I’m trained in residential HVAC but the cooling tower and AHUs look like they can get back up and running to proper operating conditions very easily. You should be able to test the fans on the cooling tower I believe without water but I would not run it for long. Basically your system is a large version of geothermal.
If/When you do restart the HVAC water loops, be aware that it’s typically a glycol/water mixture of about 30 percent glycol, especially in cold climates where water may circulate in unheated portions of the building.
The tank you're not sure of at 10:40 looks like an air trap it will help remove air from the recirculating water. Saw one like it at a hospital job I did (HVAC controls for Trane). Edit: In one of the other videos where you were turning on power, and #18 breaker tripped with a loud pop, I'm betting it is for the lights in that mech room, and you have a shorted ballast in one of the lights. Try turning off the light switch and resetting the breaker. If the breaker holds, turn on the switch while watching the fixtures. If the short is still there, the good lights will flash for a split second and the bad one won't.
That heat pump and loop system is fascinating. What really is interesting to me is the all electric nature of it, I'd definitely end up wanting a condensing gas fired boiler to replace those electric ones. The real interesting thing is that you could easily replace the boilers and cooling tower with geothermal wells. Not saying you should, and I have no idea what it would cost, but it would work if done correctly. Those are the same thing sold for geothermal, and the loop temperature is consistent with that as well.
Wonder how much copper was stolen, hopefully some of the valves are functional enough to have running water to parts of the building. It will fun to see the old plumbing functional ( I do understand that most of the building plumbing probably is unusable, but would like to see a small section working)
He could do that but that would require a lot of time and effort converting the controls and running internet cables. He could potentially replace the T-stats that can connect to the internet. His system is basically a large version of a residential system.
if you have the time I'd like to see some of the old tech like those old computers at 6:17 or switches or whatever network equipment they left first found your channel on an urban exploring website (uer) back when you where uploading vids about the elevator lol
To be honest, if you get a new fire panel all the cables going to sounders, pull stations and smoke detectors seem intact so maybe you can get that working and the fire department will like you lol
@@Truckguy1970 But in this video it has some boilers right? I don´t understand the system, isn´t just easier to use a central boiler & chiller than the central boiler to heat just a little the water and then the WSHP to heat it again? It´s kind of stupid.
@@Hugo1234567890hello It's about efficiency. Boilers convert 80% of the energy consumed into hot water. A heat pump converts 300%+ (on the low end). These are water source so it will be higher. But they aren't as efficient at extreme temps. They work best when the source water is between 65 and 85.
I know a little about them first things first clean it up then assess what youre working with and what is actually broken take a look inside the cooling tower and check it out also they maybe something in it like tree limbs or even something living in it
Very nice video! Thanks for taking the time and effort to put it together. Is the HVAC water loop completely drained down? Seeing the two breakers on at the cooling tower made me wonder if they could have been to run a pump or pumps so something could still function even if only partially. Depending on what exactly is in the water lines, assuming there is something, running pumps could be useful frost protection. Do you know if there is any kind of building management system installed? I'm not an affiliate nor is there any personal connection but HVACR Videos has some really great videos on commercial HVAC like this, including how fire suppression systems are interlinked to the HVAC systems.
LOL all I can think about is he showing all this equipment all this stuff in this building I'm sitting here thinking how much power is this place going to use and my God what would the power bill be if he had all the equipment for the heating system and cooling up and running
If they get crazy it could go into the thousands. I work in a tiny little factory and the power bill is almost $20k per month in the winter and more when all the ac is running in the summer.
@@MassiveGarbage Yeah, just his customer charge could be hundreds. And that's before any actual usage. Probably would be subject to power factor and demand charges if he ran the whole building continuously.
11:20 Back flow preventer, normally they put them on so the makeup feed water to the heat pump condenser loop water doesn’t flow back into the domestic water
Would you give as tour of the roof? If you wanted to run one or two of the heat pumps on the ground floor near your quarters, you could run just the water pump so the cooling loop circulate. I'm sure it could easily sustain one or two units passively without running the cooling tower or boilers.
