The new housing development at 2701 Kingsbridge Terrace in the Bronx, NY has some distinguished residents – veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The building provides affordable, supportive housing for formerly homeless veterans as part of the Jericho Project’s Veterans’ Initiative. The residence will bring at-risk veterans together under the same roof as veteran peer counselors in order to form a mutual support network aimed at rehabilitation and workforce placement.
In order to get the building plans approved under HUD’s stringent new energy efficiency standards, the engineering team at Abraham Joselow, PC was tasked with finding a solution for minimizing the heat transfer through the building’s exterior walls.
The HVAC plans specified Packaged Terminal Air Conditioners, but the excessive heat transfer of a typical sheet metal PTAC wall sleeve was problematic in reaching the required HUD energy efficiency goals.
Ice Air was brought in to provide the 75 high efficiency PTACs for the job and to develop a solution for the inefficient thermal transfer. Working with the engineering team, Ice Air crafted ThermalGuard™ a new, patented thermal break wall sleeve technology that eliminates heat transfer from the outside of the building through the wall sleeve casing.
ThermalGuard is made of heavy duty galvanized steel and can be customized to match any wall depth or configuration, and is available as part of Ice Air’s standard line of PTAC accessories. As it becomes critical to meet the more rigorous energy codes being adopted by many localities, we have seen sales of these energy efficient wall sleeves increase significantly.
In addition to ThermalGuard, Ice Air has also developed Xstream Air™ a patented cost-effective make-up air solution. Configured as an add-on Outside Air Module, Xstream Air provided filtered, tempered outside air through the PTAC units, eliminating the need for a separate make-up air system or window-mounted “trickle vents” at 2701 Kingsbridge Terrace.
Adding ThermalGuard and Xstream Air to the PTACs at Kingsbridge Terrace made the building more efficient and more comfortable for residents. In fact, these accessories have become the gold standard for Joselow and the engineering team in charge of the project – now they won’t specify PTACs without them!
