In 2015, the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) launched “Next Generation NYCHA,” a 10-year strategic plan to preserve and protect public housing. NYCHA’s plan outlined a roadmap to safe, healthy, connected homes, and communities for NYCHA residents. Part of NYCHA’s plan, is the transformation of aging buildings and infrastructure into sustainable, healthy communities. H2M has supported NYCHA in this critically important work to achieving the goals of NYCHA’s “Next Generation” strategic plan. The plan includes an aggressive effort to replace aging infrastructure in NYCHA’s 316 public housing developments across the City’s five boroughs. As part of this effort, new boiler plants serving 11 developments and 24,000 residents are being replaced as part of the first phase of this massive boiler replacement program. The design was fast tracked, and the new boiler projects proceeded through design and construction concurrently. H2M provided investigative, design and construction and administrative services for the Fiorentino Plaza Boiler Replacement project in Brooklyn, NY.
The Fiorentino Plaza Development consists of eight four-story buildings. The central boiler plant’s two 200 HP low pressure steam fire tube boilers and all associated ancillary steam equipment (condensate return unit, boiler feed unit, blow down separator, chemical feed unit, etc.) have all been replaced.
The development’s three existing indirect domestic water systems and their associated steam heat exchanges have been replaced with new high efficiency, gas-fired condensing domestic water heaters with storage tanks. H2M was successful in designing a solution that was able to decouple the domestic water heating systems from the central boiler plant. Decoupling decreased the strain on the boilers and minimizes the possibility of residents losing both heat and water service at the same time in the case of an unexpected system shut down. The design of new domestic water heating systems included new hot water recirculation pumps, storage tank circulator pumps, and domestic hot water tempering valve stations. The project is in the final stages of construction and is expected to be online this heating season.
