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CaseHistories RE AL-WORLD SOLU T IONS Portable A/C Provides Comfort at Auditorium W HEN JOSE TORRES, a popular police officer in Westfield, MA, was tragically killed on traffic detail last July, the Firtion Adams Funeral Home faced a difficult challenge. Westfield State University (WSU) was the only local venue large enough to accommodate the huge crowd anticipated at the service. But the WSU auditorium did not have air conditioning, and the town was in the midst of a sweltering heat wave. Portable cooling units donated by Atlas Sales & Rentals, Inc. enabled the community to go ahead with the funeral service in comfort. James R. Adams, an owner of the funeral home, called in Atlas, who visited WSU to meet with Assistant Vice President for Facilities and Operations Dr. Curt Robie and his onsite electricians. Atlas recommended using three Office Pro 60 five-ton portable air conditioners manufactured by MovinCool/DENSO Sales California, Inc. and rated at 60,000 BTU/hr. Atlas donated this equipment for the event. To provide a balance of cooling, one unit was placed on each side of the stage and one in the middle. Operating noise also had to be addressed because the microphones for the TV cameras were extremely sensitive, and air velocity through the units was a concern. Front grilles were removed from the onstage units to diffuse the sound. Adams reports, "Atlas installed the units the day before the funeral and the University ran them all night to bring the temperature down. Despite outdoor temperatures in the 90s, the coolers kept More than 600 attended the funeral service at the Westfield State University auditorium. the auditorium in the low 70s to maintain comfort for the 600 attendees inside." Dr. Robie adds that "Atlas provided a vital service to assist the University in providing the best accommodations possible for this very solemn service." www.atlassales.com New Building Has Maximum Comfort D 'YOUVILLE COLLEGE in Buffalo, NY, a 102-year-old private school named in honor of Catholic Saint Marguerite D'Youville, has expanded its healthcare degree offerings to include pharmacy studies. Students majoring in Pharmacy arrived in 2010 to take their classes in a brand new $23M, sevenstory building, which contains lecture halls and classrooms as well as offices for the dean of the School of Pharmacy and the College's admission department. Students and faculty enjoy fully controlled indoor comfort provided by an innovative system that combines Florida Heat Pumps with Taco's single pipe LoadMatch system. Before being introduced to the Taco LoadMatch system and Taco's accompanying Hydronic Systems Solution (HSS) software, design-build engineers like Danforth's Bob Praties would have used AutoCAD. But with Taco's assistance, he used the HSS software through 12 design revisions over a 30-day period. The time savings, he reports, were significant. "HSS really works well," says Praties. "The program was able to supply us back with the information we wanted without having to manually calculate every piece and part and temperature drop. Because the software automatically calculated all the parameters, it saved us a lot of time. We were able to select our equipment in a faster manner." Using HSS, Praties was able to design a temperature drop of 10° – 8° Delta T for the 70°F heating loop, which directly influenced the capacity required by the heat pumps installed on all seven floors of the pharmacy building. Heat pump capacity had to be matched to the length of the pipe runs. To accommodate the pressure drop, the pipe lengths required some tweaking. The HVAC system, located in the building's basement, includes two Patterson Kelly natural gas condensing boilers (2M BTUs each with 90 percent efficiency) along with Taco advanced hydronics products — FI pumps, Multi-Purpose Valves for system balancing, a 4900 Series Air/Dirt separator to keep the system clean from air and sediment buildup, and expansion tanks. There are also 72 Florida Heat Pumps located throughout the ceilings of the building's floors, each containing one LoadMatch circulator. CPM www.taco-hvac.com Look for more Case Histories online at www.webCPM.com MARCH 2013 / COLLEGE PLANNING & MANAGEMENT 77