A Tale of Two Systems: How a Manhattan Condo Reimagined Heating/Cooling Comfort

In the heart of Manhattan, a towering condominium grappled with a recurring nightmare: leaky Con Ed steam pipes wreaking havoc on its residents' homes. Each incident left a trail of destruction, prompting the board to confront a crucial decision: persist with costly repairs or embark on a bold transformation. Faced with a repair bill soaring between $15 to $20 million, the board discarded the old centralized system in favor of sleek, modern in-unit heat pumps, a transformational move priced at $7 million. Not only did this stop the leaks, it allowed residents to determine their own heating and cooling needs within their own walls. Ramez Afify, principal at E4P Consulting Engineering  explains what the condo faced and the details of its choices.  Habitat Magazine's Carol Ott conducts the interview. This episode is sponsored by Parity.

Thanks for listening. Subscribe to this podcast for more stories on how New York co-ops and condos have solved a myriad of problems. Brought to you by Habitat Magazine, the "bible" that hundreds of board directors turn to every day!

Transcript

Carol Ott: Welcome to Problem Solved, a conversation about challenges facing New York's co-op and condo board directors. I'm Carol Ott of Habitat Magazine, and with me today is Ramez Afify, principal of E4P Consulting Engineering. ConEd Steam began supplying service in 1882 and today there are over 1500 commercial and residential customers throughout Manhattan who still use steam to heat and cool their buildings.

Ramez, you're working with a large '60s era condominium that was heated and cooled by steam, but it had leaking steam pipes and it faced a choice of a fix or a pivot. Can you share with us what happened? 

Ramez Afify: Absolutely. So the building, located in the city started to have so much pipe leak and, it's basically the pipe that leaked a combination of pipe that used chill water, that's using hot water and condensate drain pipe. And the leak would happen couple of times a year and causing significant damages where the leak happens and all the apartments below. 

Carol Ott: And the pipe that was leaking, did it go through apartments? Where was it located? And it took care of heating and cooling for this building? 

Ramez Afify: The building has units located below the exterior windows, and those unit have two pipes going to each unit. The pipes carry either hot water during winter or chill water during summer.

And in addition, do the third pipe which carries a condensate drain from each of those units. 

Carol Ott: And that was what was leaking. 

Ramez Afify: Correct. That was what was leaking. But also the pipe that carries hot water and chill water was also leaking. 

Carol Ott: So here they are. They got these leaking pipes and they have to figure out what to do. They can replace the pipes? What were their choices? 

Ramez Afify: So this type of system, as I mentioned, hot water is flowing in a pipe in winter, chill water, or water that's really cold, flowing in a pipe in summer.

So these pipes are coming from a central location and because of that, the building or this system is called centralized system where the fluid is generated remotely in a central physical plant. The choices the building has is either to stay with a centralized system or try to decentralize the heating and cooling for the building.

And those are the first decision the building had to make. 

Carol Ott: And just explain to me: to keep with a centralized system, which I, if I'm imagining, is that a chiller on the roof?

Ramez Afify: So the centralized system, they had included a chill equipment that produce chill water. And that is an absorption chiller in a cellar level, fed from Con Edison's steam, and it rejects its heat to a cooling tower in a roof.

And in, in winter, the steam from Con Edison is converted into hot water as and sub obliged to the same AC unit below the windows. 

Carol Ott: Okay, so let's get back to their choice. They could fix their centralized system or go to a different kind of system. If they were to fix their centralized system, do you have a sense of what that would've cost them?

Ramez Afify: So the cost to fix the system, that would include replacing the equipment itself, which is what they would anticipated, and that can be calculated. And there is a problem of fixing the pipes that are leaking, so pipes that were provided or installed around fifties and around that area now need to be replaced.

And that scope is very difficult to quantify because it's not only a cost factor, but it's also disturbing to the apartments because these pipes are running vertically and horizontally and people are living there. And some of them were working there during the pandemic. So that cost was more $20 million.

Carol Ott: Oh, that certainly would catch somebody's attention. So that was to fix the centralized system. What was their other choice? Or do they have other choices? 

Ramez Afify: They had other choice that they were trying to also look into, which is replacing the centralized system with a heat pump system, including air cooled equipment that connecting to indoor air handler, something similar to Variable Refrigerant Flow, vRF system, which includes air cool condensers and indoor fan cool units or air handling units. And they were about to go with that route until they get a price. That was $15 million and it was still far beyond what they can afford. 

Carol Ott: So what was your recommendation and what did they follow?

