No mechanical room. Two 50 HP pumps, full controls, an expansion tank, glycol feed, chemical feed, a space heater, lighting, and single-point power connection. All of it in a custom outdoor enclosure designed to live outside year-round at one of the most recognized golf clubs in the country. Here is how that project came together.

The site and the problem

Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pennsylvania is a facility where the grounds matter as much as the game. The East Course has hosted the U.S. Open four times. The site has a long history and a physical layout that was not designed with mechanical room space in mind. When this project came to FabPro, the requirement was straightforward in concept and demanding in execution: the pump system needed to live outdoors, fully self-contained, fully operational in all weather conditions, and without requiring a dedicated mechanical room that the site could not accommodate.

That constraint is the kind of problem FabPro was built to solve. A standard pump package assembled in the field is not built for outdoor installation. It needs weather protection, thermal management for cold weather operation, full electrical integration within the enclosure, and enough access for routine maintenance and service without requiring the enclosure to be disassembled. The goal is a system that arrives on site, gets set, gets connected, and works.

What was inside the enclosure

The scope of what FabPro packaged into this enclosure illustrates what the packaged approach actually means in practice. This was not a pump skid dropped into a box. It was a complete mechanical and electrical system, factory assembled and tested before it left the shop.

Enclosure contents

Pumps
Two 50 HP pumps

Expansion tank
Included and integrated into the piping layout

Chemical feed
Chemical feed system integrated into the package

Lighting
Interior lighting for service access

Controls
Full controls package integrated within the enclosure

Glycol feed
Glycol feed system for cold weather protection

Space heater
Interior space heater for cold weather operability

Power connection
Single-point power connection for simplified installation

Single-point power is worth highlighting specifically. Bringing a multi-component mechanical system to site with a single electrical connection point simplifies the installation substantially. Instead of coordinating multiple electrical runs to individual components, the electrician makes one connection. Everything else was wired inside the enclosure at the factory. That is one of the core advantages of the packaged approach, and it was a deliberate design decision for this project.

Why the packaged approach was the right answer

Field-assembled mechanical systems are the default approach for most commercial and institutional projects, and for many applications they are entirely appropriate. But field assembly has real costs that are easy to underestimate at the specification stage. Labor hours in the mechanical room, coordination between trades, the time required to pressure test and commission a system assembled piece by piece on site, and the exposure to weather and site conditions during construction all add up. When the mechanical room does not exist at all, as was the case at Merion, those costs compound further.

A factory-assembled and tested package eliminates most of that exposure. The system is built in a controlled environment, tested before it ships, and arrives at the site ready to be set and connected. At Merion, that meant the installation team was not building a mechanical room in the field. They were placing a finished system and connecting it to the site infrastructure. That distinction matters to the project schedule, to the installation budget, and to the confidence that what goes in performs the way it is supposed to.

“The goal is a system that arrives on site, gets set, gets connected, and works. That is the standard FabPro holds every project to, and it is what was delivered at Merion Golf Club.”

What this project represents

The Merion Golf Club enclosure is a good example of what FabPro does when the project does not fit the standard template. Constrained sites, outdoor installations, applications where the packaged approach compresses the schedule and reduces the field labor burden are exactly where factory-built systems earn their place. The combination of two 50 HP pumps, full ancillary systems, integrated controls, and a single-point power connection in a weatherproof enclosure is not something that can be pulled off a shelf. It requires engineering, fabrication, and a willingness to take on the complexity before the system ever arrives at the job site.

FabPro Systems manufactures custom modular systems for commercial, institutional, and industrial applications across the region and nationally. If you have a project where a standard field-built approach is not the right answer, that is exactly the kind of conversation we want to have early.

Have a project where the standard approach will not work?

FabPro Systems designs and builds custom packaged mechanical systems for constrained sites, outdoor installations, and applications where factory assembly and single-point installation make the difference. Tell us what the project requires and we will tell you what is possible.