52 Albert Street

52 Albert is a heritage building in Winnipeg's Exchange District converted to residential suites — the kind of retrofit where the mechanical system has to fit the building rather than the other way around. There was no room to run ducted central plant or add shafts, so the job was built on refrigerant piping: a heat recovery VRF system, roughly 76 tons across six systems, with forty-eight ducted fan coils tucked above suite ceilings and twelve four-port mode change units letting one suite heat while its neighbour cools. The systems were deliberately designed above 100% diversity — up to 129% — under a manufacturer high-diversity approval, right-sizing the outdoor equipment to what the roof and the electrical service could actually carry. Hail guards, base pan heaters and low-ambient operation cover the Winnipeg end of it.

Equipment supplied by BPL Sales:
- Heat recovery VRF systems
- 48 × Ducted fan coil units, with condensate pumps
- 12 × Four-port mode change units, plus Y-joints and branch tees
- Wind and hail guards, base pan heaters on all outdoor units
- Custom control arrangement — factory suite thermostats configured to command each suite's external heat, putting cooling, heat pump heating and supplementary heat on one wall control
- Gas unit heater, 45 MBH; 2 × Circulating pumps

Closing note:
The system was commissioned suite by suite by BPL's factory-trained and certified technicians, and BPL has supported the building since. On a heritage retrofit the awkward questions surface after handover, and they are best answered by the people who selected, commissioned and certified the system in the first place — the same people who walked the building staff through it at handover.