Ramez Afify: So the approach we took is to go really centralized within each apartment by replacing the unit that are located below the window with cold climate heat pump, which are units that are installed below the window of each apartment and it breezes through the exterior. So it requires an exterior louvre.

It requires essentially a hole in a facade. An exterior opening in a facade is installed, and the unit is mounted right below that. The unit provides both heating and cooling, and it doesn't have any pipes connected to it at all. Because essentially it rejects heat to the exterior and it absorb heat from the exterior for cooling and heating respectively, and any condensate that the unit produces gets dispersed over the condenser air and therefore it doesn't have to have any drainage. 

Carol Ott: Now, this is from a unit owner's perspective. I currently had what I think is called a P TAC unit, which you see in many apartment buildings. That did not go through the wall. So you had to go into, or this solution required somebody to go into every apartment, remove that unit, punch a hole in the wall, and put, in essence, a different unit.

Is that correct? 

Ramez Afify: That's correct.

Carol Ott: And I imagine there was some response from the unit owners who may not have understood how much disruption that did cause or would cause. 

Ramez Afify: There were, yes there were series of concerns. One of them is what you mentioned: how much disturbance would that cause, and number two, how can that fit in how apartments were set up.

And how much noise this unit will produce. Because they're used to unit that only has water going to them and the compressor, which is the main part that makes noise, was located somewhere else. Now, this particular compressor is going to be located with the initial apartment. So they worried about noise.

They were worried about how the unit would function and what control they will have and would it have anything better than what they used to. And the first step really that was very helpful in addressing that concern is that we just had a couple of units installed in a super's apartment and it was open house for everybody to go and visit and people get to hear the unit: how much noise the unit is doing and is it comfortable. And that pretty much addressed many of those concerns. 

Carol Ott: And when you went into every unit and poked a hole, now you're poking a hole through the wall. How big a deal was that? It sounds like a big deal to me, but for whoever was doing this, how big a deal was that?

Ramez Afify: Once they passed the initial learning curve for the installers, the process was extremely smooth. It would be a day or two process of making a hole booting the unit and sealing the hole in the same process, so that didn't end up being problematic at all. 

Carol Ott: So now that I have a heat pump unit in my apartment, I can now control the temperature of the heat and cooling, correct? 

Ramez Afify: Correct. 

Carol Ott: Could I have done that before? 

Ramez Afify: No. Before, just like any building was a central system, it has to be a vote. All the entire system has to be either doing cooling or heating. And normally, by November everybody's getting heating, whether it's 70 degrees outside or 20 degrees outside.

So now the new system allows some people to, to have heating on other half cooling. 

Carol Ott: And the new system. Is no longer a steam system. It is powered by electricity?

Ramez Afify: That's correct. It's a heat pump system. It uses electricity as the main source of power and it operates as a heat pump.

It's called cold climate heat pump because it's capable of providing heating at low outside air temperature. 

Carol Ott: Now many buildings don't have enough electricity to carry this additional load. And I assume there was an additional load in this building, correct? 

Ramez Afify: That's correct. That was an issue that we had to address.

We had to upgrade the electrical service for the building to be able to accommodate the new heat pump units. 

Carol Ott: Did that mean you went into each apartment to do some kind of electrical upgrade and put a circuit breaker in each your apartment? Or how did that work? 

Ramez Afify: We thought of doing it that way, but that would've ended up causing too much disturbance to the apartment because we have to do major electrical work. So instead, we chose to leave existing electrical service to each apartment the way it is, and we ran new power to a panel in a corridor, and each apartment got a breaker and that breaker would be routed, would have a wire connected from the common area panel to the PTAC in each apartment with a meter to calculate how much energy each apartment is using for billing.

Carol Ott: Aha. So that is, I assume, a major switch. It sounds like before the heating and cooling was on the condominium's budget without restriction. Some apartments will be hot, some apartments won't be hot enough. Now, like in a single family home, I can control my own heat and cooling and the amount that I want, but I'm gonna pay for what I use.

Ramez Afify: Exactly. And with that comes a huge potential of saving. There are many papers published by NYSERDA calculating specifically how much energy saving would be seen once people pay for their own electrical use or energy use. 

Carol Ott: Sure. And for the condominium budget, the heating and cooling portion of their budget really has been transferred to an individual who can now control their own usage.

Ramez Afify: That's correct. And what made a huge difference in a condo budget is that they no longer have to set aside a couple of hundred thousand dollars for water leak repair. 

