Commercial Tenant Improvements: The Ultimate HVAC & Plumbing Guide for Edmonton Business Owners
All right, I’m back with Adrien Hinse from Hinse Brothers, and today we’re going to take a little detour off of the residential plumbing and HVAC that you guys are famous for in Sherwood Park and Beaumont. We’re going to talk about commercial work today.
So, we’re going to talk about tenant improvements and the different things that you guys do for people who are wanting to develop their commercial space. So, let’s jump right in. Where did you want to start? Did you want to start with the HVAC or did you want to start with plumbing?
I can start with HVAC.
Sure.
How Commercial Tenant Improvements Start
Okay. So, when people are doing a tenant improvement, what does that process usually look like? Do you come with a set of plans already engineered, or how does that usually go?
So, every tenant improvement is a little different. So, you could be moving into a brand new space. In a brand new space, what you’re going to get is basically, not all the time, but you usually get a rooftop unit. It’ll just be vented into the space, thermostat hanging there, ready to go. Right.
You will have to get with an architect or engineering firm. They’ll put together your plan for you. They’ll come up with the mechanical plan for plumbing and HVAC, gas, what have you.
And then what we’ll do is we’ll come do a site visit. We’ll take the plan, and we’ll come up with an estimate for you to do that work, right? And it’s pretty straightforward, but it does take, it’s a bit of a process. So, we do a lot of work in Edmonton as well.
And there’s a little bit of red tape, so you need to know how to navigate that, right? You got to make sure everything’s done in precise order, right? So, once you’ve got your building permit, you get your trades permits, then it’s we get to work, right? Get the work done so each trade can get in there and do their work. Typically HVAC will get done first.
At least the majority of the work.
Bigger equipment, bigger duct work, what have you. It’s got to all be installed. Usually we need a man lift on site.
So you’ve got that type of situation.
You’ve got medical offices that need return air separate in each space. Exhaust, ventilation is really important as well. So you’ve got commercial kitchens, like we’re looking at doing one in South Edmonton. There’s a grocery store. It’s got a commercial kitchen in it. A fish station. It needs really good ventilation in that space. Right.
So another thing to look at, we have to do a site visit, is to make sure what’s been engineered can be put into place at your facility.
Yeah, that’s always a key thing. Like back when I did electrical, it was always, where were the conflicts, right, between HVAC, plumbing, and electrical. Because they all seem to be going in the same space at the same time with different equipment. And of course, HVAC always won because they’re bigger.
No, that’s awesome. So, when somebody is wanting to do a commercial space, let’s say, so that’s in the event of a new build, right? So, you’ve got engineered drawings.
Hopefully, you’ve got an engineer who’s made up the HVAC plan and all of that.
Renovating an Existing Commercial Space
But now, let’s talk about a space that, let’s say, is being renovated for a new type of shop. What is the process? Must be similar, but what do you have to do in that?
It is a similar process. If you’re going like for like, so if it’s just an office space going to be another office space, a lot less changes will be needed to make.
One of the major things though is fresh air requirements today. You might notice when you go into an older building, you’re not going to have as fresh of air. It might be a little bit stuffy, that type of thing.
New requirements have a fresh air need. And so, we just have to make sure what you have is compatible with new code, right? So, it’s always important to get an engineer involved. They put their stamp on it. There’s a lot less questions to be asked when it gets time to issue the permits.
Yeah. So, when it comes to the permits, is that something that Hinse Brothers Mechanical helps with, or is that all done via the general contractor?
So, either the general contractor or your engineering firm will actually initiate your building permit, and then from there they’re going to issue your plumbing, gas, electrical, HVAC permits as well.
And then from there, if it’s not completely planned out, we’ll have to send in a plan. So, we’ll have to basically come up with a plan, send in a drawing for them to review and make sure that requirements are met and the space will be up to current code, right?
So, you have enough there for the heating, for the AC, for the air exchanging, and also, what about sizing the equipment for the space? Do you do that as well?
Typically, it’s already sized before. So, usually there’s a rooftop unit, there’s some source of heat for the space, and then we work with the existing equipment for your new space is the most common situation.
Another thing too is balancing of the air. So, you don’t want to have a cold space here, hot over here, right? We want to make sure that we get a proper balance of air flow in each space, like each office and bathroom.
And when do you do that? Do you do that after all the main construction is done, you come back afterwards and do all the balancing?
Yeah, typically after main construction’s done, you may need to do some cleaning of your duct work. And we’ll do our balancing and provide a report for the engineer after that.
Okay. Well, let’s shift into plumbing.
Plumbing Requirements for Tenant Improvements
So, when it comes to plumbing in a new space, let’s say it’s an office space or maybe a restaurant, different needs there. So, what’s the process like there? Is it the same kind of deal where you have to have an engineer provide drawings for all the plumbing?
Yeah. So, an engineer most likely provides you with your water requirements, your drainage requirements, and puts together a plan.