That cooling tower appears to be an evaporative cooler. The small pump at the bottom sprays water at a heat exchanger up top. The fans cool the sump water that is sprayed at the heat exchanger which is probably just a series of pipes that carry the water for the loop inside the building. The broken off water inlet line is for the spray pump sump. The water source heat pumps look pretty old and probably use R-22 which is prohibitively expensive. Same with the 3 York rooftop units sitting on the ground. Those are from probably the early 1990s. The 2nd one shown looks like the heat exchanger tubes are split. They appear to be about 7 1/2 to 10 ton 2 stage units. The refrigeration units considering they have semi hermetic compressors in them are also on the old side. Probably originally R-12 but converted to something else at some point in time. Hopefully someone wrote on them somewhere what they were converted to. Unfortunately most of the conversion refrigerants for R-12 aren’t available anymore. The ones that are still available cost as much as R-12 does. Unsure of what your timeframe is but now is about the worst time to buy any kind of cooling or refrigeration equipment as the industry (thanks EPA) is amid transition to A2L refrigerants. All the refrigerants presently in use will soon be phased out.
Our local auction house is a old 10 classroom school house they remove the oil fired boilers and installed a Wood-Fired boiler Wonder if you could heat a section of the building that way?
I think it might be a couple years newer than 1977, maybe 1980 or 81 based on a few things I saw (I have a lot of history analyzing systems from this era). Pretty forward thinking and efficient system for its time though, at the expense of multiple potential failure points but it's not too different than what would be installed today. A lot of these places still use hydronic unit ventilators and wall-based packaged units. I think this arrangement is best suited though. They didn't really cheapen out too much with the addition, it's a solid build. A shame they painted the exterior brick though, I bet it once matched the brick in the lobby.
With the control panel that the bulbs were munched Where to cross something interesting and one off. At a An older church I used to go to. They had these boxes on the wall and so's number on a long cable. If i'm moving correctly there were three of them although there could have been four if i'm not mistaken It was used as some sort of Is sigw system. All the boxes were idintacle and same wiring. Three center off Momentary double throw single poll Togle switches And above them 3 red indcaters. Same tpe in this Cntrol panle. The 3 Lashing relays that controlled the indicators. Is were Of the type that is used for removal to gliding control back in the day. Indiansters quite a bit of this in the old church. Some not surprising.It would build from these components. The idea was that if any switch was turning on the relay all the webs on each box would Light above that same switch. And of course all the switches would do the exact same thing for the same lamp. The three were completely independent of each other. Also was powered by a Twenty four voltage Signaling. Transformer. Likely the same type of transformer used elsewhere for some low voltage controls. The interesting thing is we did find a schematic to talk up there with the rest of the relay in the transformer And yes When there was no construction done this got Saved in salvageed to course. We were thinking about originally possibly putting it back together and i'm actually using this at home. Possibly building more of the boxes with the same components or something somewhere.To use throughout the house. Turns out it's more useful for the components than use. Besides did quite a few twenty four fold indicators in some momentary switches for a project. However, the chances got saved for other project boxes.Of course. And the transformer did get you somewhere.Can't remember what I used it for. So I can help something to do Was controlling an outdoor light On the garage. I believe i've used 12 of the relays and couple of switches stuck this on a junction box cover. And of course a switch at the garage as well. Kind of cheated on the Low Voltage cable used rectangle cable.That I got some.It is extra wire. I believe it may have been intended firrigation systems I gotta make a boil of it from someone that didn't need it anymore. That stuff is kind of a kid to deal with because the weather resistance stuff in the cable.But hey it worked and was reliable
Alright boys gather round, this is gonna be good!! I love these videos.
Same!!!
8:15 reciprocating compressors never fail to satisfy me
I’m trained in residential HVAC but the cooling tower and AHUs look like they can get back up and running to proper operating conditions very easily. You should be able to test the fans on the cooling tower I believe without water but I would not run it for long.
Basically your system is a large version of geothermal.
