The Condo that Stopped Replacing “A with A”

Residents of 1 Grand Army Plaza — a sleek, all-glass condo in Brooklyn — struggled with sweltering corridors and soaring repair bills, and set out to find why. Unfortunately, the “why” turned out to be a fundamental design flaw in the building’s ventilation system. The fix, shared by Amalia Cuadra, senior director of engineering at En-Power Group, was a phased capital project that not only restored comfort but also cut energy use, improved the building’s letter grade, and reduced carbon emissions — without blowing the budget. Cuadra urges boards to think beyond “replace A with A” and instead take a holistic, forward-looking approach to capital upgrades, which this Brooklyn condo successfully did. Habitat’s Emily Myers conducts the interview.

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Transcript

Emily Myers:

Welcome to Problem Solved, a conversation about challenges facing New York co-op and condo board directors. I'm Emily Myers with Habitat Magazine, and I'm joined by Amalia Cuadra, Senior Director of Engineering at EN-POWER Group. Amalia, thanks for being here.

Amalia Cuadra:

Thanks for having me.

Emily Myers:

We're going to talk about energy efficiency, why poor design might be part of the problem and what boards can do about it. We'll discuss why it's so important to design upgrades holistically, and how phasing in these improvements can be helpful in getting the upgrades right. So let's kick off with a look at 1 Grand Army Plaza, a 99-unit all-glass condo in Brooklyn's Prospect Heights. Amalia, you've worked with this building for a while, but what's been the most recent concern for residents?

Amalia Cuadra:

So yes, we've been working with 1 Grand Army Plaza since 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic. And I have to say the one thing that's kind of cool about 1 Grand Army Plaza is that it's directly in my neighborhood. So I was excited that we had this opportunity.

Back in 2020 we worked on a chiller replacement, a boiler replacement and a domestic hot water system replacement. Obviously there was design and construction during some tough periods, because of the pandemic, but that project went well and the building did see significant improvements in energy.

As we were working through the project the property manager, Margie, kept asking me questions about this rooftop unit. And the rooftop unit at 1 Grand Army Plaza is designed, like a lot of multifamily buildings, to supply fresh air to the corridors. And then it goes from the corridors into the apartments, and then the kitchens and the bathrooms exhaust that air and just kind of keep fresh air coming in.

But one of the issues that they were... There were several issues that they were having with this rooftop unit. One, during the summer it never cooled, right? You're supposed to provide some comfort when you bring in fresh air. You can't just bring really hot air, really humid air or really cold air, you're supposed to temper that air. But in the summer they couldn't meet the loads, it was always really hot. And they had spent a lot of money repairing the compressors for that unit, somewhere in like, I want to say, more than $50,000. And they knew the unit was not doing well.

So they wanted me to spend some time looking at it. And in reviewing, I realized that they had several issues with this rooftop unit. One, the unit was never designed to fully provide the cooling that the building needed when you brought in fresh air. It was just like, that's not what... The sizing of that unit was not made for that.

So they had over time tried to kind of overcome that. And some of the repairs that had been done actually kind of hurt the performance of the unit. But one of the biggest issues that this unit had was the way and where it was designed. So the rooftop unit, it's obviously on the roof, and one gap has a cooling tower. And the cooling tower is literally right next to the rooftop unit. The cooling tower is maybe 20 feet lower, and then...

So a cooling tower operates in the summer and it rejects the heat from the building, and that heat is humid and it goes up. And the fresh air intake of the rooftop unit was very close to that cooling tower. So that was a big issue, 'cause you were introducing humidity into the hallways. Right?

Emily Myers:

So what you're saying is the position of the fresh air intake unit was wrong right from the outset?

Amalia Cuadra:

Oh, 100%. So 1 Grand Army Plaza was designed in 2000... and was constructed in 2008. So right as there's a lust for a lot of financial backing for... We had the big recession back during that period. And I think towards the end of construction they took a lot of shortcuts, and that was one of the shortcuts that they took.

And it also could have been a design... It could have been designed that way from the onset. I don't know. I had a conversation with one of the doormen at the building who had been there since the beginning. He said that unit never worked correctly. Now we know why, right? Because we're introducing humid air into the fresh air intake.

