International. 2180 Yonge Street is a complex of three interconnected office buildings located in downtown Toronto, Canada. The complex includes a small shopping mall, an office tower and a multiplex. Built in 1972, the office tower has 18 floors and a total of 402,277 square feet (37,373 m2) of commercial office space.
Armstrong supplied the pumps for the HVAC system. At the time, inline vertical pumps were a relatively new design, but the developers saw the benefits of floor space saving and maintenance and decided to test the vertical configuration online.
Forty years later, the building's managers launched a project to upgrade the HVAC system to use variable speed pumps. After replacing some of the original pumps with wall-mounted drive-controlled pumps, they found that they did not have enough space on the walls of the engine room to accommodate all the required control boxes. Project managers turned to Armstrong when they learned that the Armstrong Design Envelope solution integrates the pump, motor, and controller, eliminating the need for wall space.
Armstrong met with facility managers to discuss HVAC system requirements and collaborated with project engineers, The Mitchell Partnership, to select the Design Envelope pumps. A review of the operational data revealed that the modernized pumps with wall-mounted drives were oversized. Instead of pumps sized for 138 feet of pressure at 1700 gpm, Armstrong recommended Design Envelope 4300 vil pumps sized for 136 feet of pressure.
After installation, it was discovered that the maximum pressure required was actually 85 feet. Most days, the pumps operated well below that and continued to meet the system's demands on both fluid flow and pressure. Some days, the pumps operated at less than 39 amps, or about 39 hp, 45% less than the original design point.
Proceeds
The Design Envelope pumping solution allowed the system designer to meet HVAC system requirements with a smaller pump and motor combination. Selecting the smallest pump that operated at variable speed in response to system demand provided 50% energy savings compared to constant speed. This represents a cost savings of approximately $38,000 per year.
Technical data
Equipment list
• (2) Design Envelope 4300 vertical inline flow pumps: 1700 USgpm, Height: 136 feet
• Flotrex ftv-8ga
• Suction guides
• 75 hp engine
