HMG & Associates Inc.

The Services We Offer


HMG brings an average employee experience level of 25 years to every project we design.  Owners and Architects can trust that our designs will be efficient and will meet the programmatic requirements of the project, including adherence to project budget and schedule.  Our services include:

  • Mechanical Systems Design
  • Electrical Systems Design
  • Lighting Systems Design
  • Plumbing and Piping Systems Design
  • Sustainable Design
  • Construction Administration
  • MEP Systems Forensic Analysis
  • Building Information Modeling (BIM)
  • Building Systems Visualization
  • Litigation Consulting
  • Historically Underutilized Business (HUB)

 

MECHANICAL SYSTEMS DESIGN

Excellent building mechanical systems are those that not only meet project programmatic and budgetary requirements, but also operate with energy efficiency, are easy to maintain and are quiet.  At HMG, we use our experience on a wide variety of project types to inform the design of every new system.  That experience includes:

  • Central Plants to 5000 tons
  • Thermal Storage to one million gallons
  • Data Center / Supercomputer hot aisle / In-rack cooling
  • Total energy 'heat wheel' heat recovery systems to 250,000 cfm
  • HVAC systems for BSL-2, BSL-3 & ABSL-3 laboratories, vivariums, and biotech manufacturing
  • Clean room systems to Class 10
  • VRF (Variable Refrigerant Flow) systems
  • Solar panel water heating systems
  • Chilled beam systems
  • Renovation of systems in historic buildings

 

ELECTRICAL SYSTEMS DESIGN

Electrical systems must be safe, reliable, and seamlessly serve the day-to-day needs of building occupants.  Whether it’s the optimum placement of a power receptacle, or the distribution of power to a 10,000 sq ft supercomputer, the engineers and designers at HMG have the knowledge and experience to deliver:

  • 35 kV to 120V systems design
  • Emergency power generation and UPS systems to seven MW
  • Server ranch power distribution
  • DC power systems
  • Specialty grounding systems
  • Fire alarm systems
  • A/V and telecommunication systems
  • Lightning protection systems

 

LIGHTING SYSTEMS DESIGN

Excellent lighting systems must respond to the individual needs of each space they serve.  Design of lighting requires close coordination between the Architect and Engineer, and our experience working with more than 70 Architecture firms in Texas and beyond has given us a unique perspective which we bring to every project, linked with our design experience, which includes:

  • Direct and indirect incandescent, fluorescent and LED lighting
  • Laboratory, Vivarium, BSL-3 and Clean Room lighting
  • DC Lighting Systems
  • Stadium and Parking Lot lighting
  • Theater lighting
  • Daylighting and occupancy controls
  • Accent and specialty lighting for high impact spaces

 

PLUMBING AND PIPING SYSTEMS DESIGN

The effective generation and distribution of building utilities will favorably impact the operation of any building. HMG has a wealth of experience in many types of plumbing, laboratory and process piping systems. We stay on the leading edge of equipment and piping material applications. Our experience includes the following:

  • Rain water harvesting systems
  • Laboratory cold and hot water, waste and vent systems
  • Instantaneous and tank type hot water systems
  • Solar water heating
  • Compressed air systems, including high purity compressed air
  • Liquid and gaseous nitrogen systems
  • Reverse osmosis, deionized and USP purified water systems
  • Vacuum and high purity vacuum systems
  • High purity and toxic special gas systems including manifolds and gas cabinets
  • Fueling systems

 

SUSTAINABLE DESIGN/LEED EXPERIENCE

To date HMG has designed 1,680,000 square feet of buildings awarded LEED Certified (320,000 sf), LEED Silver (660,000 sf) or LEED Gold (700,000 sf).  However, we believe that sustainability is more than a LEED award, energy efficiency, or water conservation.  Sustainable design is an attitude of bringing the best systems value possible to a project, within budget limits, that will lower building operating costs and minimize the building impact on the environment.  Our ability to approach each project with this attitude is based on our design experience:

