Barilla America HVAC Upgrades

Since the Fall of 1998, the Barilla America plant in Ames, Iowa has produced most all of their pasta that is sold in the United States. Barilla pasta is made using some of the most technologically advanced machinery; in fact the machines used in the plant are the same that are used in their plant in Italy. Concerned about maintaining their high quality production standards, and machinery, it became evident that when several of their Air Handling Units and the make-up air system heating coils began to freeze, when outside conditions were below zero, that they needed to find the best to resolve this situation.

Barilla chose Baker Group to work directly with their staff to design, install, and upgrade a secondary heat exchanger system on a 100% make-up air system for air handler 3B. Barilla was so pleased with the work that they asked Baker Group to provide services to resolve the same issue with AHU 3A, 1 and 4 on the Mill roof.

The new systems consist of a closed loop, high pressure, high temperature, heated, glycol system with a brazed plate heat exchanger, circulation pump, and 3-way mixing valve to maintain loop temperature. The previous system was a high temperature, high pressure water system that froze when conditions outside were below zero thus shutting down
parts of the mill process.

Baker Group worked closely with Barilla to ensure that mill production still took place, even during construction. Plus, although there was a short window to complete required work, Baker Group completed the job on time.