balance (NEBB certified)
- Air distribution and building pressurization studies
- Kitchen hood air flow studies
- Fire protection systems analysis and design
- Fire sprinkler design
- Heat gain calculations
- Building code construction and life safety compliance inspections
- Value engineering
- Mechanical plan review
Electrical Engineering Services
- Electrical design
- Electrical equipment condition analysis and field inspection services
- Electrical load analysis
- Fire alarm design
- Lighting study and design
- Emergency generator design
- Intercom system design and retrofit
- Thermal imaging analysis or electrical equipment
- Electrical vault upgrade and switchgear design
- Electrical plan review
- Electrical load reduction
LEED Engineering Services
- All general MEP services required for New Construction or Existing Building O&M Design
- Modeling for credit EA 1 : Optimizing Energy Performance using Energy Gauge Summit Software
- CxA services for credit EA 3 : Enhanced Commissioning
An example of MZA's work in educational facilities is the School Board of Broward County, Florida (SBBC), one of the largest school districts in the United States. MZA has worked closely with the Facilities and Construction Departments of SBBC for many years under a continuing A/E Services contract to identify IAQ problems and design corrective repairs to these problems in troubled school facilities. We have hosted Key Committee IAQ Program Development meetings with the District that have facilitated the coordination of five critical departments to create a process for evaluating facilities that allows both short and long term planning and budgeting required to return buildings to a condition where they provide an optimal educational environment. Our evaluations allow the planning necessary to economically keep the facilities in top condition. To date, MZA has corrected HVAC and building envelope issues in over 100 school campuses for the school district.
During the course of our work at SBBC, MZA has:
- Performed in-depth building architectural and MEP condition evaluations;
- Performed MEP design services, construction management services, as well as bid, warranty, and commissioning services;
- Developed a uniform evaluation process for existing MEP and architectural systems;
- Collected detailed equipment condition data of architectural (roof and building envelope) and MEP systems (HVAC, electrical, and life safety) to identify immediate repair needs and perform design of long term repairs at each campus;
- Created Web-driven databases that graphically present all study data and design documents to allow multiple departments to coordinate the substantial tasks necessary to correct the architectural and mechanical systems on a facility-by-facility basis for more than 100 school and governmental facilities.
MZA's MEP engineering staff performs traditional engineering services, including the following:
- Preliminary design
- Cost estimating and Value engineering
- Detailed design
- Assistance with permitting
- Assistance with bidding
- Construction Management Services
- Warranty and Project Closeout assistance
Computer-Aided Drafting & Graphics
MZA has extensive in-house Computer-Aided Drafting (CAD) and graphics capabilities to generate engineering and architectural drawings and plans. Our studios include state-of-the-art plotting capabilities to generate standard as well as large-scale drawings.