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Tour of the air system

Photos from May 23, 2006

UTIG's present digs have probably the most haphazard air conditioning system for a large building that could ever be devised.  Essentially we have a bunch of residential systems in our ceiling.  They are prone to failure and leaking of condensation (I once had a shower on my book case from a clogged line).  The thermostats are poorly placed, and the duct work generates huge iniquities in air flow.  We have lived with this for about a decade.  On the day I took these photos, the SE wing of the second floor is well over 80 degrees in the afternoon because of a unit failure.  In honor of those poor, sweaty souls on that side of the building, I thought I'd show how a real, modern air conditioning system works.  As I've alluded to before, the new building will have air conditioned by chilled water, which is piped throughout the Pickle campus from a central water chilling station.  This picture shows the pump room, where the chilled water lines enter the building and get sent to the various air handlers throughout the floors. 

Here's a huge air handler on the 3rd floor with the chilled water pipes entering and exiting.  What goes on inside is a mystery to me - looks like a submarine or some such - but out of the top emanate the big air ducts, which snake their way throughout the ceiling.  Air is cooled to 55 degrees by the air handler, and dehumidified.  Huge amounts of condensation are produced by each handler and piped away.

The conditioned air eventually gets ducted to these VAV (variable air valve) boxes, which are critical to the control of air to each room.  Each VAV box is tied to one thermostat and up to three rooms - so there are a lot of them.  It's barely discernable in this photo, but the VAV boxes are attached to the ceiling mounts by springs to reduce transmitting vibration to the building.

The guts of the VAV box - this one is being prepared for installation.  It's really quite simple: an air valve (in back) and electrical heating coils.  Here's the neat part of the whole system: the air is conditioned at all times to 55 degrees, and these coils control the temperature of the air entering the rooms - summer or winter.  There is no separate heater and air conditioner.  Intuitively that may seem inefficient, but it's not.  The dehumidified air is very easy to heat. 

Here's a return flow vent, covered by a temporary air filter.  In another month or so the air handlers will be turned on to start circulating air in the building while construction continues.  Spring mounts are used here as well.

Down on the first floor, where in-wall inspections are complete and corrections finished, interior insulation is being installed - another thing we don't have in our present accommodations. 

On the exterior - brick work is nearly done on the west wall of the extension....

...and begins on the south wall of the tower.

Here's the latest view of the connector from the east side.  Concrete lamp post bases have just been installed.

The west side of the connector is veiled by the trees.

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