Now this humid air, it's hot, right? Humidity has a lot of what's known as latent heat. It's just a different type of heat that's really hard to remove. And then we're expecting to cool it with a unit that was never designed truly to be able to reduce that. And then on top of that they did mechanics that done all these changes to the unit to make it work, without really trying to get to the heart of it.

Emily Myers:

So your issue was dealing with efficiency and comfort in the ventilation systems. And what did you conclude?

Amalia Cuadra:

Yeah. So based on my conversations with Margie, I said, "Look, Margie, this unit is... You are going to have to replace it. It needs to be placed into the capital budget of the building. But I don't think it's a good idea just to replace the unit, I think you have to have a holistic approach to the replacement of the unit."

Because I talked about how the rooftop unit provides fresh air to the corridors, goes into the apartments and the kitchens' and the bathrooms' exhaust. And that system is meant to work together. I said, "If we replace the unit, we have to replace the unit in a way that meets the ventilation rate of your exhaust fans, 'cause both are meant to work together." If I'm able to come down in volume and CFM for the RTU, I'm limited by what's going on on the exhaust fans.

Emily Myers:

So can I, just so that we don't get lost in some of the technical language, CFM in this context stands for cubic feet per meter, a measure of air volume being pulled through the system. And so what you're working with is kind of moderating that air volume being pulled into the building, but also making sure that it's not pulling in humid air when it doesn't need to be.

Amalia Cuadra:

Exactly. Exactly. But looking at the exhaust fans, I also realized the exhaust fans were oversized. So one unit is providing the volume it's supposed to be doing, but not the cooling capacity it has to. And then on the other side of the equation I have fans that are exhausting really high volumes.

So I said... I talked to the board, obviously to the property manager, "If you're going to do this, my recommendation is that you do [inaudible 00:08:46]." The reason being is because if you're able to bring down your exhaust volume you're going to be able to also bring down your supply volume in a way that you're meeting indoor air quality requirements, the cooling load, 'cause that can be sized properly, and then just have this holistic approach.

Now the other part of the conversation is that also the RTU, I'm sorry, also the cooling tower was starting to have mechanical issues as well. So because the RTU unit is about 17, 18 stories high up in the air, the cooling tower is one floor below, if you're going to use a crane to bring the rooftop unit and in three, four years you're going to bring another crane to replace the cooling tower, then you're going to have to spend an extra 100, $150,000 just for renting equipment an extra day.

So the building made the decision that they wanted to do kind of like... This phase of the project was three parts. Replace the rooftop unit, replace the cooling tower and replace the fans. And while we're replacing the fans, we're also going to seal the ducts to make sure that any leakage that's coming from the ducts gets addressed. So it's a capital project that's coming from a comfort need, but we're also addressing energy conservation, carbon emissions reductions, building operations efficiency, 'cause there's a lot of things that we improved during our design.

Emily Myers:

And so what you're saying also is that there are cost savings to combine projects involving cranes to get equipment to the roof as well?

Amalia Cuadra:

Oh, 100%, yeah. Yeah. You use the crane for an hour, you're still going to pay at least $100,000. You know?

Emily Myers:

What is the cost for the project, then, for this building?

Amalia Cuadra:

Yeah. So the cost of the cooling tower and the rooftop unit are somewhere around one point... Sorry. They're somewhere around $900,000 combined. That includes work associated with, obviously, the new equipment. We put new grading around the rooftop unit from a safety component, 'cause that also needed to be addressed. For the cooling tower, there was a lot of steel damage around the unit that we cleaned up.

And the new cooling tower is also a cooling tower that's using much more efficient motors. New technology allows you to be about half the size in the motor. So instead of having a, I forget the exact size of the motors, but I think we went from 220 horsepower to 210. So I'm confident about the fact that we have, yeah.

Emily Myers:

And so what kind of savings are you generating, then? Can you put a number on that?

Amalia Cuadra:

Yeah. So generally we're seeing about... Our estimates, 'cause we finished the project in October, we rigged in October. So the rooftop unit has been operating to provide air, but it's heated air. The efficiency of the rooftop unit from a cooling perspective was better than the old unit, obviously. And then the cooling tower hasn't run. We expect it to start running in about a two months period, maybe a little bit. It's a glass building, so they need cooling earlier.