I absolutely LOVE this channel, Keep the video's coming. This place is amazing. You should see if the generator works
That vintage dell in the room please I want that ;-;
Its actually cool to see it sit there in what seems like good condition still heh
If/When you do restart the HVAC water loops, be aware that it’s typically a glycol/water mixture of about 30 percent glycol, especially in cold climates where water may circulate in unheated portions of the building.
And keep in mind that there could be leaks almost anywhere lol
14:00 Those are JC monitor points that means when the building was running they could use a program called metasys to remotely monitor everything.
You're giving me second thoughts about the school I'm trying to buy...
You are what
The tank you're not sure of at 10:40 looks like an air trap it will help remove air from the recirculating water. Saw one like it at a hospital job I did (HVAC controls for Trane). Edit: In one of the other videos where you were turning on power, and #18 breaker tripped with a loud pop, I'm betting it is for the lights in that mech room, and you have a shorted ballast in one of the lights. Try turning off the light switch and resetting the breaker. If the breaker holds, turn on the switch while watching the fixtures. If the short is still there, the good lights will flash for a split second and the bad one won't.
I love these videos
Very nice, I love seeing the inner working of a building. Thanks for the video 👍🏼
Nice to see you have a fresh Air system for the Ward
That heat pump and loop system is fascinating. What really is interesting to me is the all electric nature of it, I'd definitely end up wanting a condensing gas fired boiler to replace those electric ones. The real interesting thing is that you could easily replace the boilers and cooling tower with geothermal wells. Not saying you should, and I have no idea what it would cost, but it would work if done correctly. Those are the same thing sold for geothermal, and the loop temperature is consistent with that as well.
Looks like a lot of work but it seems like you can do it. Vary interested in the project and will follow along.
Wonder how much copper was stolen, hopefully some of the valves are functional enough to have running water to parts of the building. It will fun to see the old plumbing functional ( I do understand that most of the building plumbing probably is unusable, but would like to see a small section working)
It would be a cool idea if you could get all the heat pump units somehow all connected together so you can control them from a central location.
He could do that but that would require a lot of time and effort converting the controls and running internet cables. He could potentially replace the T-stats that can connect to the internet.
His system is basically a large version of a residential system.
if you have the time I'd like to see some of the old tech like those old computers at 6:17 or switches or whatever network equipment they left
first found your channel on an urban exploring website (uer) back when you where uploading vids about the elevator lol
To be honest, if you get a new fire panel all the cables going to sounders, pull stations and smoke detectors seem intact so maybe you can get that working and the fire department will like you lol
That would be a lot you could probably make a little bomb or a nuclear generator with that lol
I have a big interest into HVAC and collect air vents and ducts so I really like this video
Do you have any of them giant round mofos from the ceiling at K-mart's? Looking for one to put in my bedroom.
@GOPRepubliklan no sadly
My dude went from 1k subs all the way to 5.94k in a week thats insane
He is at 6.01k now
@@Mantis_Toboggan7.2
@@thebricker7453 8.56k in another week
I’m head maintenance for a facility with a water loop. And probably around 250-300 water source heat pumps. I keep the loop at 80 degrees year round.
Would be cool to see whats on those computers!
Keep the video's coming, love it!
11:28 For a heat pump loop normally the water just needs to stay between 65 and 85 degrees
Thanks for making this. I was curious on how the whole thing worked for this building.
Interesting that the building has water-sourced heat pumps instead of fan coils with a central chiller/boiler plant given how old it is...
Yes, probably because the buildings era (1977) was in the energy crisis.
Yes, this is also called a geothermal heat pump system. The electric boilers are for the heat assist in the wintertime.
@@Truckguy1970 But in this video it has some boilers right? I don´t understand the system, isn´t just easier to use a central boiler & chiller than the central boiler to heat just a little the water and then the WSHP to heat it again? It´s kind of stupid.
@@Hugo1234567890hello It's about efficiency. Boilers convert 80% of the energy consumed into hot water. A heat pump converts 300%+ (on the low end). These are water source so it will be higher. But they aren't as efficient at extreme temps. They work best when the source water is between 65 and 85.
Yeah it is pretty forward for its time but yes, energy crisis engineering.
