–Hocking County Courthouse | Hitachi VRF in Logan, OH, USA
VRF
The place: 100-year old courthouse building suffers from poor temperature control.
Built in 1923-1924 and listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the building has served as Hocking County Courthouse for a century, housing the Common Pleas and Juvenile court systems, Commissioners, Recorder, Auditor and Treasurer.
Since the 1950s, the building had been heated with a steam boiler system, which had turned into a great source of discomfort as it was aging. The radiators were starting to fail due to lime buildup in the lines and were very difficult to maintain consistent temperatures. The pilot lights were also notorious for going out during the night so by morning the offices would be extremely cold. When they were running, the 3rd floor would generally be too hot whereas the 1st floor would remain fairly cool.
For space cooling, window air conditioning units were installed, but were also causing issues. They were loud and inefficient, taking hours for the room to reach a comfortable temperature during summer months. On top on that, these window AC units had developed mildew issues as they were unused all winter and at the same time let in cold air due to slight gaps around the window frames and the AC units.
“Several offices had the radiators on the back wall that would make the people seated nearby too hot so they would also turn on the AC units. This would make the people in the front too cold so they would turn on space heaters!”
Mark Stout, IT Director – Hocking County
As the 100 anniversary of the building was approaching, the decision was made to retrofit the HVAC system and finally bring modern comfort inside the Courthouse.
The solution: Hitachi heat recovery VRF provides long-awaited comfort in all seasons
The client preferred a centralized cooling and heating system that would be easier to maintain than the previous equipment. A key challenge resided in the building’s floors and walls made of granite up to 2 feet thick. This presented many unique barriers in the routing of pipes and electricity to each room.
Hitachi VRF provided the solution due to its great flexibility in piping configurations, as well as the heat recovery system. This allows some units to provide heating while others provide cooling simultaneously, and with no energy waste, which was much needed in the Courthouse during the seasonal weather changes.
“Core drilling was challenging but minimized by the VRF design. Routing of piping around the perimeter space also required that keen attention be paid to line length limits. The designer did an outstanding job providing guidance to the installer on proper piping routing” said Matthew J. Kolb, VRF Regional Account Manager at Johnson Controls-Hitachi Air Conditioning.
The pipes were mainly installed at the surface of the walls and concealed with line set covers. The works were mostly conducted outside of the courthouse’s working hours with very little impact on day-to-day operations.
In total, 3 Hitachi VRF units were installed on the roof and ground floor, topped with snow kits for winter. Inside the building, 62 indoor units and 8 heat recovery changeover boxes were installed.
“The new system now lets us keep each office at consistent temperatures. Each office can control their own temperature range but we can also control all rooms from a master control if needed. Cool air can be sent to one office while another calls for heat at the same time. This also helps in the maintenance of the building since it is no longer being subjected to drastic swings in temperature.”
Mark Stout, IT Director – Hocking County
For centralized control, two complementary monitoring solutions were installed. The AC systems were connected to the airCloud Pro remote management tool which provide a complete overview of the operation from an app or web browser. Inside the Courthouse, Central Station Mini provides visual and convenient control from a touchscreen panel.
“Coming in to this project, we knew what we wanted but had absolutely no idea how to accomplish ot or even how to start. ABM quickly designed the solution that met every single one of our needs. Each step of the way ABM and Campbell handled all of the details and solved all problems that occurred during the process.”
Mark Stout, IT Director – Hocking County
Distributor: Donwil Company
Contractor/Installer: Campbell Mechanical Service, Inc.
HVAC Consultant: 2B Engineering
Property Management: ABM building & energy solutions
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Location
Logan, Ohio, USA
Project
Retrofit
Date of installation
2023
Total System Capacity
64 TON
Outdoor units VRF Heat Recovery
3x VRF Heat Recovery (2x HVAHR240B42S, 1x HVAHR288B42S)
Indoor units
38x Mini-Cassette (7x HICM008B21S , 30x HICM012B21S , 1x HICM015B21S) - 24x Wall-Mount (10x TIWM006B22S , 6x TIWM012B22S , 1x TIWM015B22S , 5x TIWM018B22S & 2x TIWM024B22S)
CH-Box
8x CH-Boxes (5x COB08M264B22S 8-Port, 3x COB12M264B22S 12-Port)
Centralized controls
Central Station Mini (1x CCM01) , airCloud Pro Central Controller (1x HC-IOTGW)
Individual controls
Wired Zone Controllers (53x CIW01)
Distributor
Donwil Company
Contractor / Installer
Campbell Mechanical Service, Inc.
HVAC Consultant
2B Engineering
Property Management
ABM building & energy solutions
