CONTRACTOR magazine photo
Aerco Product Solutions Manager Andrew Macaluso with the AM Series boiler.
Aerco Product Solutions Manager Andrew Macaluso with the AM Series boiler.
Aerco Product Solutions Manager Andrew Macaluso with the AM Series boiler.
Aerco Product Solutions Manager Andrew Macaluso with the AM Series boiler.
Aerco Product Solutions Manager Andrew Macaluso with the AM Series boiler.

Urinal manufacturers take aim at back-splash at Greenbuild

Nov. 20, 2013
The Omni-Flo urinal’s asymmetric back wall is designed to minimize splashing. Kohler Co. brought the Steward Hybrid high-efficiency 1-pint urinal to Greenbuild. Aerco displayed its AM Series boiler and/or water heater that starts at 399,000 Btuh. BuildingIQ showed a commercial building energy optimization system that works as an overlay on anybody else’s BAS. Thermal storage is alive and well and at the Calmac booth. An Australian outfit called Nexus eWater showed an interesting graywater/water heating system.

PHILADELPHIA — Urinal manufacturers have evidently gotten the message about back-splatter. During a recent episode of Saturday Night Live in the Weekend Update segment, anchor Seth Meyers noted that researchers at Brigham Young University were trying to figure out a way to minimize splashing when using the urinal. “ ‘Hurry up,’ said men in khakis,” Meyers said. Zurn, Sloan and Kohler all introduced urinals at the Greenbuild Expo here.

Zurn Product Manager Robert Carter showed CONTRACTOR the Omni-Flo Urinal, so named because the same fixture can be used for any flush between a pint and a gallon. The fixture’s asymmetric back wall is designed to minimize splashing. Zurn is selling fixtures now, including commercial lavatories, in order to offer plumbing engineers a complete system that they can specify.

Kohler Co. brought the Steward Hybrid high-efficiency urinal to Greenbuild. The fixture is similar to Steward waterless urinals, except the hybrid flushes a pint, explained Brian Siegel, Kohler associate product manager of commercial products and water conservation. The urinal is WaterSense labeled and helps earned water efficiency credit for LEED certification. The funnel bowl shape of the Steward urinal not only provides an architectural design, but it virtually eliminates splash-back. The urinal includes a feature not seen before by CONTRACTOR, a “flushing spreader,” located on the back wall that uses a pint of water to deliver a flush that washes over the entire bowl. 

Aerco displayed its AM Series boiler and/or water heater that starts at 399,000 Btuh. The product goes up to 1 million Btuh in a single cabinet in the model with four burners in it. The AM Series has a 5:1 turndown ratio and up to eight boilers can be daisy-chained together, explained Product Solutions Manager Andrew Macaluso.

BuildingIQ showed a commercial building energy optimization system that works as an overlay on anybody else’s BAS, whether it’s from Johnson Controls, Honeywell, Trane, etc. The BuildingIQ system is cloud-based software that predicts energy use and uses algorithms to “learn” a building’s energy use. The software creates a thermal model that adapts to changes in internal or external conditions, such as the weather forecast, occupant comfort, energy prices or demand response programs. The software is subscription-based so the building owner can turn it off if he wants to stop paying for it, although the BuildingIQ folks said that most building owners re-subscribe when their energy costs go up.

Thermal storage is alive and well and at the Calmac booth. Calmac showed its ice storage tanks and pointed out that it has started a partnership with Trane to provide a complete system of the tanks, chiller, pump package and controls that makes it easier for engineers to spec — not to mention limiting their liability.

An Australian outfit called Nexus eWater showed an interesting graywater/water heating system, although I’m not sure how I feel about it because the company is pitching it to homebuilders and developers, not to plumbing contractors. Be that as it may, the Nexus eWater system starts with a rainwater recovery tank. A heat pump water heater uses heat from the rainwater — the evaporator coil from the HPWH is inside the rainwater tank. That also serves to chill the rainwater, so bacteria and algae won’t be growing inside the tank. The rainwater is fed into a recycling unit that cleans up as much as 400-GPD to be used for toilet flushing and other non-potable uses. The company can be found at www.nexusewater.com. They’re looking to gain a foothold on the West Coast so they’re pretty far away from national distribution.

Armstrong Fluid Technology showed its Compass circulator, a variable speed residential circulator that features eight operating modes. Over time, the circulator will “learn” a system’s operating parameters to help it save more energy. The Compass circulator can be used for systems up to 20-GPM and up to 20-ft of head.

ClimateMaster showed its Tranquility 30 Digital (TE) unit, which joins the Tranquility 22 Digital (TZ) to create a geothermal heat pump product line integrating digital communicating controls, two-stage capacity, variable-speed fan and variable-flow geothermal source functions within a single package. The TE unit also employs technology that allows end-users and contractors to monitor and adjust unit functioning directly from the thermostat. In addition, ClimateMaster also highlighted the Tranquility Modular Water-to-Water Series, which now includes 70-, 50- and 30-ton capacity units.

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