Gary Anderson Mechanical Services

We are a small systems solutions provider serving the Maryland, Delaware and Washington D.C areas.

We are a full-service mechanical business, specializing in steam and hydronics, VRF systems, as well as variable-frequency drive application and service.

Sedgewick Gardens Apartments. (Washington D.C)

Challenge

Large Apartment building built in the 1930's. The building had many years of history with banging pipes and tenant comfort issues. The building had some renovation work done in the lobby area. This work included removing old, rotted condensate lines, located in the floor of the lobby. This line had been abandoned and relocated to the ceilings. After this was completed, the pipe noise (according to 90% of the tenants we spoke with) was worse than ever. Actually what we found was that was all that we had been called in to repair. They were concentrating on fixing was what done in the lobby and were not even looking at the entire building. It was the old burning bush theory, forgetting about the rest of the forest.

Approach

Our approach was simple: evaluate the entire system. What we found was just a lack of system maintenance. This was a two-pipe system. We first noticed on the top floor that there were no accesses to the tops of any risers. With no way of getting to the traps or vents, it became clear that no one was servicing those. Next, a huge challenge was getting access into apartments, coordinating this was very challenging because you are going into people's homes. Once we did, we found that there were new traps installed. The problem was that they were installed wrong. And the sad part was that the traps did not have to be changed. They just needed to have the cages changed. We found radiators pitched the wrong way, piping issues, you name it. All of this was bad, but the biggest problem was actually in the boiler room. Several years ago, a company was called in to repair a bad vacuum pump. Well some crafty salesman ends up selling them a new condensate tank and tells them that vacuum system is no longer needed. The sad part is that we see this all the time. We are actually working on several other systems right in the same boat.

Solution

We first installed a new vacuum system. We then hired a general contractor to come in and cut out plaster ceiling access panels once we located the riser ends. We then replaced/repaired the traps in all of the units as well as the risers. We made the piping repairs needed and pitched all of the radiators. Once this was done, we started the the system. We made several adjustments to the vacuum system and we were off to the races. Mission accomplished.