Onyx Equities – Phase One

Onyx Equities, LLC is a leading real estate investment and property services firm specializing in acquiring, managing, and repositioning commercial properties. EVCO Mechanical provided a complete ventilation system replacement for one of their commercial office communities in Paramus, NJ.

This project was motivated by a need to update the old and original units to achieve higher energy efficiency, improved air quality, and superior reliability. The existing ventilation systems were over forty years old, and their associated condensing units had been suffering from compressor failures. Onyx worked with Robert Director Associates (RDA) to develop a replacement system design, and EVCO was chosen out of a competitive bid to perform the project.

A project such as this requires a lot of advanced work. Naturally, there is a tremendous amount of planning needed and time to review the equipment sizing, double-check measurements, coordinate equipment delivery, and plan the work to have minimum impact on building occupants. EVCO worked closely with RDA to review equipment selections and verify field conditions while coordinating every step of the project with Onyx to ensure their tenants’ safety and comfort.

“This type of project is our bread and butter work. Big, complicated, lots of moving parts, months of planning; this is where EVCO really excels.”

What you see here today actually started weeks ago. We began mobilizing the equipment in the parking lot last week. The electrical infrastructure for the new equipment was set in place a month in advance. The crane was set up yesterday, ahead of schedule, for smooth operations today.  With the equipment staged ahead of time on-site and in order of installation, we met with the manufacturer days ago to check all of the pieces and verify their readiness for installation.

The day started around 7:00 AM (a little earlier for some of us). The crane was ready to go in 20 or 30 minutes; by 10:30, the two old condensing units and several sections of old air handler were off the roof. Setting all the new equipment – two new condensers, new sections of the air handlers, and the piping and materials needed to complete the air conditioning work – required the rest of the day.

EVCO deployed twenty to thirty people to work on this phase of the project, including rigging staff, electricians, mechanics, control technicians, and manufacturers’ representatives.

Seven air handler systems will be replaced, spread across two addresses (a sister building is across the courtyard). Today we replaced air handler number one, but we still have to replace the rest of the air handlers on this building and complete the sister building.

The new equipment will provide improved building ventilation with return air fan circulation, increased energy efficiency with variable frequency drives and digital scroll compressors, and enhanced indoor air quality with complete UV sterilization of the airflow.

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