Helping to Create the Perfect Climate for your Business
Ross Mechanical Helps High End Retailer Solve Their Broadway Nightmare
Like a great play or show, hundreds
of details must be dealt
with to receive rave reviews
and a steady revenue stream.
The same can be said of running
a retail store. Everything must
balance properly or the results
could be catastrophic to the
bottom line.
Although there are many more
factors that help determine the
success of your business, the failure
of the cooling system in the
middle of a hot summer can
cause customers to walk out taking
their dollars with them. As a
facilities or store property manager
the better maintained your
systems are the fewer problems
you will experience.
Unfortunately in the real world
the investment of proper maintenance
is often considered an
unnecessary expense until the
day when the systems performance
interferes with the location’s
revenue stream and overall
customer perceptions.
Just such a case happened to
Villeroy & Boch in their New York
Flagship Store. In July of 2003 the
president of Villeroy & Boch
received a call from an irate customer
complaining of the store’s
high temperatures.When the president
went up to the store he found
the internal temperature hovering
in the high nineties. In fact one sales
associate complained that he had
to bring an extra change of socks,
because the temperature was so
high that he sweated right through
his original pair.
To make matters worse the facilities
manager, Lenny Steinline, had
just paid for a compressor replacement
and thought that his current
vendor was on top of things. Rather
than rest on his laurels and go back
to the vendor who had been to the
store several times Lenny contacted
the Ross Mechanical sales
department.
After explaining the situation to
Ross Goldstein, vice president of
sales, it was decided that rather than
send a technician, he would meet
Lenny at the store to look for a reason
why the system kept failing.
During the initial visit the first problem
became apparent, dirt and lots
of it. Both the evaporator and condenser
coils of all four units in the
store where packed solid. Although
their HVAC vendor had come in
several times to replace parts, they
never performed any maintenance.
The head pressure of the systems
was way above normal. This type of
situation was not only causing a
major mechanical problem but was
causing the electric bill to shoot
through the roof.
The space inside the mechanical room is
very tight. Here one of our technicians
attempts to clean the condenser coil.
In typical Ross Mechanical fashion we
proposed a multi-step solution:
1) Clean the units thoroughly;
2) Provide a proper evaluation to ensure
that they are running at full capacity;
3) Provide an engineering analysis to
determine the weak points of the
system.
For the first part of the project two of
our technicians spent three days cleaning
the coils. This store is similar to many in
congested downtown areas where the
location of the equipment is an afterthought.
Our technicians had to perform
half of their job working from a ladder to
reach the condenser coils. After the
initial condenser coil cleaning we were
able to drop the temperature in the store
by 10 degrees.
Once the units were clean we were able
to begin an evaluation of the systems.We
soon discovered that one of the systems
ran continual high head pressures, causing
the unit to lose several compressors.
After further investigation we discovered
that the supply duct to the condenser
was too small. According to the store
manager this unit had never worked
properly since the day it was installed.
We verified our findings with the equipment
manufacturer who confirmed that
the intake duct was too small for the air
flow required.The sad part for Villeroy &
Boch is that had the previous vendor
cleaned the coils and performed basic
airflow calculations then they would have
discovered this before a series of expensive
repairs.
After a careful review of the all the factors
our engineering department and
Villeroy & Boch’s facilities department
decided that the only way to solve the
problem long-term was to replace the
existing system and the ductwork. Unlike
a typical package unit this would involve
removing a portion of the stores exterior
to install new properly sized ductwork as
well as getting a rather large package unit
through a china store and up a flight of
stairs to the mechanical room located on
the second floor.
This project was accomplished in January
of 2004 without a hitch. After monitoring
the new system’s performance Lenny
Steinline from Villeroy & Boch recently
remarked that the store’s temperature
was now perfect. Ross Mechanical is
proud that we have helped Villeroy &
Boch achieve rave reviews and sales for
their New York flagship store.
For more information or to
discuss how Ross Mechanical can
solve your worst HVAC nightmare
give us a call at:
1-800-572-1705
or
215-914-0305
Ross Mechanical Helps High End Retailer Solve Their Broadway Nightmare
Page 2 Your Commercial Building Comfort
To contact us, call us at 215-914-0305
814 Welsh Road
Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006
The new systems are easier to access and keep
the store comfortable all year round.
