The central plant modernization of Harmon Cove Towers was a multi-year program to revitalize the HVAC infrastructure of the complex. The project was extended to include the renovation of boilers, cooling towers, circulating pumps, hot water systems, building automation and other mechanical equipment at the building. Such a massive modernization effort required extensive coordination and planning in order to minimize any inconvenience to the 1,200 families that live at Harmon Cove. Evco Mechanical worked closely with Taylor Management and the condominium board to execute all of the phases of the project, including helicopter delivery of new cooling towers, and numerous cut-over periods to new equipment.

The relationship between Evco Mechanical and Harmon Cove actually began over 15 years ago when the condominium board first considered replacement of its ageing cooling towers. At that time, Evco had evaluated rigging of the new cooling towers from a field-constructed rail-road crane. Years later in 2018, Evco executed the cooling tower replacement with a helicopter. While the helicopter rig was a very visible portion of the renovation, it was only a small part of the overall picture for renovating the HVAC infrastructure at Harmon Cove. In the years leading up to the cooling tower replacement, Evco had already replaced over 50 million BTUs of boiler capacity at the building and installed new domestic hot water heat exchanger systems, mixing valves and a boiler monitoring system. Following replacement of the heating components of the central plant, Evco continued with upgrades on the condenser water system and its associated cooling components.

After multiple years of renovation work, Harmon Cove will this year begin to enjoy the enhanced energy efficiency of their modernized central plant, coupled with the far increased reliability of new equipment and ease of plant operation via a brand new Delta Controls building automation system. This work was funded in part by PSE&G’s multi-family energy efficiency program.

The work and components used include:

• BAC cooling towers
• Lochinvar boilers
• Delta Controls Building Automation
• PSE&G Energy Efficiency Multi-family program
• Helicopter rigging
• Central Plant Renovation

The project is best summarized in our video.