With this conversion, Duke was able to cut its coal consumption by approximately 70 percent. — John Noonan, vice president,
Duke University Facilities Management
area. The project was financed entirely by the university. “It really is a historic restoration,” says
Floyd Williams, who managed the project for Duke’s Facilities Management. “We took a building and added state-of-the-art tech- nology to produce steam at high efficiency and ultra-low emissions.” One of the goals of the project team was
to provide a maximum amount of capacity without significantly impacting the architec- ture of the building. This was accomplished by selecting nominal 10,000 pound per hour steam boilers that provided the flexibility for 15 of these smaller boilers to fit into the building’s limited horizontal space but ample vertical space. A mezzanine that incorpo- rates a portion of the old coal boiler struc- ture was built to support the new space. Another advantage of boilers of this size versus the more traditional 80,000 pound per hour boilers was the new boilers do not require a large opening to be created in the historic façade. Instead they were moved in through an existing window. In addition, the boilers can be remotely operated, and from a cold state can make steam in less than five minutes, allowing the plant to be unmanned but monitored and controlled from Duke University’s new central utility control room located on West Campus.
crew members worked more than a year to renovate the 7,500-square-foot space. Site work involved a range of tasks, like restoring the rooftop shed for new mechanical equip- ment, grinding out and refilling most of the old brick mortar on the building and smoke- stack, replacing the entire roof and installing new architecturally accurate windows. The architecture supported the engineer- ing needs. Consider the following:
>> An elevator shaft was created out of the old ash hopper.