D'Youville College in Buffalo, NY, a 102-year old private school, has expanded its healthcare degree offerings to include pharmacy studies. In a new pharmacy college building, students and faculty now enjoy controlled indoor comfort provided by an innovative HVAC system. The system combines Florida Heat Pumps with the single pipe LoadMatch® system by Taco.

The contractor for the project was John W. Danforth, Tonawanda, NY, one of the largest mechanical contractor Design/Build firms in the U.S., The Danforth team brought considerable experience in HVAC system design to the project. HVAC systems to the project. The installation was accomplished by a three-man Danforth crew, working at the pharmacy college site from April 1, 2009 to August 1, 2010.

Ed Cudney, Danforth's Design/Build manager, and his design team, decided to combine LoadMatch circulators and Twin Tees with the heat pumps. This provided cost savings, because it eliminated the secondary pipe typically associated with a conventional loop piping design.

Before the development of the Taco LoadMatch system and Taco's accompanying Hydronic Systems Solution (HSS) software, Design/Build engineers like Danforth's Bob Praties would have used AutoCAD. However, with help from Taco's experts, he used the HSS software through 12 design revisions over a 30-day period. He says the time savings were significant:

"HSS really works well," Praties says. "The program was able to supply us with the information we wanted, without having to manually calculate every piece, part, and temperature drop. Because the software automatically calculated all the parameters, it saved us a lot of time. We were able to select our equipment in a faster manner."

Using HSS, Praties designed the condenser water loop for a 10F Delta T. LoadMatch circulators were matched to heat pump capacities and pipe-runs.

There are 72 Florida Heat Pumps located throughout the ceilings of the building's floors, each containing one LoadMatch circulator. Each heat pump is also equipped with a reversing valve to alternately serve the heat and cold water loop. Danforth prefabricated the heat pumps and circulator piping at their Buffalo fabrication facility by mounting and wiring the circulators prior to delivery to the jobsite. taco-hvac.com