MEP Engineer Meeting
July 27th, 2011 | Back to Blog Listing
With the help of Matt from Cotera+Reed, we have located an MEP engineer for the project. The company is called Tom Green & Company Engineers and is incidentally run by a guy named Tom Green. To those unfamiliar with an MEP engineer, it stands for Mechanical, Electrical, and Plumbing. Basically these guys are responsible for figuring out all of the electrical (voltage and amperage) requirements for the property space, for designing conduit and electrical boxes, for designing and calculating A/C and heating systems, and for handling all of the water and wastewater connections. I haven’t seen any of the quotes yet, but I believe that the MEP is generally the 2nd or 3rd most costly part of this entire pre-development process.

There are still a number of things to consider for the project with respect to green development standards. We are definitely intending to utilize the large rooftop for photovoltaic connections (solar) (also shortened as PV), but we’re also considering implementing a geothermal system, particularly because I happen to have access to an existing well on the property. Evidently under Texas State law, I am free to use the water in this well as needed (which could be a big help in this case for irrigation considerations).


A commercial geothermal system diagram. The closed loop system is dug into the ground below or beside the building and acts as a giant thermal heat-sync.