Lincoln Home

The Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, Illinois, preserves the house where Abraham Lincoln and his family lived for 17 years prior to his election to the presidency of the United States. The Lincoln Home provides an educational experience for more than 200,000 visitors a year, in addition to preserving numerous historical furnishings and artifacts associated with Lincoln. The Carrier heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system at the facility had been in service for 25 years, longer than its expected lifetime, so the facilities staff sought to replace it.

Project Solution

The National Park Service, which manages the Lincoln Home site, called on Henson Robinson, a Springfield-based Carrier contractor with expertise in historical sites, to modernize the system. Without disrupting visitors, the contractors removed the old equipment and replaced it with a Carrier AquaSnap® 30RA chiller and an Aero® 39M air handler. The air handler was installed in the basement of the historic home, while the chiller was placed in an outbuilding that also serves as a warehouse for artifacts not currently needed for display. The buried coolant loop that connected the original chiller and air handler was also updated, necessitating the services of an archeologist to oversee the digging in the yard.