Harbor Freight Distribution Building 3

The Harbor Freight Tools project is a design/build conditioned warehouse that serves as the largest of the company’s national distribution centers. This one-million-square-foot expansion facility is connected to the existing one million square feet of warehouse space already under roof on the site. The expansion facility includes 8,000 square feet of new office space, vertical rack storage, conveyor lines, pick modules, and loading/unloading areas. A complete building management system is utilized for temperature control and monitoring of the facility.

The expansion facility’s warehouse space is conditioned using thirty-six Trane single-zone VAV packaged rooftop units with environmentally-friendly DX refrigerant cooling systems and natural gas heat for a total of 900 tons of cooling capacity. Hot gas reheat coils are provided on half of the units for precise humidity control throughout the space. Eighteen high-volume, low-speed (HVLS) fans near loading/unloading dock areas provide air circulation and limit stratification in these zones.

Office areas are conditioned using single-zone packaged rooftops with one unit designed as a variable volume and temperature (VVT) system due to varying space usage. Retrofit work in the existing facility included the removal of the air rotation units tasked with space heating. In their place, eight highly efficient, direct-fired make-up air units with variable-speed fans were provided for space pressurization and heating. Retrofit work was performed while the building was in use and did not hinder day-to-day operations, a great benefit to the owner.