Romtec designs, manufactures, supplies, and installs buildings and structures that serve a wide range of applications. In many of our building models, plumbing, HVAC, and electrical systems are significant features to the functionality of the building. This is true with restrooms, concession buildings, shower buildings, and more. In each of these buildings, one feature is at the heart of the buildings. That is the building mechanical room. This space is integral to the ongoing maintenance and repair of the major systems in the building. Getting the most out of a mechanical room can be a challenge, but providing ample space in this area can benefit a building and an entire facility.
Valued Space Behind the Scenes of a Public Restroom
Despite its importance, people who actually use public buildings, like park guests, don’t directly interact with the mechanical room. It can be easy to want to ignore this space and provide more amenities in the areas where people will use the building. At Romtec, we see this all the time, and there is nothing wrong about that inclination. Providing a good user experience is a terrific goal. We also see organizations that value the mechanical space as being a tool to promote a good facility. This type of building design tends to be very successful because these organizations facilitate building maintenance with better facilities.
A Room for Park Features
Many facilities encompass multiple types of activities at a single site. This can include a concession stand and a sports park or a restroom at a pool. In many circumstances, there are additional operations that take place at the park. This can include things like lighting, irrigation, splash pad controls, pool filters, security systems, park Wi-Fi, and much more. These utilities can sometimes be afterthoughts, but if discussed up front, many projects have benefitted from including these features into the mechanical room. Many Romtec models include expanded space in the mechanical room specifically for these types of auxiliary systems.
A Room for Utilities and Storage
Although these types of park features are common, an expanded mechanical room can also serve more mundane purposes. It is also common to use the mechanical room as a storage room for cleaning supplies and restroom toiletries. In addition to the supplies, there are useful components that require extra space like large wash basins, water heaters, HVAC/heat exchange systems, emergency showers, eyewash stations, and other maintenance oriented items. Extra space opens up a lot of potential for increasing the capabilities of a building. It is also simply a benefit of having more space to work. For maintenance personnel, extra space can lead to brighter, cleaner, and better maintained utilities for the building. This type of attention can create a ripple effect that also improves the publicly accessible areas of the buildings as well.
Planning a Mechanical Room Design
Mechanical rooms are utilitarian by nature, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t benefit from extra consideration when designing the space. Romtec has completed successful projects with bare bones mechanical rooms and with projects that include integrated rooms for multiple park functions. There is no wrong or right way to design a mechanical room. The only problems that arise are from a lack of planning. If you realize after construction that you need extra space, it can be difficult or impossible to add it. It also can be expensive. We recommend considering the mechanical space during the design so that you get all the space you need to make your new building a success.
