Williamsburg Court Receives NYSERDA Recognition
Project Background:
It is a telling sign if, after completing energy upgrades in a building, the utility company sends someone to investigate the meter for tampering due to unusually low readings. This is exactly what happened at Williamsburg Court after a May 2009 boiler upgrade. Up until that point, heating and domestic hot water (DHW) for the 59-unit building had been provided by 8 atmospheric gas boilers. The boilers’ open, combustion-chamber design resulted in large standby energy losses when the boilers were off.
Project Services:
After performing an energy audit, Steven Winter Associates, Inc. (SWA) recommended replacing the existing boilers with sealed combustion equipment. We then provided turn-key design and commissioning services to implement the upgrade.
Energy Conservation Measures:
The re-design included two new, high-efficiency, sealed combustion boilers. Consequently, there was a 42% decrease in weather-normalized heating energy use in the winter. While the majority of these savings were likely due to the new boilers, some portion was also attributable to effective air-sealing and ventilation reduction.
Summer gas use decreased by 24% post-retrofit due to the sealed combustion boilers and new low-flow aerators. Furthermore, the building enjoyed a 16% reduction in annual energy use by upgrading the common area and apartment lighting fixtures, adding Energy Star refrigerators and installing new roof fans. These measures’ collective annual savings was $30,633.
Williamsburg Court was a finalist in the Reformed Gas Guzzler category at the 2012 EBie Awards, and is one of the most successful New York City energy retrofit projects to ever go through the NYSERDA Multifamily Performance Program.
Read more about SWA’s Residential Existing Building Services