Fluke 975 Case Studies

“ When we moved

into our new facility
we faced a number
of unresolved
mechanical system
issues. Not only did
ENTEC solve these
problems, but their
solution paid back
immediately in lower
energy costs and
energy efficiency
incentives.”

Bob DeBlaey,
Facilities Manager,
Figge Art Museum

AT A GLANCE:

SITUATION

• Figge Art Museum

• Industry of Art

•Davenport, Iowa

• Mark Janco, System Specialist

for ENTEC

Perfecting the art
of energy efficiency

Case Study

Energy Waste

CHALLENGE

Reduce energy consumption

SOLUTION

Improve system performance and
energy efficiency

TOOLS USED

• Fluke 87V Industrial Multimeter

• Fluke 62 Mini Infrared Thermometer

• Fluke 971 Temperature Humidity Meter

RE SULT S

• Saved approximately $63,000 in
annual energy costs.

• Received a total energy incentive
of $430K

The Figge Art Museum is a civic landmark that meets high standards of temperature
and humidity control.

The Figge Art Museum in
Davenport, Iowa is a 114,000­square-foot (10,591-square­meter) building that offers space
for regional and international art
exhibits and community-oriented
educational activities.

The Figge combines aes­thetic beauty with world-class
mechanical systems that meet
stringent Smithsonian Museum
environmental guidelines for
temperature and humidity con­trol. These guidelines, governing
relative humidity (RH) and
temperature in exhibits and
exhibit storage spaces, were
established to prevent the degra­dation of paint, paper, wood,
and other media used in dis­played artwork and to prevent
damage caused by excessive
heat, cold, or moisture that
promotes the growth of mold.

Environmental control
criteria meet energy
efficiency

Meeting the Smithsonian’s envi­ronmental control criteria meant
that the Figge would be able
to display some of the world’s
most impressive art collections.
However, energy efficiency was
just as important from both a cost
and environmental standpoint.
The museum’s new mechani­cal systems promised to reduce
energy consumption, which
would earn the Figge approxi­mately $400,000 in energy
efficiency incentives and save
a significant amount on annual
energy costs.

From the Fluke Digital Library @ www.fluke.com/library

Balancing temperatures
for energy efficiency

The museum’s HVAC system
includes an economizer that
mixes outdoor air for ventila­tion with return air to minimize
cooling and heating costs. The
incoming air needs mechanical
cooling when it’s above 55 °F
(12.7 °C) outside and heating
if it’s below 25 °F (-3.8 °C) to
keep the museum exhibit space
around 70 °F (21 °C). The system
also includes an energy recov­ery wheel, positioned between
incoming air and exhaust air.
As the wheel rotates, it trans­fers energy between those two
airstreams, recovering energy
from the exhaust air and using it
to temper the outdoor air that’s
coming into the air handler.

When the air is warmer than
55 °F (12.7 °C) the chilled water
system is enabled, so when
the indoor/outdoor air mixture
flows over the cooling coil its
temperature is lowered to the
proper supply air temperature.
If the outside air is less than
25 °F (-3.8 °C), ice would likely
form on the energy recovery
wheel, reducing the air flow.
To prevent that, frost prevention
coils are located at the outdoor
air inlet to keep the air tempera­ture entering the energy recovery
wheel above 25 °F (-3.8 °C).

Those measures, along with
some lighting measures, were
estimated to reduce energy use
enough to earn the museum
$400,000 in incentives and to
reduce heating and cooling bills
while still meeting the Smithson­ian environmental requirements.

At least that was the plan.

be short $100,000 on the energy
incentive money and more than
$60,000 short in annual energy
savings,” says Tom Weed, CEO
of ENTEC Services.

Improving system
performance and
energy efficiency

ENTEC suggested some HVAC
system improvements that
would allow the mechanical
and control systems to perform
as originally intended. “The most
logical idea was to get the air
in the mixing box to mix better,
but that would have required
adding mechanical equipment
to the air handling unit,” says
Mark Janco, System Specialist
for ENTEC. “There wasn’t enough
room in the museum’s mechani­cal room so that option wasn’t
going to work.”

Since there was not adequate
physical space to overcome the
outdoor air stratification problem
in the mixing box that prevented
the proper economizer operation,
anitifreeze solution was added
to the chilled water distribution
system, eliminating the risk of
freezing the chilled water coils
while allowing the economizer
to provide “free cooling.” To
address the proper operation
of the frost prevention coils,
ENTEC built a separate frost­prevention coil loop that is still
heated by the normal boiler hot
water loop but has antifreeze
added. That allowed them to
drop the temperature of the
incoming air to the energy
recovery wheel to 25 °F (-3.8 °C),
optimizingthe wheel’s energy­saving properties.

Once the fix was made, The

Surprising developments

ENTEC Services, of Peoria,
Illinois, executed the tempera­ture and environmental control
systems for the new museum
and continued to monitor those
systems after the facility opened.
ENTEC could tell that, although
the environmental conditions
met Smithsonian guidelines, the
museum was achieving those
requirements at a steep cost.
Based on its energy usage, the

Weidt Group agreed to conduct
an energy evaluation of the
Figge’s systems. It turned out the
improvements not only recov­ered the remaining $100,000 of
the original incentive—they also
gained the museum an additional
$30,000 of energy efficiency
incentives. That meant the
museum received a total energy
incentive of $430K and saved
approximately $63,000 in annual
energy costs.

Figge Art Museum was going to

2 Fluke Corporation Perfecting the art of energy efficiency

Not only did ENTEC solve
these problems, but their
solution paid back immediately
in lower energy costs and energy
efficiency incentives,” says
Bob DeBlaey, Facilities Manager,
Figge Art Museum.

Maintaining ideal
conditions

ENTEC’s Janco continues to per­form regular onsite inspections
of all control systems—particu­larly those for temperature and
humidity—using a range of Fluke
tools. He uses the Fluke 62 Mini
Infrared Thermometer to measure
the air temperature coming out of
the ducts and to verify that the
temperatures coming off the coils
in the AHUs are adequate to keep
them from freezing. He uses the
Fluke 971 Temperature Humidity
Meter to verify the humidity of
the overall exhibit space. If those
measurements show that the
temperature and/or RH values
are off, Janco uses the Fluke 971
to calibrate the controls to
bring them back within the
Smithsonian guidelines.

Janco notes that the Fluke
87V Industrial Multimeter
probably gets the most use of
all his tools. He uses it for every­thing from checking the supply
voltage in variable speed drives
to checking fuses. “It’s probably
one of the most valuable tools
we have.”

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