Carol Ott: Which I assume would also help with their insurance costs down the road if they're not always doing that. 

Ramez Afify: Yes. 

Carol Ott: Was the building sub-metered then with this change?

Ramez Afify: As part of this project, we included a third party electric metering just for the PTAC purpose. And that system is accessible via a website that the building super have access to, and he's able to print out a sheet that can be used to send to people. 

Carol Ott: And I'm assuming with submetering, the building or whoever the third party company is who's managing this, they're able to buy the electricity at a cheaper rate than an individual on their own.

And then they're passing that along to the unit owners, I think. 

Ramez Afify: So due to the height of the building, this happened to be a very tall building. We had to bring in a high voltage from the street. So we brought in 480 volts from the street. That allowed us to run smaller wire all the way to the building without any need for transformers. So the source of the power is still ConEdison. Where we came in from the street still ConEdison meter. And in each panel serving the new heat pump for the apartment, there is an energy meter just to calculate how much this ConEdison power is divided among people. So at this point, the apartment used to get only one bill from ConEdison for what they use .Now, they're getting two bills, one from ConEdison and a second bill for how much energy the heat pump is using for heating and cooling. 

Carol Ott: And is that electricity at the same rate, or are they different rates?

Ramez Afify: They are at different rate because the heating and cooling is a different rate from the common charge. 

Carol Ott: I see. So this solution, which was really a major pivot for this building, do you have a sense of what it cost to basically make each apartment an individual unto themselves in terms of their heat and cooling control?

Ramez Afify: Yes. That was in a neighborhood of seven and a half million dollars. 

Carol Ott: So that's about half of what it would've cost to fix the centralized system. 

Ramez Afify: Correct. This solution ended up being almost electrical solution more than it is a mechanical solution because there was no need for a mechanical contractor essentially, because the installation work is to make the opening, put the unit and plug it in. And that's pretty much all. So we were able to take an entire trade, an expensive trade out of the equation, and that was a huge contribution to the budget. Of course we had to pay a lot more for electrical and that almost was maybe 70% of the work. And then the remaining was for making the openings for the exterior and some patching where the wire had to have to run. 

Carol Ott: Now for other buildings that are on ConEd steam who have a centralized cooling and heating plant. Which of those buildings are candidates for this kind of project and which ones are not just off the top of your head? 

Ramez Afify: Buildings who are landmarks can face a challenge for installing exterior louvers because Landmark has to review and approve the louvers, and they may have an opinion on how this louver would look like.

Now some PTAC units have already some louvers in the exterior for outside air. Some buildings have PTAC unit with louvers and they produce hot water from a boiler and they use air cool PTAC for cooling. Those would be a perfect candidate because you already have the opening and the replacement in this case would be a lot simpler.

Carol Ott: I see. So if you had a PTAC unit that didn't intrude on the outside and you installed one of these heat pumps that does, that is gonna change the look certainly of the front facing the exterior. 

Ramez Afify: And I wanna say when the landmark building or a building in a historic landmark district, it's not necessarily that this is a no-go. It could be done, but an application has to be submitted to Landmark, and Landmark will have a specific requirements. You would want to see how the final look would be. It could be that a solution can be provided to match a particular building, not to affect the appearance in a negative way.

Carol Ott: This condominium was, or was not in a landmark district? 

Ramez Afify: It was not. 

Carol Ott: It was not. Would you have a guess of how many buildings in Manhattan who are using steam are not in landmark districts? Are the majority, is it 50 50? Do you have any idea? 

Ramez Afify: No, it's hard to quantify. 

Carol Ott: Okay. For other boards considering something like this, what would be your takeaway or your piece of advice that they should consider before embarking on such a project?

Ramez Afify: I think the lesson learned in this case is that, there was always more than one option. There isn't one size fits all. This can be a great approach for certain buildings, not for all buildings, of course. Second lesson is that for any electrical upgrade, filing a case with ConEdison early on to find the available power from the street is crucial because sometimes there isn't enough power in the street or sometimes the condo owner would have to put a transformer, and that's a two year process subject to DOT approval. So that can send a project into significant delay. And third is that because of decarbonization, there are so many changes that are happening in the industry with new solutions that are emerging.

And what we have now as options with the equipment, many of them weren't available last year and I think there will be a lot available next year. So it's always worth it to start with a feasibility market research to see what technology can address a particular problem a building is trying to solve.

Carol Ott: Okay. Thank you very much for spending time with us. This was really informative. 

Ramez Afify: It's my pleasure.