Elara Engineering recently completed design and construction coordination to replace existing heating boilers and install new chillers  to serve 42-story occupied condominium building in Chicago.  Elara further secured $57,500 in utility incentive funding for the project and system replacements and upgrades are estimated to provide $46,500 per year of utility cost savings for the building.

The catalyst for the building upgrades was derived from Elara’s design report and review that identified and evaluated alternatives for improvements and/or replacement of the building’s existing boiler and chilled water plants.

New Boiler Plant. For this portion of the project, Elara designed and installed a new high-efficiency condensing boiler plant, hot water pumps with variable frequency drives (VFDs), and a new tube bundle in one of the building heating heat exchangers.  Ancillary work included new sump pumps, sealing the boiler room floor, and repairing and re-lining the boiler flue.

New Chiller.  Two additional water-cooled chillers were installed in the basement boiler room and sized for partial load of the building for system redundancy to facilitate repair or maintenance and increased operating efficiency.  Additional work included tying the new chillers into the existing chiller plant located in the building’s garage chiller room the installation of a new refrigerant detection and emergency exhaust system, and the refurbishment of the existing cooling tower including retrofitting new motors and VFDs on the cooling tower fans.

More information about this project and other Elara projects can be found here.