SolarCity’s 1.2 million-square-foot manufacturing facility is the crown jewel of the $750 million, 96-acre RiverBend project. Buffalo was the first American city to have widespread electric lighting by harnessing power from Niagara Falls. Today, it will be the first city to produce the first-ever true solar roof – a roofing product with solar panels built in.
General contractor LPCiminelli selected Quackenbush to install piping to all the HVAC wet systems, including condenser water, chilled water, tertiary chilled water, heating water and heat recovery water. But the size of the building on the SolarCity project meant it would be a substantial undertaking for the contractor.
“Given the speed and scope of the project,” said Scott Maze, Senior Project Manager for Quackenbush, “we realized about a month-and-a-half into it that we would have difficulty sourcing enough qualified welders to complete our scope of work in a timely manner.”
That’s when the project’s engineering firm provided them with an alternative.
“Viega ProPress for 304 Stainless,” Maze said, “used as another installation means for the tertiary chilled water.”
Quackenbush had used Viega ProPress and Viega MegaPress® systems in the past, so its workers were familiar with the benefits press technology could provide.
Viega ProPress® Stainless fittings.
Quackenbush had up to six people pre-fabricating the tertiary water lines, and, in the field, two teams of eight. It only took three months to complete the ProPress piping installation throughout five mezzanines where the air handling units are located.
“The quality and consistency of Viega’s products provided us the ability to pre-fabricate part of the subassemblies at our facility,” Maze said. “We turned construction into production by assembling them in advance instead of individually constructing them in the field.”
For Quackenbush, this made a difference in completing the job on time. When the Viega option became available, Paul Lepine, Estimating Manager for Quackenbush, approached his local Viega sales representative to find a distributorship that could handle the volume and the timeline of the SolarCity project.
Quackenbush needed to install 10,500 Viega ProPress Stainless fittings in various sizes and configurations. With so many fittings needed for the SolarCity project, the Viega rep had to chase specific fittings across the world in order to fill the order quantities Quackenbush needed. And that’s exactly what he did.
“He was instrumental in making this job happen from a delivery standpoint. We just placed an order for sixty 4" elbows two days ago, and he is collecting them now,” Lepine said. “Viega should be very happy with him. I don’t think he ever let us down on a request.”
When Quackenbush increased the pace on the project, their Viega rep brought out a few RIDGID® press tools for them to borrow.
“With the training Viega provided, the folks were able to pick up the installation fairly quickly,” Maze said. “The tools are user-friendly. Once you develop the system, you tend to pick up production and can step up your pace. We were pleased with the quality of the product.”
Read more about this project here.
Related Stories
| Oct 4, 2011
GREENBUILD 2011: Large diameter polypropylene-random pipe unveiled
Available in North America for large scale piping applications including high-rise buildings, large chilled water systems, district energy, and water mains.
| Mar 17, 2011
Hospitality industry turns to HTS Texas for ‘do not disturb’ air conditioned comfort
Large resort hotels and hospitality properties throughout the Southwest have been working with local contractors, engineers and HTS Texas for the latest innovations in quiet heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment. The company has completed 12+ projects throughout Texas and the Southwestern U.S. over the past 18 to 24 months, and is currently working on six more hotel projects throughout the region.
| Mar 2, 2011
New ASHRAE standard may be too broad for the Canadian market
New Standard 189.1 from the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), which goes beyond energy efficiency to include provisions that affect construction, post-occupancy monitoring, and site control, may be too much for the Canadian market—at least for now.
| Feb 22, 2011
Military tests show copper increases HVAC efficiency, reduces odors
Recent testing, which is being funded by the Department of Defense, is taking place in military barracks at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. Side-by-side comparisons demonstrate that air conditioning units made with copper suppress the growth of bacteria, mold, and mildew that cause odors and reduce system energy efficiency.
| Oct 12, 2010
Guardian Building, Detroit, Mich.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Special Recognition. The relocation and consolidation of hundreds of employees from seven departments of Wayne County, Mich., into the historic Guardian Building in downtown Detroit is a refreshing tale of smart government planning and clever financial management that will benefit taxpayers in the economically distressed region for years to come.
| Oct 12, 2010
Gartner Auditorium, Cleveland Museum of Art
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Gartner Auditorium was originally designed by Marcel Breuer and completed, in 1971, as part of his Education Wing at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Despite that lofty provenance, the Gartner was never a perfect music venue.
| Oct 12, 2010
Cell and Genome Sciences Building, Farmington, Conn.
27th Annual Reconstruction Awards—Silver Award. Administrators at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington didn’t think much of the 1970s building they planned to turn into the school’s Cell and Genome Sciences Building. It’s not that the former toxicology research facility was in such terrible shape, but the 117,800-sf structure had almost no windows and its interior was dark and chopped up.
| Oct 12, 2010
Full Steam Ahead for Sustainable Power Plant
An innovative restoration turns a historic but inoperable coal-burning steam plant into a modern, energy-efficient marvel at Duke University.
| Oct 8, 2010
Union Bank’S San Diego HQ awarded LEED Gold
Union Bank’s San Diego headquarters building located at 530 B Street has been awarded LEED Gold certification from the Green Building Certification Institute under the standards established by the U.S. Green Building Council. Gold status was awarded to six buildings across the United States in the most recent certification and Union Bank’s San Diego headquarters building is one of only two in California.
| Sep 16, 2010
Green recreation/wellness center targets physical, environmental health
The 151,000-sf recreation and wellness center at California State University’s Sacramento campus, called the WELL (for “wellness, education, leisure, lifestyle”), has a fitness center, café, indoor track, gymnasium, racquetball courts, educational and counseling space, the largest rock climbing wall in the CSU system.
