Picking the Walls' brain for a commercial project

Ted_9

So here the facts. This is a large and very old mill or factory building. It is being used as office space. Its on the top floor and the office is only using about 1/3 of the level. There is a wall deviding this office area off from the rest of the space. The room size is 124 x 120 feet with 20' ceilings. The windows are 13'H by 81" W. Single panes no storms and very old. Floor below is heated. Ceiling has no real insulation except layers of roof including a new roof.

The building is heated with steam, but they would like to cut back the industral sized boiler to heat the other floor and use a modern, clean and efficient hydronic system for the office.

The exact heatloss is from 759,722 btus/hr (using Hydronicspro) and 739,302 (using HVAC-calc).

MY thoughts:

RADIATION:
Modine heaters hanging around the middle area and possibly using some commercial copper fin in the center possibly where office walls divide.
POWER PLANT:
Initially I wanted to design for the whole load but I was told that it was just supplemental.

Im thinking about using one of the following:


1)HTPs' Munchkin 399.

2)Buderus G334X

3)Buderus SB 615 series (condensing boiler)


So far I'v designed the system to the following specs.

Outside temp. 0

Inside temp. 70

System water temp. 190

I CLEANED UP THE PICS.

dconnors

From Buderus

Go with our SB615. You will get the best efficiency. Also you might want to consider the 2107 control for setback. Use alot of radiation, our boiler loves return water temp below 100.

Ted_9

Looking for some different advise here. I'm not worried about low return temps since we are using high temp water(docheat53, did you read the post or are you just interested in plugging Buderus?).

lchmb

how about?

Would you have room (and worried about this thought) for air handler's with coil's? I would say with the heigth of the ceiling's you could design a nice recovery system. Otherwise you would at minimum have to have something drive the heat back down. With that nasty thought said, I think the system itself would be what you prefer. I like the Buderus personally, but that I think is a preference. I would think, guessing here of course that if you break this floor up into office's you would need alot of modine's. Another plus to the air handler's is you can easily run a/c for them in the summer..;)

Ted_9

Nice ideas.

Interestingly enought, they are not concerned about a/c right now. But this evening will I was walking the dog, I thought of your idea but larger commercial hydro airs. Something that needs condensers that could be purched and installed at a later time. I'm pretty sure Carrier makes such a commercial unit. Right now because of cost we need to avoid ducts.

BTW, I do like the Buderus but the condensing boiler is large in size and significantly more in price. I'd love to install one soon though.

lchmb

Carrier does

And I would guess with the cost of simple round duct with take-off's from there you would probably find yourself in the same price range as modine's and piping. I'll scratch my head and see if I can think of any other idea's. Do you by chance have a layout of the office floor's an a size on the boiler room? As to cost and size, that alway's make's it tough but...:) won't go there..

Ted_9

And no to mention this is all for supplemental heat. If you have any Carrier models numbers that would be great. I looked on line but its tough to see what the units look like.

lchmb

depending

You would of course have to figure out your cfm load but the 39m Aero is capable of up to 30500 cfm. It is a central station that can be set with zoning control.

jerry scharf_2

fabric ducts

Ted,

I've never priced them out, but they make some really nice area fill fabric ducts. They have holes at regular spaces which makes them great for area coverage, and you just suspend them off cables. They are popular with newer convention halls.

just an idea,

jerry

Ted_9

Hydronic

Anyone have and hydronic luck in an area such as this?

dconnors

Think outside the box

Why not use as much of the heat you generate as possible which would leave you with low return temps. Not just plugging Buderus. Just like to know that we can think about new ways of doing things.

Ted_9

Check the pictures in the first post.

Looking for some more input on thiis project. Not looking for ducted options.

Ted Gregoriadis


Patriot Heating & Cooling, Inc.

Weezbo

Ted..i liked Jerrys idea of fabric ducts..for the sprinklers..

outside the conditioned space...the offices are easy as you say supplemental heat brought onboard with commercial slant fin...id even suggest insulating the walls and ceiling... and piping in outside air with a HRV...the 2/3's space id keep at like 50 ¡ãF just to keep your sprinkler system from going on the fritz...i think unit heaters would work fine..insulating the lids with blue foam and vapor barrier and sheet rock would help hold the heat from out the "lid". the windows are another matter loosing every other one and reinstalling them in the window openings you have left in place would be a good way to do away with alot of heat loss and a fair amount of infiltration...if the guy had a dime left you could harp on energy prices amd operational costs and sell him on some blue board on the exterior walls with new elecrical receptacles and sheetrock....then you might be able to dial the space down to like 45¡ã...then you could recalculate the heat loss in the offices to like perscriptive methods and maybe depending on the State of the union in which you live get the guy a rebate on insulating his building...if so...then go for the well why not go Radiant :)and utilize this space for .....something good in the community...

Ted_9

Just to let everyone know, the 2/3 space is the total office space. Basically the office is in those pics and I dont think there are any tall walls. Im going there again tomorrow to see what has been done to the place. Thanx for the great ideas.

Whats the deal with this fabric ducts and the sprinklers?

