Spencer Engineers, Inc. (SEI) is the AE of Record and/or Gerald Spencer, P.E. is the MEP Engineer of Record for the design and the construction of many Food Service Facilities.  These projects are listed as follows:

USAF Lackland AFB - 37CONS - Lackland AFB, Texas - May 2002 - Revitalize Live Oak Dining Hall - Building 5450, 1655 Selfridge - Building 10810 Mr. Fred Mengdon - 210-671-1541 - Gerald Spencer, P.E. designed a new bulk food storage addition and other modifications and up-grades to this existing dining hall.  SEI was the AE of record for the design and the construction of the modifications to this facility.

The kitchen cooking area was designed to facilitate revised food menus. The serving areas were re-designed to facilitate new equipment that reflected the revised food desires of today's recruits. Most of the food service equipment was replaced. The food preparation equipment was replaced. The dining area was re-furbished with new carpets and wall finishes. The building was reconfigured to incorporate indoor waiting lines for use in inclimate weather. The kitchen was initially air conditioned with evaporative coolers. The evaporative coolers did not work and had been disabled for many years, leaving only the ventilation portion of the system in operation. We designed a chilled water cooling system to provide HVAC for the entire facility, including the kitchen. Auxiliary make up air to the cooking hoods will be heated with direct gas fired units. This is the same as the original scheme for cooking hood auxiliary air to the cooking hoods.

The Live Oak Dining Hall has a gross area of 25,044 SF. This facility was designed in 1986 and opened in 1988. This dining hall serves 500 breakfast meals, 1000 lunch meals, and 600 dinner meals each day, seven days per week. The dietary preferences of the airmen have changed to the point that more individualized service is desired. The food service layout changes and cooking equipment changes are requested to meet this different menu requirement. The existing cooking equipment is generally at the end of its economic life, and in need of replacement.

The area above the ceilings is not now used for return air (RA). This is not a requirement of the building fire proofing of the steel frame construction. The building is fully protected with an automatic fire sprinkler system. The Uniform Building Code 1997 will allow for this building to be as large as 27,000 square feet without fire rating. There are fire partitions as indicated on the existing drawings that separate the serving area from the main kitchen. The areas above ceilings may be used for RA. If the ceilings were required for fire protection, then we would have had to install fire dampers in each grille. We will use the volume above the ceilings for return air plenum in the dining area and in the serving area. We do not recommend using the area above the ceilings for RA in food preparation areas, scullery areas, or in the bakery area. We could, but the grease build-up might get very expensive to remove. We are designing large sheet metal RA plenums above the ceilings with access from a ladder to enable the easier cleaning of the RA ductwork.

A Distributed Control System (DCS) will supervise, reset and control multiple stand-alone Direct Digital Control (DDC) Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC) to form an integrated control system to vary the OSA supplied to the building as required to maintain a positive pressure in the building, relative to the barometric pressure outside of the building. As the exhaust hoods are manually turned on by the kitchen personnel, the building negative pressure sensed in the kitchen will fall and cause the OSA dampers to introduce more OSA into the building until the building static pressure is restored to the desired set point. The same will occur when exterior doors are manually opened and closed. This OSA VAV system will minimize the amount of OSA intake to the minimum amount needed to perform the mission of cooking for and feeding the troops. This OSA requirement varies during the day and varying the OSA according to the varying OSA requirement will be effective energy conservation: