Project: Empire State Building
Location: New York City, USA
Type: Commercial Office
Towering 102 stories over Midtown Manhattan sits the Empire State Building. The 443m tall structure took a mere one year to construct and was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon in 1930.
The iconic landmark wanted to create an interactive experience for visitors to explore its famous observatory, which has unparalleled views of Manhattan and beyond. The scheme entailed multi-discipline engineering and technology services for the 6,782m2 project, including the installation of Hydromx. Improvements encompassed the ground, 2nd and 80th floor experience spaces and observatory spaces on the 86th and 102nd floors.
The Observatory Deck climate control systems adhere to strict NY regulations that require cooling pretty much year-round. To avoid compromising efficiency of the recommended chiller systems, Syska Hennessy chose Hydromx, and the US chillers further authorised Hydromx to be used in its chillers without voiding its standard warranties.
Challenge:
Gaining the trust of such an innovative product that shifted the engineers’ paradigm was a challenge that Hydromx gladly accepted. Not only did the engineers need to be won over, but the OEM’s also had to buy into this innovative technology and have confidence that warranties would remain intact.
Solution:
Teams working on the project valued energy conservation. Whilst there is steady growth in renewable energy technologies, Hydromx heat transfer nanofluid meets the global challenge on a scale unlike any other product or technology. Not only does it deliver energy, carbon and cost savings, the hi-tech nanofluid also provides overall system protection against corrosion, freezing and calcification and tremendously improves system efficiency.
Results:
After much-demonstrated success, the Empire State Building now specifies Hydromx for all its heating and cooling loops as the standard heat transfer fluid – it is currently installed in 13 different loops inside the building, including heating, cooling and run-around loops and is expected to be fully installed on all floors by the end of 2023.
Timothy Dailey, Director Of Engineering ESRT (Empire State Realty Trust)said: “We have used Hydromx in our 180-ton and two 60-ton airstack chillers as primary cooling fluid with great success. The freeze protection was the initial rationale for installation. The most surprising aspect was the energy efficiency realised with this product. We have since installed Hydromx in all heating systems as well as DOAS heat recovery coils…great success across the board.”