Southland Industries Discovers Labor Saving of New Linkage Technology

Andy Cummings of Southland Industries has suffered through his share of cumbersome damper actuator installs.  With over 30 years of experience in the sheet metal industry, he knows that the process is not only time consuming, it can yield disappointing results if the connections are in any way unstable.  Damper blades can become twisted or bent,Belimo in Fort Belvoir Hospital linkages can bend or even break, etc.  Meanwhile, the last thing a busy design, build and maintenance firm like Southland Industries wants is to revisit a failed installation that was already labor intensive to begin with!

Unfortunately, the industry has not served up many solutions for this universally recognized problem; at least not until the release of the ZG-JSL jackshaft linkage. The company was so intrigued by the possibilities of this revolutionary new connection tool that they made arrangements to purchase the first 200 pieces Belimo released even though it would be months before the linkages were available.  The ZG-JSL’s release just happened to coincide with a fast track military project of Southland’s.  The contractor had already installed a 20’ x 40’ bank of dampers (and actuators) in the generator room at the new Fort Belvoir military hospital in Virginia.  However, these dampers proved unsatisfactory for the generator application because they did not provide the 100% seal that the Army Corp of Engineers desired to minimize heat loss from the generator room.  Because of this, Southland would have to remove and replace all of the existing brand new equipment – pushing the project’s already tight schedule to the limit. It was the perfect opportunity to try out the new linkage and see how much time it really saved.  Since Southland had already installed the exact same project using conventional angle plates and rods, it would also provide a perfect apples-to-apples comparison of the two installation strategies.

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