Employee areas, corridors, service areas, and storage rooms presently do not have air conditioning or ventilation. There is no exhaust system for the employee lounges, particularly the smoking lounge from which smoke drifts into other rooms and corridors.

Most of the boiler room equipment is over 30 years old and there is concern that a major disruption during the winter months could necessitate the evacuation of the facility.

Presently there are three 1,000,000 BTU steam boilers manifolded together, as can be seen in the following photo.

These boilers are the only source of energy for space heating. Should a problem occur in the main steam lines or the hot water converter, there would be no heat available to the entire building. The desire is to decentralize the heating of the building.

These boilers are already showing signs of wear, and if kept at their present full capacity, they most likely would require replacement at a cost of $210,000.00.

At the time of this replacement we would suggest installing, for an additional cost of $100,000.00, backup manifolds and another heat exchanger.

An alternate suggestion would be to install a series of packaged hot water boilers to serve as a stand-by hot water system to be inter-connected to the hot water supply line after the existing heat exchanger. The cost of this system would be approximately $50,000.00, including individual valves and controls and a step controller.

Recently the domestic hot water system has been backed up with another separate boiler, so that water may be heated from either boiler system.

The cooling for the central portion of the facility is provided through a chilled water system with a central chiller in the boiler room. This chiller is in the process of being rebuilt. The problem is that when the chiller is "down", or there is a problem with the cooling water central piping, there is no cooling for the central portion of the building.

Since all of the roof top units most likely will need to be replaced within the next few years, decentralizing of the heating system could be most economically accomplished through the use of self-contained gas fired HVAC roof top units.

The perimeter heating of the facility could remain on the existing boiler system and the central and air circulating systems would be heated by the new roof top units.

We have been informed that some of the roof top units are over forty years old, being originally installed as used equipment. These units are at the end of their life expectancy.

One of the easiest ways to decentralize the heating and cooling systems for the building would be to replace the roof top units with packaged gas-fired HVAC units with internal 80% efficient air filters.

Our preliminary inspection of the building, along with our planning meeting discussions, indicated that the presently installed HVAC equipment is undersized for cooling requirements. We estimate that 110 tons of air conditioning is required. The cost of installing these units and connecting to existing ductwork is $220,000.00. In addition to this cost, an allowance of $30,000.00 should be allowed to cover the cost of structural support framing.

To accommodate these new rooftop units gas piping would have to be run on the roof of the building. We estimate the cost of this gas piping to be $40,000.00.

The perimeter hot water heating system should be renovated to provide individual thermostatic controls in each room. This would allow the temperature of the air handling systems to be set at a standard lower temperature for basic comfort (such as, 73 degrees F.) while allowing each resident room and lounge to be set at a higher temperature to satisfy individual needs and desires.

The estimated cost of this renovation work is $90,000.00.

At the time of this renovation, it would be wise to remove the hot water heating pipelines from the crawl space of each wing and install new pipelines above the corridor ceilings. The cost of this is estimated to be $75,000.00.

Once the heating load is de-centralized with new gas-fired rooftop units, the life expectancy of the existing steam boilers is expected to be considerably extended.

From a cost standpoint, a series of hot water packaged boilers equaling the present 3,000,000 BTU capacity could be installed for less than the $70,000.00 price of replacing one of the present steam boilers. Additionally, these packaged boilers could be installed on separate manifolds, providing backup at no additional cost.

The estimated total cost to renovate the perimeter hot water heating system is $165,000.00.

The estimated cost to de-centralize and modernize the ducted HVAC system is $290,000.00.

The estimated cost to replace the existing steam boiler system with backup manifolds and heat exchanger is $310,000.00.

The estimated cost to back up the steam boiler system with a hot water system is $50,000.00.

The estimated cost to replace the existing steam boiler system with a hot water system with sufficient capacity to provide perimeter hot water heating to the proposed Skilled Nursing Addition would be approximately $70,000.00.

From a purely cost standpoint, our recommendation and cost estimating for this feasibility study will include only the hot water boiler system.