But we expect the savings to be about 250,000 kilowatt-hours. And on therms, I don't remember exactly how many. But it was essentially an improvement of about one letter grade for the building. And obviously it also comes with carbon emissions reduction, because we're reducing gas consumption from wasting so much air that's coming and traveling through the building.

Emily Myers:

So was this building looking to reduce penalties under Local Law 97? And will this affect their penalty exposure?

Amalia Cuadra:

Yeah. So the building was [inaudible 00:13:40] in part because of the first project that we did, they're not expected to have any new penalties in the first cycle and the second cycle, I believe. But this really helped achieve a reduction from the third cycle of about 100... I just looked at the numbers, about 170 tons if I remember correctly. So it really just helps their overall story.

Emily Myers:

And clearly comfort was a big issue, as well as the savings generated. So what are some of the takeaways from this case study for other boards who might be listening?

Amalia Cuadra:

Yeah. I mean, I think the biggest takeaway is that every capital needs to have... You need to think about it, one, holistically, but also ask the question, can I do this better? Replacement of A with A sometimes does not solve a problem. You got to think, can this save me energy? Can this save me operating expenses? Can these save me carbon emissions?

So especially for such critical, large equipment as a cooling tower, as a rooftop unit, as exhaust fans, chillers and boilers, there are ways to piggy-ride off capital projects and reduce energy and carbon emissions.

Emily Myers:

You said that obviously 1 Grand Army Plaza was built in the... well, 2008.

Amalia Cuadra:

[inaudible 00:15:18].

Emily Myers:

Sorry. What was I going to say? Yes.

So you said that the building was constructed in 2008. Is there a risk with some of these newer construction, where the sponsor has moved on and perhaps as a result these HVAC units aren't correctly sized or commissioned? And is that something that buildings, sort of the newer construction buildings, should be considering, then?

Amalia Cuadra:

[inaudible 00:15:48] that's a hard question to answer. And I've actually spent time thinking about it, 'cause I don't want the owners of new construction buildings to feel like they're just not getting what they hope for.

What I will say is this, I've seen a lot more mechanical problems and operational issues with newer construction than I have with some of the older [inaudible 00:16:23]. However, I don't know what is the cost of that. And sometimes I wonder, if I put myself in a pre-War building and it was like, 1942 right now, would we still be dealing with some of the issues in these newer constructions? Does it take a cycle or two for a building to actually learn how to operate optimally? I don't have the answer to that. Obviously, I can't travel in time.

So I don't want owners of newer construction to be discouraged. But I will say that, just on what I've seen, we do see some problematic operational issues that just are operational headaches for the operators, for the building. And...

Emily Myers:

You mentioned about designing these upgrades holistically, but also is it helpful to perhaps phase in these improvements so that these adjustments can be made to optimize improvements?

Amalia Cuadra:

Yeah. I think Local Law 97 is giving buildings the opportunity to think like that. So luckily, most buildings are not going to be affected by the first cycle of Local Law 97, but buildings need to be thinking about what are the capital needs of that building and how those capital needs can be tied into carbon emission reduction.

So I think you have to pair the two. If you have a very expensive facade project coming up, you need to be having conversations with your architect about what can we do to improve the insulation of the walls? Is there anything that can be done?

There's one architect that I like to follow their work, and whenever they do a facade project they also spend time improving some of... And I don't have the technical terms, but improving the windows so that when the windows are replaced in the future it's an easier replacement, so they can install better windows. So it's just thinking forwards, is there anything that can be done to reduce [inaudible 00:19:00] elements?

So these are things that buildings just need to be thinking about.

Emily Myers:

Yeah. So basically looking for every opportunity to improve efficiency.

Amalia Cuadra:

Yeah.

Emily Myers:

Thank you so much, Amalia.

Amalia Cuadra:

Yeah.

Emily Myers:

That's-

Amalia Cuadra:

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, thanks for having me. And we're always here to answer questions.

Emily Myers:

Great. Amalia Cuadra, Senior Director of Engineering at EN-POWER Group.

Amalia Cuadra:

Thank you, guys. Take care.