A Community College, New Jersey
RETROFIT TEAM
- MECHANICAL CONTRACTOR: Estock Piping Co. LLC, Chesterfield, N.J., (609) 291-1989
- MANUFACTURERS’ REPRESENTATIVE: Wallace Eannace Associates Inc., Plainview, N.Y.
- PRODUCT SPECIALIST: Ferguson
MATERIALS
The college required replacement of condenser water piping between chillers and cooling towers. The existing piping was black steel that was severely corroded and scaled. In fact, chunks were falling off the corroded black steel pipe and clogging the strainers, potentially damaging the pumps and chillers. The college had a four-month window in the winter of 2017-18 to change the piping.
Joe Estock of Estock Piping says Aquatherm pipe cost more than black steel but the labor savings more than made up for it. However, after he won the job, he became worried: He had zero experience with Aquatherm pipe. He turned to Ferguson for help. Ferguson product specialists make sure installing contractors are comfortable with the product and have everything they need to do the job. Ferguson trained Estock and his pipefitters on how to use the tools, spending three to four days total onsite.
Estock’s crew needed some scissor lifts and a couple forklifts to move the Aquatherm Blue Pipe around the jobsite, but it was light enough they could easily make fusion joints with the pipe in the air. Estock’s crew did all the fabrication themselves for assemblies, such as manifolds, inside the college’s large mechanical room. All told, the crew installed approximately 40 feet of 24-inch pipe, nearly 100 feet of 18-inch pipe, 20 feet of 16-inch pipe, 60 feet of 10-inch pipe and 157 feet of 12-inch pipe.
The main advantage of the Aquatherm Blue Pipe was the weight, Estock says. For example, the Aquatherm 18-inch Blue Pipe SDR 17.6 used on this job weighs 22.9 pounds per foot and comes in about 19-foot lengths. The second advantage was the speed of making heat-fused joints in PP-R pipe. “With the time constraints, God knows what would have happened if this were black pipe,” the college’s facility manager says. “We might still be welding down there.”
PIPE MANUFACTURER: Aquatherm
PHOTO: Aquatherm