What Contractors Need to Know About Data Centers- High Fire Podcast
Data centers are one of the fastest-growing markets in industrial construction — and contractors who don't understand heat load testing, liquid cooling, and commissioning are getting left behind. This episode breaks it all down.
Kyle Brumley (WARE), Kyle Higginbotham (Armstrong International), Alex Taylor (WARE Rental), and Patricia Provo (Armstrong Continental Leader) cover the full picture: why AI is driving hyperscale data center construction, how heat load testing with steam boilers actually works, what keeps chiller commissioning from going sideways, and how waste heat recovery is turning a problem into a resource.
A one-week delay on a 100MW data center can cost up to $300 million in lost revenue — and most costly mistakes come from contractors who didn't plan early, didn't understand the cooling system, or didn't bring the right partners in at bid time.
WARE provides temporary heat load testing equipment — steam boilers, heat exchangers, deaerators, and full system support — for data center chiller commissioning. Armstrong International, now a WARE owner, supplies air vents, flow meters, evaporative media, and heat pumps for the same facilities.
📋 CHECKLIST from this episode
5 things to lock in before your first data center thermal job:
1. Get load testing on the schedule at bid time — not as a change order.
2. Know what's in your cooling fluid (PPG 25? More?) and its operational limits.
3. Confirm fuel and power availability for the testing equipment before it shows up.
4. Verify your vendors are experienced AND can actually support the job with parts and service.
5. Engineer for present AND future density — these facilities are only getting denser.
Need heat load testing for a data center project, or looking for cooling system components?
Contact Armstrong:
https://armstronginternational.com/contact/
Contact WARE:
https://www.wareinc.com/boiler-rentals/data-center-chiller-testing-rental-boilers
Timestamps
0:00 - Intro & Guest Introductions
3:05 - Why Data Centers Are Exploding Right Now
5:05 - Water, Cooling, and Power Density Explained
6:48 - How WARE's Rental Equipment Fits Into Data Center Commissioning
8:32 - Liquid vs. Air Cooling & Why Hyperscale Changed Everything
10:34 - What Makes Experienced People Shake Their Heads On-Site
13:23 - Heat Load Testing Explained for a First-Timer
19:18 - The North Dakota Job: A Real Hyperscale Case Study
22:56 - Where Chiller Tests Actually Get Botched
25:51 - PUE Explained in Plain English
27:35 - Humidity, Servers, and Why 40–60% RH Matters
28:43 - Evaporative Cooling: How a Wet Pad Cools a Building
32:32 - What Contractors Can Do in Month 3 to Win in Year 3
34:08 - Waste Heat Recovery: The Frankfurt District Heating Project
37:59 - Armstrong's Heat Pump Work and Plant Waste Heat
40:04 - Most Expensive Mistakes on Data Center Projects
44:45 - The First Thermal Job Checklist (5 Items, 5 People)
48:10 - WARE + Armstrong: One Family, Two Specialties
52:16 - Outro
Related search terms
data center heat load testing, chiller commissioning boiler, temporary steam boiler rental data center, hyperscale data center cooling, liquid cooling data center air vents, PUE power usage effectiveness explained, data center waste heat recovery, evaporative cooling data center, chiller loop testing contractor, Armstrong International air vents data center, how to commission data center chillers, data center humidity control humidification
Related Search Q&A
What is heat load testing for data center chillers?
Heat load testing uses temporary steam boilers and heat exchangers to simulate the thermal load of IT equipment, allowing contractors to verify that chiller systems are correctly sized and piped before live servers are connected.
Why do data centers use so much water for cooling?
Nearly 100% of the electricity powering a data center is rejected as heat, so large cooling systems — chillers, cooling towers, or liquid cooling loops — are required; water consumption depends on which cooling method is used.
What is PUE in a data center?
PUE stands for Power Usage Effectiveness — it's the ratio of total facility power to IT equipment power. A PUE of 1.5 means for every 1kW to the servers, another 0.5kW goes to cooling, lighting, and fans.
What causes chiller commissioning to fail or get delayed?
Common causes include undersized or unavailable rental equipment, poor site planning for equipment placement, fluid chemistry issues (like thermally degraded glycol clogging air vents), and contractors without prior experience on this scale.
Can data center waste heat actually be reused?