  • Solar water heating arrays to 20,000 sq ft
  • Total energy heat wheel energy recovery to 250,000 cfm
  • Active chilled beam heating and cooling
  • Coordinated Architectural and Engineering design for optimized building envelope / orientation
  • Air handling unit condensate recovery
  • VRF (variable refrigerant flow) systems in lieu of VAV for office heating and cooling
  • Thermal water storage systems
  • High performance fume hoods in laboratories
  • Rain water harvesting systems
  • Gray water systems
  • Low flow plumbing fixtures
  • Green roof drainage
  • Daylighting and occupancy sensor lighting control systems

 

CONSTRUCTION ADMINISTRATION

For a project to succeed, the MEP systems design must be implemented properly during the construction phase. HMG has an excellent Construction Administration (CA) Department that supports the design team by assuring all systems are installed as intended. The CA process at HMG operates in the following simple and efficient way:

  • Construction records maintenance, update and review scheduling are through the CA department. All members of this group are very proficient in the use of electronic construction document software.
  • Review and response for submittals, shop drawings, requests for information, etc. are the responsibility of the design team engineers.
  • Construction observations are performed by the design team engineers.
  • The CA Department and design team engineers are in constant communication to assure timely response to project issues.


We are aided in our CA work by the fact that several members of our CA group have been employed in management positions in Corporate Maintenance groups, and with contractors. They bring practical viewpoints to our work that aid us in resolving construction issues in a timely manner.

 

MEP SYSTEMS FORENSIC ANALYSIS

Many of HMG’s projects are renovations of existing buildings, some of which are historical structures.  The accurate assessment of the condition of existing systems in these buildings is vital to development of renovation designs.  Over the years, HMG has developed excellent experience in assessing the condition of existing systems, including:

  • Testing for systems capacity
  • Verifying air and water systems flow and balance
  • Identifying indoor air quality problems
  • Troubleshooting control system operations
  • Estimating the remaining service life of existing system equipment
  • Preparation of facility assessment reports

 

BUILDING INFORMATION MODELING (BIM)

HMG has been on the forefront of BIM production in Central Texas since we purchased three AutoCAD Revit licenses in 2007.  Since that time, we have designed approximately 1.5 million sq ft of buildings using BIM, and we currently hold 21 Revit MEP licenses.  Today, we produce almost every project we deliver using BIM technology. Our capabilities include:

  • Production of BIM based project documents
  • Development of detailed 3D equipment families
  • Coordination with MEP subcontractors on system configuration, during design and during the shop drawing production process
  • Linkage of system parameters, equipment sizes and capacities, etc. to the overall system design

 

BUILDING SYSTEMS VISUALIZATION

As an adjunct to our BIM project document work, HMG has become very proficient in producing presentation grade 3D drawings to help illustrate system configurations, and 3D “fly through” videos of systems to illustrate spatial qualities and to coordinate between systems.

 

LITIGATION CONSULTING

HMG’s experience in MEP system design and construction, coupled with our Forensic analysis capabilities, has led to our ability to deliver consulting services when needed in MEP systems litigation.  Our engineers have worked with litigators on numerous cases in the past with a focus on:

  • Indoor air quality issues
  • Equipment adequacy for the intended service
  • System problems with regard to air and/or water pressure and flow

We are equipped to provide a thorough technical investigation and analysis of each claim including lab testing, calculations and diagrams as required, as well as deposition support for clients.

 

HISTORICALLY UNDERUTILIZED BUSINESS (HUB) PROJECT PARTICIPATION 

Due to the quantity of Public Sector project designs HMG performs, we regularly work with a variety of HUB certified Architects and Engineers. For projects with HUB participation goals, our expertise is blended with that of HUB firms to deliver a project that meets civic as well as programmatic goals.

Over the past few years we have developed a working agreement with one such firm, H2MG, LLC, which regularly delivers quality MEP services to a variety of project types. Our contractual agreement allows the two firms to share employees as needed to bring the best of each firm to a given project.