Meeting New York City energy codes is challenging enough. But when engineer WSP Flack + Kurtz faced this requirement when outfitting the Hunter College School of Social Work at City University of New York (CUNY), the company had to meet the city’s standards without building a costly chiller plant.
The design team, including general contractor Turner Construction, mechanical contractor United A/C and developer The Brodsky Organization, turned to EJS New York to provide cost-effective, energy-efficient HVAC equipment – in lieu of a distinctive chiller plant.
“New York City typically requires all chiller plants to employ an onsite operating engineer 24 hours a day, which becomes very expensive,” said Stephen Madaffari, principal of EJS New York. “In this case, the client wanted to avoid the cost of construction and supervision of the facility, so we supplied tailored energy-recovery units that met energy standards, as well as the client’s budget.”
EJS New York provided custom-designed Innovent packaged water-cooled A/C energy-recovery units, designed with a high efficiency DX cycle and fitted with Thermotech Enterprises Energy-Recovery Wheels. This equipment saved the client approximately 20 to 30 percent of the full load tonnage, while the condenser water system saved substantial first-cost and operating costs over the initially proposed chiller plant.
EJS New York – and its aforementioned design partners – effectively satisfied the client with a facility that is fully compliant with ASHRAE 90.1 and New York City energy-code specifications.