Often that doesn’t quite work with what you have. So, sometimes we’ll have to go into the space. We’ll have to look, where are your cleanouts? Where can we tap into the existing plumbing?
What are your hot water requirements? Do you want a recirculation line? If you’ve got a bathroom at the opposite end of the shop, you’ll never get hot water there, right? So, do we need a recirculation to have hot water at every location quickly? So, it’s important to kind of nail down all the details.
And do you need grease traps? Are you working with greasy foods? Are you basically anything with a commercial sink, like two basin commercial sink will require some sort of a grease trap.
We can either put those in the ground or underneath the sink.
So yeah, it’s really important, get a contractor who’s familiar with the requirements and that. We had one unfortunate customer put out a bunch of money, get all the HVAC and plumbing work done, and they got halfway through and they’re like, “We’re out of money. We can’t do the rest of the work.”
So, that type of thing shouldn’t happen. We can give you a pretty firm price unless something crazy kind of pops up and you can plan based around that, right? It should never be an open-ended project where you don’t know how much it’s going to cost you, right?
Yeah.
You have the plans, you have the building, you have everything there. It’s on us to make sure that everything’s covered, right?
Yeah. So, what can people do to avoid that particular problem?
Well, start getting a good general contractor. We work with several of them that are very detail oriented. Make sure you’ve got a good engineering firm and all your trades people are vetted.
So, they’ve got WCB, they’ve got insurance, you name it. They want to make sure that they’ve got experience doing that type of work as well.
Yeah. And can give you an accurate price as opposed to a low ball price, and then you think you’re paying the low ball price and you’re actually not.
That’s a common issue. We’ve come across quite a few projects that are partially finished, still at inspection stage, and the contractors have been removed from site, and you’re left with right bit of a mess, right?
Yeah. Yeah. And you come in and you rescue it hopefully, if they have to finish.
It has to get finished one way or another, right?
That’s right.
You’re three quarters of the way through a project. Last thing you want to do is look for a new plumber or new HVAC or anything like that, but it happens, right?
I guess that’s a good thing about Hinse Brothers Mechanical. You guys do all the HVAC, you do plumbing, you do all of that stuff that has to do with anything that could be done with tenant improvement or any other type of commercial space, even multifamily dwellings.
So, I don’t know if you want to dive into multifamily, but there’s a lot of similarities there.
Yeah, I’d say one of the nicest things of having the different trades all together is we work together. So, we can all have a site meeting and be like, “Hey, I need this space. I’ve got to work here. Where are you going to run your stuff?”
Coordinate with each other. So, there’s a lot less conflict between the trades on our end. And we try to work with electrical contractors as well, just try to make sure the project goes as smoothly as possible.
We do hydronic heating as well, which is quite common in multifamily complexes. A lot of fourplexes that are actually eightplexes, right.
Yeah.
That type of thing. So, you got to be pretty versatile in order to switch from forced air to hydronic to different plumbing needs, the gas, that type of thing, right? So, we pride ourselves on trying to be as versatile as possible.
Yeah.
So, we can kind of do whatever project comes our way . That’s what we try to do.
Nice. And it shows by the amount of five-star reviews you guys have on your Google account. So, you can only get those by actually doing good work and getting good responses from your customers.
So, is there anything that we missed talking about, anything with commercial projects?
Planning Commercial HVAC And Plumbing Projects Early
I just want to point out it’s really important to get with your planning team and get started early. A lot of times you think you’re going to have a project done by this point in time, but realistically, if you’re working with engineering and the city plus your trades, there’s a lot of preparation.
You want to get equipment ordered soon as well. Sometimes rooftop units are 8, 12 weeks away depending on your needs.
And so we want to start a good planning spreadsheet and put all the different contractors. Get all your subcontractor quotes together. Just really be on top of planning.
Yeah. And when it comes to rooftop units, ensuring you got a crane company that’s going to be available for that time when you need it.
Yeah. They’re usually pretty available for that type of thing. It’s mainly getting the equipment.
Yeah. Yeah.
Getting it delivered if it’s specific. Some if it’s not really common sizes or the larger equipment is usually built on demand, right? They don’t just stock 15 ton, 20 ton rooftop units. Very often you build it to spec, right?
Gotcha. Okay, awesome. Well, thanks so much, Adrian.
Yeah, I wanted to take some time and talk about commercial tenant improvements with Hinse Brothers Mechanical. And of course, they operate out of Edmonton, Sherwood Park, Beaumont, really anywhere in the greater Edmonton area.
So, if you have a commercial space and you’re looking for a good trades company that can help you with that, HVAC, plumbing, all of that, look no further than Hinse Brothers Mechanical.
And if you’re a general contractor in the Edmonton area, of course, you can give them a call and have a sit down, have a coffee with Adrian. He’ll be able to kind of show you what they’ve done in the past and give you a whole list of companies that they’ve worked with and had successful projects.
So, that’s it for me. Thanks so much and we’ll see you guys on the next video.
Thank you.