In the fall of 2008, Michaels Energy moved into the second floor of the 100 year old, former downtown department store, Doerflinger’s. The space was completely renovated including refurbishing the original maple floor, repairing plaster, replacing glazing in the original windows, and installing an efficient heating and cooling system with condensing boilers, water-cooled chiller and variable frequency drives on nearly all pumps and fans. By mid-winter, Michaels’ gas bills showed literally about one quarter of the gas consumption that the third floor was experiencing – 299 ccf versus 1,228 ccf. The third floor has nearly identical floor space (14,000 square feet), glazing, and exterior exposure and a similar variable air volume (VAV) heating and cooling system. The building owner asked Michaels to investigate the cause of this apparent wasted energy. Knowing the system type, the target before investigating was excessive VAV box reheat.
Opportunity
The third floor included a substantial data center with waste heat available for free heating of the third floor.