Featured Projects

West View, PA—

Up, up and away! On August 4, 2011, R & B Mechanical lifted 30 Mitsubishi CITY-MULTI outdoor units onto the roof of West View Elementary. Brendan Heckler, from CSI’s Marketing Department, was on hand to get pictures and video of this amazing crane lift as well as document the project.

This remarkable CITY-MULTI project consisted of 109 tons of CITY-MULTI Y-series and R2-series out-door units serving classrooms, the cafeteria, and the library. On the inside, PLFY 4-way ceiling cassettes, PEFY ceiling concealed ducted, and PKFY wall mounted fan coils were used. This system also utilized 180 tons of CITY-MULTI’s 100% outside air system with a reheat coil and the new PEFYP1200NMHU-CFMR.

Comfort Supply, Inc. also provided a Mr. Slim mini-split system for the server room, a common application for this type of room. For this, a P-series ductless split consisting of a PKAA and a PUYA were used.

As with most of our newer CITY-MULTI projects, a bacnet tie-in for BMS integration was used, featuring Mitsubishi’s new BACHD150 panel. Another common feature accompanying our recent CITY-MULTI projects is the use of Airtec’s BigFoot rail system. This sys-tem eliminates numerous roof penetra-tions and also helps with noise and vibration reduction.

While this project is still underway, the equipment availability and non abrasive installation are helping this project to be installed quickly and smoothly.

Comfort Supply, Inc. is also very proud to announce that this project is the LARGEST Mitsubishi CITY-MULTI CFMR 100% outside air project in the United States. We’d like to extend a very special congratulations to R & B Mechanical, BDA Engineering and our very own Justin Kern for all their hard work on making this incredible project a reality.

Hosanna House, Inc. is a multi-purpose community center serving over 35,000 people a year. Being a force for positive change, we persevere through prayer and hard work to provide families and individuals with hope and quality health and human services. Our mission is to provide opportunities that will empower families and individuals to discover, acknowledge and develop their maximum potential physically, spiritually and economically.

When Carnegie Mellon students undertook a competition to design a solar-powered house from scratch, they needed delivery and installation of appropriate heating, air conditioning and energy recovery systems. And they needed it fast. Even more important, the systems had to be highly efficient, scaled to the project and installed correctly. There were no conventional solutions for this novel residential application.

The professor overseeing the project recommended Variable Refrigeration Flow (VRF) technology. VRF technology is typically specified in commercial applications, but CSI was happy to help the students configure the system for their unique residential requirements and worked with them to ensure that it was installed correctly and on time to meet their tight deadline.

CSI worked with an interdisciplinary team of Carnegie Mellon students as they designed and constructed a solar-powered house that competed in the first Solar Decathlon, Sept. 27 – Oct. 4, 2007 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Carnegie Mellon’s team was one of 14 from universities around the country competing in the event. Solar Decathlon participants attempt to depend completely on the renewable energy collected from the sun to power their structures. During daytime hours, the solar-powered houses will store energy from the sun in batteries for use at night.

CSI assisted the students in selecting, customizing and installing green, energy efficient heating and cooling units based on Variable Refrigeration Flow (VRF) technology from City Multi. CSI also provided a New Air energy recovery unit.

It was the second such project for CSI, according to David Heckler, vice president. “VRF technology is right on the edge of broad acceptance,” he said. Doing projects like this opens up a whole new realm of residential potential. The systems are highly efficient and fit very well into the concept of sustainable building.

“Unlike most conventional heating and cooling units, VRF systems cool or heat exactly as much as you need,” he continues. “And they provide extremely close temperature control. They can hold temperature within one degree.”

Architecture Professor Steve Lee of Carnegie Mellon concurs.  “From a sustainability point of view we wanted to demonstrate environmentally friendly heating and cooling,” explains. “City Multi uses VRF technology with a variable speed compressor. That means you can buy a unit sized for the largest the house could be and then plug in individual room units as you add to the house. It also relies on environmentally friendly refrigerants rather than Freon.

“The Decathalon house features a separate kitchen, bedroom, etc., so we installed four evaporator units that are individually controllable. If you’re having dinner in the living/dining room you can have other rooms turned off to save energy. The variable component means that when you call something to come on, you only expend the energy for that one room. You’re not turning on a big air conditioner to cool one room,” Lee notes.

The Solar Decathlon is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) to educate consumers about solar energy and energy-efficient products that are or will be available in the future. By involving student teams, the DOE also hopes to “provide stimulus to the next generation of researchers, architects, engineers and builders as they prepare to begin their careers.

Each house must also collect enough solar power to operate an electrically powered Ford Th!nk which the students used to get around town. The golf cart type transportation device is now being by the university’s Facilities Management Services as an environmentally friendly maintenance vehicle.

“The dedication and commitment of the students to this project, has made this a rewarding experience for all faculty involved,” Professor Lee notes.

Dave Heckler concludes, “As a company, we are always looking toward the future and the Solar Decathalon has given us an opportunity to participate in developing sustainable building technology that will become increasingly important to tomorrow’s homeowners. We also enjoy working with the students because they always have fresh new ideas and are open to new technologies.”