I know a little about them first things first clean it up then assess what youre working with and what is actually broken take a look inside the cooling tower and check it out also they maybe something in it like tree limbs or even something living in it
10:40 is an air separator I believe, inlet and outlet on the top and bottom
kinda nice most of the ceiling tiles have fallen out! makes for much easier visual inspection / tracing everything out!
In my opinion it looks like shit because my school has the like vrid for it but no pannels in it and it looks really bad.
Is there a map for this specific ward? I’ve really wanted to understand the floor plan better
Same
Very nice video! Thanks for taking the time and effort to put it together. Is the HVAC water loop completely drained down? Seeing the two breakers on at the cooling tower made me wonder if they could have been to run a pump or pumps so something could still function even if only partially. Depending on what exactly is in the water lines, assuming there is something, running pumps could be useful frost protection.
Do you know if there is any kind of building management system installed?
I'm not an affiliate nor is there any personal connection but HVACR Videos has some really great videos on commercial HVAC like this, including how fire suppression systems are interlinked to the HVAC systems.
LOL all I can think about is he showing all this equipment all this stuff in this building I'm sitting here thinking how much power is this place going to use and my God what would the power bill be if he had all the equipment for the heating system and cooling up and running
If they get crazy it could go into the thousands. I work in a tiny little factory and the power bill is almost $20k per month in the winter and more when all the ac is running in the summer.
@@MassiveGarbage Yeah, just his customer charge could be hundreds. And that's before any actual usage. Probably would be subject to power factor and demand charges if he ran the whole building continuously.
@@GOPRepubliklan The power factor is probably trash in that building lol
11:20 Back flow preventer, normally they put them on so the makeup feed water to the heat pump condenser loop water doesn’t flow back into the domestic water
Anyone else see the what looks like radiation bleed in the camera sensor? Around 15 mins? Or am I crazy
Did i see right,no fence between your building and those houses? How is this not destroyed and scrapped? Im glad it's not but seems lucky
Would you give as tour of the roof? If you wanted to run one or two of the heat pumps on the ground floor near your quarters, you could run just the water pump so the cooling loop circulate. I'm sure it could easily sustain one or two units passively without running the cooling tower or boilers.
23:00 I would cover that up with a board or something, it looks like a liability. Be best to avoid that situation entirely.
That cooling tower appears to be an evaporative cooler. The small pump at the bottom sprays water at a heat exchanger up top. The fans cool the sump water that is sprayed at the heat exchanger which is probably just a series of pipes that carry the water for the loop inside the building. The broken off water inlet line is for the spray pump sump.
The water source heat pumps look pretty old and probably use R-22 which is prohibitively expensive. Same with the 3 York rooftop units sitting on the ground. Those are from probably the early 1990s. The 2nd one shown looks like the heat exchanger tubes are split. They appear to be about 7 1/2 to 10 ton 2 stage units.
The refrigeration units considering they have semi hermetic compressors in them are also on the old side. Probably originally R-12 but converted to something else at some point in time. Hopefully someone wrote on them somewhere what they were converted to. Unfortunately most of the conversion refrigerants for R-12 aren’t available anymore. The ones that are still available cost as much as R-12 does.
Unsure of what your timeframe is but now is about the worst time to buy any kind of cooling or refrigeration equipment as the industry (thanks EPA) is amid transition to A2L refrigerants. All the refrigerants presently in use will soon be phased out.
the first vent unit is missing a belt but the old left in place looks good
1:21 dead body
5:41 do the old computers work?
Our local auction house is a old 10 classroom school house they remove the oil fired boilers and installed a Wood-Fired boiler Wonder if you could heat a section of the building that way?
you forgot about the corpse in the hallway
that black tank is an air seperator.
I think it might be a couple years newer than 1977, maybe 1980 or 81 based on a few things I saw (I have a lot of history analyzing systems from this era). Pretty forward thinking and efficient system for its time though, at the expense of multiple potential failure points but it's not too different than what would be installed today. A lot of these places still use hydronic unit ventilators and wall-based packaged units. I think this arrangement is best suited though. They didn't really cheapen out too much with the addition, it's a solid build. A shame they painted the exterior brick though, I bet it once matched the brick in the lobby.
