KCRag Forum

    I am fortunate to have my own furnace and an air conditioner unit on one of the balconies.  I know some if not most hi-rises have giant units for the entire bluilding.  The agent over at the Metropolitan said that the whole bldg is on heat or cooling all at the same time.  Seems to me that the side in the sun would roast so the shady side could be warm or vice versa in the summer.  What are peoples experiences with HVAC in multi-family bldgs?

when i lived at 910 penn, we had one unit for the building. and they would always bitch and cry about turing on the air too early, because once they shut off the heat, is is SO hard to turn it back on, and convert, bs. then in washington dc, the first place i lived, for 5 years, was a 15 story high rise, i was on the 9th floor. hot as hell. and they told the same lies. i did some research, and contacted the agency in dc for tennant / landlord affairs, and found the law, in dc anyways, was the tennant had the right, for purposes of comfort, to be able to make the unit 20 degrees colder than outside, provided the temperature is above 70 F. we formed a tennant association, sicked the neighborhood stabilization officer on the building, and got the company that owned it fined repeatedly. needless to say, dreyfuss brothers, the company that owned them, ended up paying somewhere in the high six figures to get the building converted to a two pipe system. god, they were happy when i moved out.

Some places are becoming so large that individual units would be impossible to find room for (909 walnut for example) but I've never understood how they could bill individual electricity if it's one large unit.

You should see the roof of the library lofts...full of individual A/C compressors.

pretty much all apartment buildings are switching to giving the tenant the choice, ac or heat, whenever. there are freaks like me that have the air conditioning running low as shit even when it is 60 outside.

kcdcchef wrote: pretty much all apartment buildings are switching to giving the tenant the choice, ac or heat, whenever. there are freaks like me that have the air conditioning running low as shit even when it is 60 outside.

I have literally seen my maternal grandmother, who is 86 years old now, run her furnace at 80 degrees, in August, in southern Kansas.

Typically I don't even light my furnace until late December and by late February I'm pretty much shutting it back down for the season.    I like it around 65 in my place.  I can usually mooch off the ambient heat of the building during all but the coldest part of the year.

oh yeah, you can just live off your lower neighbors heat, as long as it is above like 10

For my apartment:

COOL: One A/C unit in the window...in a one bedroom apt.

HEAT: When it gets cold enough, the heat automatically turns on.  But, I don't know how cold it has to get.  A few nights ago, it was down to about 50, and still no heat.  So, I was a little cold.  It kind of sucks because I have no control over it.  But, when its on, it stay pretty toasty in my apt.

so can large apartment highrises with central cooling units bill that seperately or do they just bill that cooling cost at a per square foot rate?  I had that for our heat on the plaza.

both i lived in kcp each apartment had their own thermostat in the bedroom, and living room. only like six or so air conditioners for the building of like a hundred units, but you still controlled your own. large a/c units that as long as one person was using it, ran, and then it went into a central location, and was then divied up based on who ran theirs and who did not. each unit had like a radiator unit of sorts, with a fan in it, and a cooling tray. the cool water came from a central chiller in the building, as did the cold air. the fan would just circulate it through the cold water in your tray. 

Summit & 16th we each have individual heat pumps with the A.C. part on the roof for all 24 units. Seems to work well but I know a few people had to have work done or have A.C. units replaced on the roof, which was expensive because of access issues. No issues for me so far and I like that the heat pump unit in my closet is fairly small compared to a furnace.

summit and 16th. so, you are up the block from my old high school, at 20th and summit. old west. is it still standing? i drove by it last winter, and it looked real damn bad. and empty.

kcdcchef wrote: summit and 16th. so, you are up the block from my old high school, at 20th and summit. old west. is it still standing? i drove by it last winter, and it looked real damn bad. and empty.

I think it is a seldomly used events and meeting center for the city now.

so sad. a really beautiful old school on the inside.the 20th and summit building, along with the switzer school on the back half, are really incredible buildings. probably will meet the wrecking ball, with no fanfare.

So, does anyone know the energy consumption of their heating/cooling/walls/windows?

Are these remodels using the latest technology for this or are they cutting corners which is good for the remodeler, bad for the buyer as well as the environment

    The curtain window walls at the View are rate R-17.

KCPowercat wrote: so can large apartment highrises with central cooling units bill that seperately or do they just bill that cooling cost at a per square foot rate?  I had that for our heat on the plaza.

Dunno if my building is as large as yer thinkin' ( 7 stories...60-ish units ) but all the apts have seperate Central heat & AC. There's 60-some different KCP&L meters outside between the buildings ( all units are electric - NO gas ) .

Last Winter we only had to turn the heater on maybe 5-6 times. The sun keep the place warm enough, most days.

moderne wrote:    I am fortunate to have my own furnace and an air conditioner unit on one of the balconies.  I know some if not most hi-rises have giant units for the entire bluilding.  The agent over at the Metropolitan said that the whole bldg is on heat or cooling all at the same time.  Seems to me that the side in the sun would roast so the shady side could be warm or vice versa in the summer.  What are peoples experiences with HVAC in multi-family bldgs?

I live in the Metropolitan and I don't see it as a big deal. There may be a time frame of a few days when the building transitions from heat to ac or from ac to heat that people may want that transition to occur sooner or later, but it's not a huge issue. This is resolved with buildings that use a four pipe system versus ours that use a two pipe system (a building manager can have the AC/heat running at the same time in a four pipe system during the transition period).

For me, during the the wintertime I rarely turn the thermostat up to turn the heat on and my electric bill for the is pretty small. I know someone in the industry that have told me that it's actually a cheaper way to heat and cool a building. My electric bill for my unit averages $40 a month and it's 750 sq feel with three fan coils.

When I lived in NYC, I lived in a 36-story highrise. They turned the heat off at a certain point each year. We could control our individual apartment heat though while the heat was on. I never turned on my heat all year. My apartment was surrounded on three sides and the heat from neighboring apartments kept mine warm enough. In fact, sometimes I cracked my window a bit because I was too warm.

Since heating and cooling was part of my rent, I cranked the air conditioning all summer.

I never felt uncomfortable in my apartment no matter what season of the year it was.

Wallstreet Tower has individual units for each condo. The building has 6 elevator shafts, but 2 were decommissioned and floors were installed for each floor of the building. The individual units are stored here and each individually metered. Our monthly billing shows individual usage.