The rigors of cold showers and coastal winters Rachel Ruhl According to plentiful online resources, there are benefits to taking an ice cold shower. Among them: improved blood circulation, strengthening of the immune system and even some metabolic advantages. Of course, there’s also the risk of heart attack, loss of motor skills, eyeball expulsion and a slip or fall coupled with hypothermia. Clearly, an ice cold shower is best when done voluntarily. This wasn’t the case for Stone Harbor, NJ natives John & Susan Willett. In the early 2000s, they began experiencing subtle heat losses in their large waterfront home, beginning with substantial cooling of their hydronically-heated radiant floors. This progressed into full loss of heat in some rooms. The home’s radiant heat system would kick on and off for no apparent reason at all, and the provision of heat stopped altogether. Instead of fixing the issue at hand, the mechanical contractor they’d been working with at the time installed a supplemental heat source—a 10kw heat strip in an air handler that was installed as part of the air conditioning system. For a full decade, the Willetts had tolerated what they now realize was a form of cruel and unusual punishment. The new fix helped, but at great cost. Despite the supplemental heat, the old system controls kicked on and off whenever they wanted, with no apparent pattern. That’s when, last winter, the loss of heat for domestic hot water began. “It got to the point that we could never make it through a full shower without the hot water kicking off completely—and that always seemed to happen right as I put shampoo in my hair,” recalled Susan. Account Manager Common Ground With brutal coastal winters, the Willett’s couldn’t take it anymore. The floors were once again frigid and icy showers were again the norm. When the Willetts attempted to connect with the original contractor, he was MIA. “After weeks of unreturned phone calls, we realized he’d left us in the cold—literally!” said Susan. Eventually, a referral led them to a solution. Jackson Pollock mechanical room When Matt Calloway, owner of Ocean View, NJ-based TLC Mechanical first entered the Willett’s mechanical room, he couldn’t believe his eyes. “It had to be the most disorganized cluster of spaghetti wires I’d ever seen,” said Calloway. “Wires were mismatched and hung in a tangled nest of knots. Chaos, that’s what it was.” It looked as if the mechanical space was modeled after a Jackson Pollock painting—the artist who simply splattered canvases with paint. For some reason, that was called art. This wasn’t any form of art; far from it. The lack of order and system piping didn’t help, either. A 100 MBH (1,000 British Thermal Units BTUs per hour) boiler had a primary loop with two separate temperature loops coming off it, controlled by two undersized pumps that attempted to inject heated, mixed water for the home’s radiant system. Apparently, the two separate temp loops coming off the main boiler loop created quite a mess. The pumps were improperly arranged and the result was that they were constantly trying to fight each other for control of water flow. TLC Mechanical’s first order of business was to restore space heating. Understandably, the first thing that comes to mind when staring at a giant mess of wires would be to begin ripping and tearing out the rats nest—shoot first, ask questions later. After some careful research, it was discovered that one of the four zone controls was the main source of system problems, so the TLC team replaced just that, attempting to salvage parts and pieces of the existing system. Calloway knew the place to start anew was to painstakingly figure out exactly what was causing the home’s heating woes. Guessing that it would take many more hours—maybe days—and lots of work, he quickly saw the advantage of some teamwork. Calloway and his team took over 16 hours to go Matt Calloway prepares to complete the Willett home job in Stone Harbor, NJ. 24 ICM/July/August 2016
ICM July-August 2016
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