6:20 some old computers, nice.
that in-line duct fan was made by the Loren Cook company of Cleveland
That other tank looks to be the air separator
When will you turn the water back on ?
Anyone going to talk about whats in the hall at 1:21
looks like the guy's jacket
How much work needs to be done before you can get water flowing through this place?
They would have to keep the building heated at all times if they turned the water on. That would get expensive.
I'm just wondering how much of the insulation, if any (he did say fiberglass) is asbestos.
More than he knows
Just was wondering what is the final goal of the place for you. Do you wish to fix everything up?
He already made a video on this.
@ oh ok I’ll look for it
It would be awesome if you could make videos while you fix or clean up stuff
nice truck
10:45 Air separator
You’re a good person
any old networking gear?
That would be sick
Yes it was in some of the older videos
you should get all of the hvac stuff running and working so your not cold.
All it takes is MONEY to run it all.
Besides the money it would cost to restore the system with god knows how many leaks?
@@LOCOLAPTOP yeah
With the control panel that the bulbs were munched
Where to cross something interesting and one off.
At a An older church I used to go to.
They had these boxes on the wall and so's number on a long cable.
If i'm moving correctly there were three of them although there could have been four if i'm not mistaken
It was used as some sort of Is sigw system.
All the boxes were idintacle and same wiring.
Three center off Momentary double throw single poll Togle switches
And above them 3 red indcaters.
Same tpe in this
Cntrol panle.
The 3 Lashing relays that controlled the indicators.
Is were Of the type that is used for removal to gliding control back in the day.
Indiansters quite a bit of this in the old church.
Some not surprising.It would build from these components.
The idea was that if any switch was turning on the relay all the webs on each box would Light above that same switch.
And of course all the switches would do the exact same thing for the same lamp.
The three were completely independent of each other.
Also was powered by a Twenty four voltage Signaling.
Transformer.
Likely the same type of transformer used elsewhere for some low voltage controls.
The interesting thing is we did find a schematic to talk up there with the rest of the relay in the transformer
And yes
When there was no construction done this got Saved in salvageed to course.
We were thinking about originally possibly putting it back together and i'm actually using this at home.
Possibly building more of the boxes with the same components or something somewhere.To use throughout the house.
Turns out it's more useful for the components than use.
Besides did quite a few twenty four fold indicators in some momentary switches for a project.
However, the chances got saved for other project boxes.Of course.
And the transformer did get you somewhere.Can't remember what I used it for.
So I can help something to do Was controlling an outdoor light On the garage.
I believe i've used 12 of the relays and couple of switches stuck this on a junction box cover.
And of course a switch at the garage as well.
Kind of cheated on the Low Voltage cable used rectangle cable.That I got some.It is extra wire.
I believe it may have been intended firrigation systems
I gotta make a boil of it from someone that didn't need it anymore.
That stuff is kind of a kid to deal with because the weather resistance stuff in the cable.But hey it worked and was reliable
Any Nortel switching equipment??
You have a lot of work to do
Jump the blower wires and run just the blower or set the thermostat to fan heat and ac off fan to on mode
i guess i'm third :D also interesting videos concerning this stuff
if you guys are going to toss any of the old computers can i have them? lol
7:51 are those 4-pin molex cables?
they look to be but just a bit thicker cables
No
I'm not going to say where this place is but I now know it's in a village I visit quite frequently
10:40 hydraulic separator
Akai GX-4000?
Please try out fhe dell pc
Thank you for saying click the like button
you seem knowlegble in builing systems, is this your background?
I was thinking the same. He seems to know everything what he's doing.
I want treadmills lying around in germany lol
Could you try to run it in a vid
Thats a whole lot of money in power to fire it up i bet if you payed for the power he would
@ fair
The one with the hwating grills could be newer from the design. Round corners and unpainted
So did you buy this place or are you just the last guy around getting paid to keep an eye on the place???
We purchased the building.
That refrigeration systems outdoor is garbage bro..
1