A chilling tale of ghosts and goblins in a historic multifamily building
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The Property
• 19th and 20th century mill and warehouse complex
• Converted into 300 luxury lofts, apartments, townhouses and mixed use space
• Onsite renewables
The Embue Solution
Embue Apartment provides control, monitoring, automation and visibility of the conditions in every apartment through a customizable thermostat that’s programmed to the needs of the site
Embue Central provides control, monitoring, analytics and automation of the central equipment and water loops
Embue Super provides a dashboard view of the building and an easy-to-use app for the site team to monitor and control the building, along with analytics that enable the team to gain a deep understanding of how the building operates
Any multifamily owner or operator can tell you that ghosts and goblins are the most unwelcome residents in any building. They lurk around burst pipes, water leaks, temperature spikes and dips, mold and mildew, and a whole host of other issues that can creep up and wreak havoc on a building without notice, affecting resident comfort, safety, energy efficiency – and the bottom line.
Short of bringing in Ghostbusters to eradicate the unwanted guests, common sense and experience tells us the best approach to protect any building is early detection and preventative maintenance – exactly what a smart building platform is designed to do.
Here’s one harrowing tale of a historic mill building that averted disaster when its chiller failed on the hottest day of the year.
Goblins chilling in the chiller – who knew?
The building certainly has its share of history: it’s a historic adaptation that turned a 19th and 20th century mill and warehouse complex into luxury apartments and mixed use space. Each apartment has water source heat pumps that connect by water loops to a central boiler and chiller plant. The boiler adds heat when needed to the water loops or the chiller extracts excess heat from the loops. The target is to maintain a water loop temperature of 60F regardless of how much heating or cooling demand is coming from the heat pumps in each apartment.
On the first scorching hot day of summer, the building’s chiller suddenly failed and the water loop temperature rapidly rose over 100F – way past the 60F target temperature. Residents and staff remained unaware of the issue because each unit’s heat pump had been successfully cooling down the units.
A voice - or an alert - from beyond saves the day
Suddenly, the maintenance team received an alert through Embue Super notifying them of an urgent issue with the chiller. They responded immediately and avoided disaster: had the chiller fully failed, temperatures could have skyrocketed beyond 140F, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in damage to the heat pumps and leaving residents without cooling during record-setting high temperatures.
As the witching season approaches, it’s important to find ways to fend off the ghosts and goblins hiding in your buildings – and a smart building platform like Embue will help you do just that, with real-time monitoring, automated alerts and data-driven insights to help you stay ahead of maintenance issues and to reduce operational costs.
Happy Halloween!