Your Building is Not Too Old, For New Technology

Owners of older apartment buildings and complexes sing a common lament: “there’s only so much I can do in my old building, I can’t afford to rip the walls down to install new heating or distribution components, no matter how efficient they make things.”

The thing is, that’s yesterday’s news.

Modern heating controls can certainly run your high efficiency replacement boilers better, and more efficiently. But in 2019 the controls, room sensors, and valves can all be deployed and controlled wirelessly, putting a high efficiency, lower energy consuming building into your future too.

Consider the following example of how a Heat-Timer® Platinum series control system, in the hands of a skilled commercial HVAC crew, can make your old building a deeper shade of green.

Problem Statement

Common to older apartment buildings like the Executive house in Albany NY, are problems associated with manual control of one or more boilers and even many different mechanical rooms. Hot spots, windows open all winter, chemical treatments, etc… substantial, but common problems in a building without proper boiler management.

A Heat-Timer® Solution to Heating Problems in Old Buildings

Our Commercial HVAC Contractor had long experience with the installation of our controls in old buildings. He immediately knew that an updated Multi-Mod Platinum Series control system, replacement of aged out steam valves, and the incorporation of outdoor reset would be necessary to achieve the maximum fuel savings that would make the property manager a hero.

With these controls the solution at Executive house got better quickly. The Multi-MOD provided much needed boiler control by modulating multiple boilers using PID-type logic. This energy efficient control strategy incorporates rate of change into modulating decisions.  The PID logic analyzes how quickly the current boiler load is affecting the system and the control reacts accordingly. As soon as the control recognizes that the system temperature is approaching set point, it begins to back off the boiler, gradually coasting toward set point. This minimizes energy usage while avoiding overshoots and short-cycling issues.

While life got quickly better for 90% of the tenants at Executive House, there were still hot and cold spots in the building. But because the system selected used Heat Timer’s ICMS (Internet Communications Management System) the team was able to dynamically move space sensors around the building to diagnose that a bizarre  steam distribution system had been feeding certain apartments from two entirely different sources. By monitoring and tweaking the many parameters designed into the Heat-Timer control, the team was able to beat the odd distribution system into submission. With the use of SRC and the fine tuning capabilities exposed by the ICMS, 100% of tenants are comfortable at all times of the day or night. Not to mention the reduction in energy expenses that paid for the entire upgrade in short order.

Conclusion

Now, building managers can receive alerts, tweak efficiency, and diagnose issues from couch, with one hand on the cell phone, and the other deep into a bag of potato chips. The heat timer ICMS and wireless space sensors make it all possible, even for your old building. For more information, Contact the team at Heat-Timer® today.

Original content posted on https://www.heat-timer.com/your-building-is-not-too-old-for-new-technology/