When you manage a large commercial building, replacing equipment that still works is hard to justify. That was part of the challenge at Two North Riverside Plaza in Chicago. The building was renovated in phases, and its HVAC controls were added and updated at different times. The owners wanted better control and visibility without ripping out systems that still had years of use left. Althoff Industries, Inc. found a way to incorporate the existing controls into the upgrade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our team at Althoff Industries, Inc. found a way to bring the old and new controls together without turning the project into a full tear-out. Here\u2019s how we did it, what changed for the building staff, and why the new setup gave Two North Riverside Plaza more flexibility going forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Not everything at Two North Riverside Plaza needed replacing. Some of the existing HVAC controls were still fairly new and working just fine, so tearing them out would have meant spending money on equipment that wasn\u2019t actually causing a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, our team connected those existing controls to a Tridium AX open-platform building automation system. Now the property managers could monitor both older and newer equipment from one place, while still adding new controls as different parts of the renovation moved forward. Althoff also installed a new Ethernet communication backbone from the third basement level up to the 26th floor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once the new BAS was in place, the building team didn\u2019t have to wait for a problem, like a tenant calling and saying a space was too hot. They could see what was happening throughout the building in real time. The updated system provided 24\/7 monitoring and could send an email or text alert when a monitored condition moved outside its set range. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the first six-floor phase of the remodel, our team at Althoff replaced older pneumatic VAV boxes with digital controls connected to the BAS. The goal was to give the building much better control over how much air each area actually needed. We also upgraded the air-handling fans with variable frequency drives. Instead of running at full speed whether the building needed it or not, the fans could slow down when demand dropped. The projected energy savings from those fan upgrades alone were more than 30%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The temperature swings were another issue the upgrade helped fix right away. Once the new controls were in place, the building stayed much closer to the thermostat setpoint, within about one degree. The BAS also went well beyond HVAC. We tied in the public-area lighting, boiler plant, river filtration plant, and smoke evacuation fans, giving the building team one place to monitor several major systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two North Riverside Plaza is a good example of why we don\u2019t walk into a building assuming everything needs to be replaced. Sometimes the smarter move is figuring out what can stay, what needs to change, and how to make the two work together. If you\u2019re dealing with outdated controls, systems that don\u2019t communicate, or an upgrade that has to happen around an active operation, we\u2019ll look for a solution that makes sense for your building and your workflow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n