Airoverse collaborated with mechanical contractor Lowder Brothers to support a large-scale building automation project for Fort Smith School District in Arkansas. With approximately 3 million square feet of facilities across 33 campuses and roughly 100 buildings, the district needed a more efficient way to manage HVAC scheduling, comfort, troubleshooting, and energy use across a complex school environment.
For Fort Smith, the challenge was rooted in the realities of operating active school buildings. While the typical school day runs from about 7:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., district facilities are frequently used outside of normal hours for athletic events, extracurricular activities, weekend events, and more.
“Here in the district, we don’t have normal days,” Fort Smith School District Executive Director of Facility Operations Shawn Shaffer said. “There’s always a football game. There’s always a soccer game. Could be a science fair… it could happen on Saturday or even Sunday.”
Because of this constant activity, the district needed the ability to condition only the spaces being used rather than running entire buildings unnecessarily. With a large energy budget and a wide range of HVAC equipment throughout its facilities, Fort Smith wanted a system that could support zone-level control, simplify scheduling, and give more members of the facilities team access to real-time equipment information.
After evaluating multiple building automation options, the district moved forward with Airoverse and Lowder Brothers, combining Lowder Brothers’ trusted mechanical expertise with Airoverse’s building automation technology, training, and ongoing field and technical support.
The project also gave Lowder Brothers an opportunity to expand its own controls capabilities. As more school projects began requiring controls contractors, the company saw value in bringing more of that work in-house rather than relying heavily on outside controls subcontractors. Airoverse helped make that possible by offering a system that was easier to learn, install, support, and hand over to customers.
“Airoverse came in… and said, ‘This is something that you can do. We can teach you how,’” Lowder Brothers Owner and Operator Justin Lowder said. “Once we really dove into it… we were able to present it to our customers and say, ‘There’s actually a better system out there that you can use that’s more simple and user-friendly.’”
One of the most impactful features for Fort Smith School District was field-level access to equipment data, giving the facilities team a more flexible way to manage building performance. Technicians can scan a QR code at the unit to view equipment history, review trends, see current operation, and diagnose issues more independently. With more team members able to access real-time system information, Airoverse helps reduce unnecessary back-and-forth, improve scheduling around actual occupancy, limit avoidable HVAC runtime, and streamline daily facility workflows.
That same accessibility also strengthens collaboration between Fort Smith, Lowder Brothers, and Airoverse. Team members can review system information remotely, troubleshoot together, and make adjustments without everyone needing to be in the same location. For a district managing dozens of campuses and varied HVAC systems, including rooftop units, split systems, VAVs, chillers, and more, that shared visibility is a major operational advantage.
Together, the teams helped Fort Smith School District manage comfort, scheduling, and system performance more efficiently across a large and complex facilities footprint.
“We’re definitely making building automation more accessible for everyone,” Lowder said.
Airoverse and Lowder Brothers appreciated the opportunity to collaborate with Fort Smith School District on this project that has already helped strengthen facility management across the district. With additional funding now approved for districtwide HVAC controls, Fort Smith is positioned to expand Airoverse across more facilities and extend the benefits of the system districtwide.