Yes — a Frankfurt project recovered heat from a 14MW data center to supply 60% of the heating needs for a 1,300-apartment community nearly half a mile away, using a heat pump to upgrade the heat to usable temperatures.
Kyle Brumley (WARE), Kyle Higginbotham (Armstrong International), Alex Taylor (WARE Rental), and Patricia Provo (Armstrong Continental Leader) cover the full picture: why AI is driving hyperscale data center construction, how heat load testing with steam boilers actually works, what keeps chiller commissioning from going sideways, and how waste heat recovery is turning a problem into a resource.
A one-week delay on a 100MW data center can cost up to $300 million in lost revenue — and most costly mistakes come from contractors who didn't plan early, didn't understand the cooling system, or didn't bring the right partners in at bid time.
WARE provides temporary heat load testing equipment — steam boilers, heat exchangers, deaerators, and full system support — for data center chiller commissioning. Armstrong International, now a WARE owner, supplies air vents, flow meters, evaporative media, and heat pumps for the same facilities.
📋 CHECKLIST from this episode
5 things to lock in before your first data center thermal job:
1. Get load testing on the schedule at bid time — not as a change order.
2. Know what's in your cooling fluid (PPG 25? More?) and its operational limits.
3. Confirm fuel and power availability for the testing equipment before it shows up.
4. Verify your vendors are experienced AND can actually support the job with parts and service.
5. Engineer for present AND future density — these facilities are only getting denser.
Need heat load testing for a data center project, or looking for cooling system components?
Contact Armstrong:
https://armstronginternational.com/contact/
Contact WARE:
https://www.wareinc.com/boiler-rentals/data-center-chiller-testing-rental-boilers
Timestamps
0:00 - Intro & Guest Introductions
3:05 - Why Data Centers Are Exploding Right Now
5:05 - Water, Cooling, and Power Density Explained
6:48 - How WARE's Rental Equipment Fits Into Data Center Commissioning
8:32 - Liquid vs. Air Cooling & Why Hyperscale Changed Everything
10:34 - What Makes Experienced People Shake Their Heads On-Site
13:23 - Heat Load Testing Explained for a First-Timer
19:18 - The North Dakota Job: A Real Hyperscale Case Study
22:56 - Where Chiller Tests Actually Get Botched
25:51 - PUE Explained in Plain English
27:35 - Humidity, Servers, and Why 40–60% RH Matters
28:43 - Evaporative Cooling: How a Wet Pad Cools a Building
32:32 - What Contractors Can Do in Month 3 to Win in Year 3
34:08 - Waste Heat Recovery: The Frankfurt District Heating Project
37:59 - Armstrong's Heat Pump Work and Plant Waste Heat
40:04 - Most Expensive Mistakes on Data Center Projects
44:45 - The First Thermal Job Checklist (5 Items, 5 People)
48:10 - WARE + Armstrong: One Family, Two Specialties
52:16 - Outro
Related search terms
data center heat load testing, chiller commissioning boiler, temporary steam boiler rental data center, hyperscale data center cooling, liquid cooling data center air vents, PUE power usage effectiveness explained, data center waste heat recovery, evaporative cooling data center, chiller loop testing contractor, Armstrong International air vents data center, how to commission data center chillers, data center humidity control humidification
Related Search Q&A
What is heat load testing for data center chillers?
Heat load testing uses temporary steam boilers and heat exchangers to simulate the thermal load of IT equipment, allowing contractors to verify that chiller systems are correctly sized and piped before live servers are connected.
Why do data centers use so much water for cooling?
Nearly 100% of the electricity powering a data center is rejected as heat, so large cooling systems — chillers, cooling towers, or liquid cooling loops — are required; water consumption depends on which cooling method is used.
What is PUE in a data center?
PUE stands for Power Usage Effectiveness — it's the ratio of total facility power to IT equipment power. A PUE of 1.5 means for every 1kW to the servers, another 0.5kW goes to cooling, lighting, and fans.
What causes chiller commissioning to fail or get delayed?
Common causes include undersized or unavailable rental equipment, poor site planning for equipment placement, fluid chemistry issues (like thermally degraded glycol clogging air vents), and contractors without prior experience on this scale.
Can data center waste heat actually be reused?
Yes — a Frankfurt project recovered heat from a 14MW data center to supply 60% of the heating needs for a 1,300-apartment community nearly half a mile away, using a heat pump to upgrade the heat to usable temperatures.
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