Solving a Commercial Laundry's Cooling
Challenge
Source:
Today's A/C & Refrigeration News, Published May 2011, Page 13, By Richard
Westlund.
When Ted
Michaelson received a call from a commercial laundry in South Florida last
summer, he realized a custom air conditioning system would be necessary to
handle the load. “The existing 69-ton AC system was inadequate,” said Michaelson,
president of AMI Air Conditioning and Mechanical, Inc. in Delray Beach. “We
needed to come up with a system that could utilize the existing roof curbs,
avoid any new penetrations through the roof, and get enough capacity into the
building to offset the heat load.”
With its
driers, ironers and other equipment, the 35,000-square-foot Riviera Beach
laundry handles about 45,000 pounds of laundry each day for hotels and resorts
in the Palm Beach County marketplace. “Because of that internal heat, the load
on the building doesn’t change much from winter to summer,” added Michaelson.
“That’s unusual for Florida, where peak loads usually occur in the hot
July-August time period.”
The
building’s old AC system consisted of two 12.5-ton and two 17-ton units for a
total of 69 tons. “No one makes packaged units that fit those curbs over 20
tons,” Michaelson said.
“So we looked for a custom solution.”
Miami-based
Coldflow, now back in the hands of its original ownership, built four
45-ton units designed to fit on the existing roof curbs. The
ultra-high-efficiency custom Coldflow system included variable frequency
drives to reduce operating costs and oversize coils to compensate for lint
build-up in the laundry’s air.
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