ASHRAE Journal - July 2009 - 84

Sustainable Products Capabilities Advertising Section TACO EQUIPS ITS NEW CANADIAN HEADQUARTERS WITH A LOADMATCH®-BASED RADIANT COOLING SYSTEM When Taco Canada relocated its sales and distribution facility from Mississauga to Milton, Ontario in 2008, the move presented a perfect opportunity to install a new prototypical radiant cooling and heating system in the new office build out. At the time of the relocation, Taco had embarked on development of a unique system of radiant cooling/heating, utilizing a mix of innovative products. The new Milton headquarters then became a logical choice to install such a system in order to test its operational efficacy. The Taco system - called the LoFlo Radiant Cooling System - employs a mix of products, including fan coils, heat pumps, chilled ceiling panels, active and passive chilled beams, along with the company’s single pipe circulation system called LoadMatch® and a modified radiant cooling injection pump version of its popular Radiant Mixing Block (RMB). System components are linked in the same piping distribution system despite each of the terminal units requiring different temperatures. The LoFlo Radiant Cooling System works in conjunction with the radiant chilled ceiling panels and passive/active chilled beams along with a 100 percent dedicated outside air system (DOAS) to supply latent cooling. The office portion of the 30,000 sq. ft. Milton building is seasonally conditioned through the use of 21 heating and 21 cooling zones. The system was designed not only for an operational role but for training and display purposes; for example, all of the system components and piping were mounted exposed on the demising wall between the office area and the manufacturing/warehouse space. There are two separate sideby-side loops for heating and cooling. Taco thermostats feed into a BAS to regulate the indoor temperature. A rooftop chiller and a Taco heat exchanger provide water at 42º for cooling. The modified RMB, called the LoFlo Mixing Block (LMB), circulates water to the terminal units. The LMB consists of a zone circulator for water flow through the secondary circuit to the terminal units, and a variable injection pump that takes a signal from the BAS to inject cold water to always maintain the above dew point system temperature. Because the chilled water supply temperature provided to a radiant chilled ceiling is above dew point, radiant chilled panels alone cannot provide sufficient latent cooling capacity. By providing a 100 percent DOAS to accomplish latent cooling allows the combination decoupled system to provide both sensible and latent capacity. Dedicated outside latent load air is pretreated and delivered to the terminal units as sensible cooling. The system utilizes Taco’s highly successful LoadMatch® circulator, which eliminates control valves and most balancing valves and greatly reduces pipe. The system delivers heating and cooling energy to a variety of terminal units, as listed above, all in the same piping distribution system despite the requirement for different temperatures at different terminal units. In general, hydronic systems use approximately half the horsepower and half the materials to move heating and cooling around a building compared to air systems. In contrast, Taco’s LoFlo Radiant Cooling System uses only one-third of the energy and materials to move heating and cooling energy. For example, the system uses only 1 to 2 changes of outside air flow per hour compared to 8 to 12 air changes per hour for an all-air system. As a result, there is a substantial reduction in the transport energy or horsepower to move BTUs around the building. This savings can approach one-quarter of the total HVAC energy in a building over a VAV system. The LoFlo system savings will approach one-third of the total HVAC energy. Taco’s general manager for Canadian operations, Jim Garrett, thinks the LoFlo Radiant Cooling System is ideal for both new construction, as in this case, or retrofit projects. The LoFlo Cooling Block makes an ideal complement to a radiant cooling system. The Taco Canada building represents the first installation of the LoFlo Radiant Cooling System in North America. As radiant cooling advances, the Taco system promises to be one of the most efficient HVAC system offerings to become available on the North American market, as it combines hydronic heating and cooling energy transport with injection radiant heating and cooling energy delivery. 84 ASHRAE Journal ashrae.org July 2009

ASHRAE Journal - July 2009

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