World Trade Center WTC Museum
Challenge
Design specifications required the museum’s viewing area, with its floor-to-ceiling glass windows, to maintain clear views onto the memorial site and its fountains. Given the space constraint, we needed to devise customized piping size units for arrangement within the concrete sub-floor. Heating such a space without baseboard on the wall informed this particular complexity.
Solution
Wales-Darby, Inc. recommended that the engineer, Buro Happold, work with Jaga mini canal trench type in-floor fin tube radiators. Functionally, this trench heating method design allows easy access for cleaning and maintenance. Aesthetically, the sub-floor placement allows for a grill to complement the interior design.
The installation of customized Jaga fin tube radiators along the perimeter prevents condensation on the floor-to-ceiling windows and assures unobstructed views of the memorial. Utilizing low-temperature water, the system also provides energy efficiency and reduced operating costs.
Products on the Job
Perimeter Fin Tube Radiation (Taco, Jaga, Uponor)
The Strand Hotel
Challenge
For this ground-up new construction, the client requested a high-efficiency boiler system with more than 90% energy efficiency. With design plans requiring the boiler room to reside in a tight space, our particular challenge was to provide an extremely efficient system within the room’s constraints.
Solution
Wales-Darby, Inc. worked with GKA to find the most efficient boiler system. We chose three HydroTherm KN-20 modular condensing boilers, with each boiler producing two million BTUs per hour. For ease of service, we installed a Taco 4900 high velocity air separator with PALL ring technology and detachable covers to remove air, dirt and microbubbles from the system.
The system maintains a small footprint, with all maintenance conducted from the front so that the boilers can be placed tightly. Every pump has a standby, firing in parallel to ramp up and slow-down in concert, based on the heating demand. The boilers modulate based on outdoor air temperature to meet the current heating demands of the building—including 177 rooms and suites, kitchen facilities and a rooftop bar—and increasing efficiency of the system to heat water to a certain temperature, which is then supplied to terminal units throughout the hotel.
Products on the Job
HydroTherm KN-20 modular condensing boilers
Taco 4900 high velocity air separator with PALL ring technology and detachable covers
Hearst Tower - U.S. Green Building Council LEED Gold Rated
Challenge
Architectural plans called for a 46-story Diagrid tower to rise above the original six-story Landmark site of the Hearst Corporation headquarters in Midtown Manhattan. Air conditioning the dramatic six-story lobby—with its 70-foot-high ceiling—provided a particular set of challenges.
Solution
Concrete flooring and displacement ventilation perfectly conduct the radiant heating and cooling system—a matrix of water circulating through embedded pipes that removes heat from sunlight coming through the windows. With energy efficiency in mind, Uponor employed a stepped water fountain on both sides of the central escalators to cool and dehumidify the lobby space.
The lobby’s radiant cooling system—the first of its kind in the United States for a commercial high rise—maintains year-round comfort, with no condensation on the floor. As the first “green” high-rise in New York City, Hearst Tower uses 25% less energy than the minimum requirements of prevailing codes for buildings. The building also received the city’s first U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Gold rating.
Products on the Job
Uponor radiant cooling system - with no condensing on the floor
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