All mechanical systems were designed with emphasis on comfort, energy efficiency and ease of maintenance. The facility contained a water cooled electric centrifugal chiller plant along with a cooling tower located on grade. Building heat was provided by a dual-fuel boiler plant having twin 250 HP fire-tube boilers, primary-secondary water circulation loops and fin tube radiation. On demand cooling or heating was available on a room-by-room basis through the use of a 4-pipe heating/cooling piping distribution system. All resident rooms had 4-pipe fan coil units.

Thirteen (13) new air handling units with a capacity of up to 30,000 CFM each were provided. Variable Air Volume (VAV) type air handling systems served open and common areas. The mechanical systems were controlled through a Building Automation System (BAS) with Energy Management. The BAS was an open protocol BACnet based system. Most rooms in the facility were fitted with temperature and relative humidity sensors which fed input signals back to the BAS on a continuous basis. CO2 sensors were strategically placed throughout the common areas of the building, which were served by VAV air handling systems. The sensors enabled the reduction of ventilation air during periods when occupancy in the common spaces is low, thereby saving energy. All systems were graphically represented on the BAS and allowed the Operators to monitor, control, evaluate and even troubleshoot each system at the central BAS terminal, or remotely from an off-site location.

Other energy saving features include Variable Frequency Drives (VFD’s) on air handlers, cooling towers and secondary pumps, and plate/frame heat exchangers to recover waste heat from condenser water to preheat domestic hot water 1,250 MBH and reheat hot water 1,640 MBH. The facility was served by a diesel powered emergency generator, 750 KW.

Project completed by K&L Group, A Division of MG Engineering 

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