Weezbo

the fabric duct has like 5 air exchanges an hour..,

through the wall of the duct itself,it allow maximum flexability with piping in heat to an area..the heat comming off a 20"round near the ceiling beneath the overhead sprinklers out of the central distribution point for the heat would keep the piping in the larger area warm and heep them from really cold temps. you would still have to make sure it met code clearances however it would direct heat into specific areas and at the same time more evenly heat the structure.it isnt a wet solution just one with alot of merit.

Ted_9

Is ther a pic of on of these units? Id like to see what we're dealing with here.

Weezbo

Jerry, do you have any lit or a link for Ted?

There was a right up in THE NEWS a year or two ago and i belive in construction E-wire on some of it used in a swimming pool auditorium in california ..where IAQ is a biggie.and pictures of its use in a manufacturing plant with all kinds of work stations and adjustable work areas.

jerry scharf_2

some links

http://www.fabricair.com/
http://www.ductsox.com/
http://qsox.com/
http://www.herofabriduct.com/

Ductsox is the one I first heard of. All these were on the first two pages of google searches. Given the relative lack of technology involved, there should be a load of them out there (I'm sure the manufacturers will beat me up for this.)

One thing is that you may be really able to add some color to the space if the people will go for it.

enjoy, jerry

Ted_9

So we would have to install an air handler or roof top unit? Regular low velocity, not high velocity?

Weezbo

there appears to be a air handler of sorts already in....

the equasion ,Ted . why not see what could be done with it especially if it has outside air mixing box. then the cooling side of the equasion can also sorta help moderate the environment with control.your system would then incorperate many fine qualities. and the fabric ducts are like zippidy doo dah to install so they could periodically removed for cleaning . it has to be about the fastest way to moderate an environment....you can also add an additional coil from your boiler for additional btu's in the winter or some cooling in the parched arid summer. and take care of moderating the environment utilizing outside air temp weather conditions during the shoulder seasons.I'd have like to have done the same thing here except getting our multibillion dollar wholesalers to get motivated takes a lot more paticience than Job could muster.there were some 60"rounds and it would have been The Ticket!originaly i arrived here looking for some blue poly matts that are in England for doing gypcrete pours...well...thats at least a year ago..a while ago(years) years...i was chirping up KaRo in France to them to let them know there are Other Solutions to conditioning space....its almost depressing thinking about it a...how we attract knowledge would be interesting to put into a mathamatical formula as would how we attract materials in the world as we know it. sorry i digress.

Ted_9

We are not using an air handler or roof top unit. Just hydronic unit heaters.

Christian Egli

More ideas

The existing building space is already heated, though only when it is cold enough to justify heating the whole place. But for the new offices, the owner would like to have supplemental heat for when it is too cold for office space usage but not cold enough to turn the whole plant heating system on?

Did I get that about right?

With that in mind, and guessing that there already is a heating system installed (I did not get to see the pictures clearly) why not keep all of that as is, and transform the office space into a zone on itself.

Keep it operating on steam, there is nothing really better.

Then organize some piping to provide steam to this zone by two different ways. Install a new boiler sized to the office zone. This boiler will provide the supplemental heat to the office by using the existing radiation. To prevent the steam from heating the rest of the building by flowing backwards, install some motorized valves or a check valve and play with pressure differences. Then in the deep of the winter, when the central boiler is on, let the steam come from there and you won't need to turn on the supplemental boiler. If things get really cold, the supplemental boiler could still come on.

So that's two steam sources for one zone. The central source and the supplemental one.

Condensate return lines might have to be isolated and repiped to first feed the supplemental boiler.

I have followed transformations in a similar building that had a combination of Modine air units and pipe coils along the walls. These buildings are drafty, and it seemed we got much less heat loss with the radiators. The Modine units made nice hot air which blew right out of the building.

I would stay away from any air movement, particularly air ducts that cause pressure differences between rooms and the outdoors. Thus causing bid time heat leakage.

Air conditioning can be handled so easily with split units with individual wall hung evaporators sized for each room. That's for when the owner is ready. It won't require air ducts and roof top units.

If the idea is to keep a loft like look for the offices, think of how interesting it will be to install industrial looking radiators. Baseboard heating is just as easy with steam as it is with water.


Think of installing insulation.

The building I know of runs on steam. It has three scotch marine boilers, one of which only is necessary for heating the entire place since double glazing was put in place.

My last recommendation would be to keep heating with steam, since that's what you already have, it is the solution that will provide you with the most flexibility. In future, the offices might be expanded or abandoned and you won't have a patchwork of different and incompatible systems, that nobody will know how to run, how to control and how to fix.

That's a nice project to have. Good luck.

Mark Eatherton1

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ME

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clammy

roof tops

Sorry to say i would use trane roof tops and duct rthe office then your killin 2 birds with one stone .Even though they aren't worried about a/c now next summer they will be .I would figure out there heatgain then get a trane roof top with the low heat set up and 2 or 3 stage cooling and your off install an ecomizer and there's your make up air and some free cooling on the 1 st stage .Your other opiotians are to run loads of pipes baseboard aroung the permiterand some air handlers to hanbdle the inner areas,personally i,de go with the roof tops peace and good luck clammy