Channel partners join forces on

university’s water heating project

This wholesaler’s recipe for success has few ingredients: serve the customer’s needs at all costs, be attentive to detail, offer what the competition can’t, and build relationships that last -- they’re more important than the sale.

These are the intangibles that Bedford, Mass.-based F.W. Webb lives by. “It’s our way of life. It’s the culture of our company,” said John Provencal, F.W. Webb’s senior vice president-plumbing, heating and lp gas sales.

So it’s no surprise to their customers, when the largest distributor of plumbing, heating, cooling and piping products in the Northeast -- with 65 locations -- efficiently moves resources and expertise to help fine-tune jobsite applications.

Recently, a team of F.W. Webb specialists at the firms’ Lowell, Mass., branch -- including Ed Welch and the Lowell sales team -- worked with their customer in designing a plumbing and mechanical solution to meet domestic water and space heating needs at Johnson & Wales University’s new Harborside Village student apartments. The dorms were built on reclaimed acreage, once used as a dump during World War II ship building.

Today the area, thought still under development, enhances the school’s unique waterfront campus and proudly demonstrates that blighted areas can be reclaimed. The banks of the Providence River here are once again green.

“It’s hard to see it right now, when you gaze at the abandoned railroad tracks and see remnants of the debris and neglect, but it’s really becoming beautiful waterfront property,” said Christopher O. Placco, vice president-facilities management for the university. Johnson & Wales just completed phase one of the Harborside Commons project, with the $25-million Village as crown jewel of the student complex that includes a quadrangle, recreational hall, 12 apartment buildings with a total of 576 beds.

All things green
In addition to being one of the world’s preeminent culinary, hospitality and business schools, the university is among the nation’s leading conservation-oriented, “green” institutions.

Their focus on all things green extends into the building shell. One of the key steps they took to ensure energy-efficient comfort for students in the Village was the installation of 144 CombiCor water heaters by Bradford White. The high-efficiency gas-fired units (also available with oil burners) serve a dual purpose by providing hot water for each apartment’s domestic water system, and also to air handlers for hydro-air space heating.

The school’s engineering team and Capstone Construction, the general contractor, specified the water heaters, then chose Dedham, Mass.-based Superior Plumbing to do the job.

“We sourced the ‘Combis’ and other materials and supplies through our wholesaler, F.W. Webb, who also gave us very good advice and assistance on the system designs,” said Andy Camiolo, president of Superior Plumbing, a non-union shop with more that 100 employees that focuses its work chiefly on multi-housing plumbing and mechanical projects.

“We had 14 weeks to get it all done, just in time for students to move in to the apartments in September,” said John Kelly, jobsite supervisor for Superior. All of the apartment units are about 1,400 square feet in size and consist of a kitchen, common area, four bedrooms and two bathrooms, each with two sinks, a toilet and shower/tub enclosure.

All-in-one water heater
To meet the space and domestic water needs of the apartments, the combination water heaters were sized at 75 gallons and 75,000 Btu. The power-vented “Combis” they chose (atmospheric-fired units are also available with gas-fired systems) offer the versatility and efficiency of an indirect-fired water heater, but differ in that the domestic water in the tank is heated directly by the integrated combustion system. Water in the tank transfers its heat through a large coil in the tank to the closed-loop fluids that circulate to and from a hydronic air handler in the ductwork. This “hydro-air” application provides all of the space heating for each apartment.

“We’re very impressed with the Combi units,” added Kelly. “We got so much capability with such a small footprint, and space in the apartments was tight. They were also simple to pipe and install.”

Kelly explained that with 144 nearly identical systems to install, he and his crews devised a plan to do a lot of the piping pre-fabrications in a first-floor location in each building.

“At each pre-fab station, one guy did all of the water copper pipe work, then the dielectric unions,” he said. “Then we’d move the pre-fabbed piping into position in each of the mechanical areas [see sidebar]. Next, we’d slide the water heater in on top of the pan and begin the final piping and venting. We then put a backflow preventer on the heat-side of each unit, and mixing valves -- set down to 120°F -- on the domestic water side.”

Then they added the expansion tanks, air vents and completed the piping. Four-inch flue pipe was used for the first and second floor water heaters, rather than the customary three-inch. Kelly said that this was necessary because of the location of each mechanical area.

“The manual calls for a 35-foot maximum with 3-inch pipe, and we needed about 45 feet, considering the need for three 90-degree angle bends,” he added. “We did the first and second floor terminations on the building sides.”
Venting of the top floor units was easier. There, Superior crews used the standard 3-inch flue pipe because they were able to vent through the roof with a goose-neck for bug screening.

“Once we had the system down, we were able to completely install 12 units per week,” said Kelly.
The system start-up process involved filling the tanks up, and also the heat-side coil. Then they purged the tank, and also the closed-loop space heat system.

“The expansion tanks had to be pumped up to the pressure of the system on the heat side -- 15 pounds within the system. The tanks were set at 13 pounds,” Kelly noted.

Camiolo added, “We were all impressed with how well the start-ups went. But the best moment was learning, when the school opened the apartments to students, that all of the systems worked perfectly.”

Onsite problem solving
Leave it to good ‘ol Yankee ingenuity. Several years ago, Superior Plumbing devised a mechanical recipe to solve a problem they were seeing with some frequency. They had men and materials on jobsites, but with limited access to work areas. According to Andy Camiolo, president of Superior Plumbing, “We do a lot of apartments and multi-level buildings. Construction delays or scheduling mishaps were becoming a huge challenge.”

Added John Kelly, jobsite supervisor, “But that’s when we came up with the idea -- oh, around five years ago -- to put our people and talents to work, no matter what the situation was like on the jobsite.”

And since they install a lot of water heaters, most with identical piping and fittings, the technique works especially well. The idea: preassembling all of the copper pipe, fittings, valves and gauges.

“We call it ‘unionized’ pre-fab,” explained Kelly. “If one guy is doing the pre-fab work, he’ll work in a room with just one water heater. If several guys are doing pre-fabs, we may use a large room, or an entire building floor with multiple pre-fab stations.”

Multiple adapters and fittings are prepared for prefabrication of all the water heater piping. By using unions, they can quickly disconnect the entire piped assembly as soon as a water heater is piped. The assembly is set aside, and they can then begin work on another identical assembly using the same water heater. As soon as the apartment rooms are available, they place the water heaters in a pan, attach the preassembled piping assembly and, presto! Many water heater installations are completed in short order.