Energy Efficiency

Outdoor mechanical systems create many challenges for the facility managers and engineers tasked with maintaining them. While most HVAC systems are found within a facility, in boiler rooms, mechanical rooms and penthouses, often times that piping is run outdoors on rooftops as well. 

Since 1857 St. Mary’s Medical Center has cared for the people of San Francisco. Located across the street from the Golden Gate park, it is the first Catholic Hospital opened by the Sisters of Mercy in San Francisco. It is recognized for its incredible Stroke Center and Heart Attack Care. For over 90 years the tireless efforts of the Sisters and Physicians, serving all, makes St Mary’s the oldest running hospital in San Francisco. Read more.

On December 28, 2009, New York City enacted a new law requiring energy audits and retro-commissioning of many buildings — local law 87. Local law 87 requires many large buildings to “undergo an energy audit every ten years, along with retro-commissioning, to “tune up” the building’s existing systems and ensure efficient operation…”More

HVAC (heating, ventilation, & air condition) systems provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality through mechanical engineering. Industrial HVAC systems are an important part of structures such as apartment buildings, hotels and senior living facilities, medium to large industrial and office buildings such as skyscrapers and hospitals, vehicles such as trains, airplanes, ships and submarines, and in marine environments, where safe and healthy building conditions are regulated with respect to temperature and humidity, using fresh air from outdoors. Read more.

The Garfield Building in San Francisco, located in the heart of the theater district, is a beautiful 28 unit building built by the Reid Brothers in 1908, and the infrastructure was totally gutted and remodeled in 2008. Dave Pritchard, the Garfield’s HOA President, reached out to ThermaXX in the Spring of 2018. Dave was passionately looking at all possible ways to become more energy efficient, and wanted to look at the potential cost effectiveness of techniques he had seen used commercially in the petrochemical and pharmaceutical industry applied in a residential application. Read more.

Thermaxx Jackets recently had a customer that was seeking to insulate all of the hot pipes and components in their learning facility after an employee had been burned when coming into contact with a bare hot component’s surface. Removable insulation blankets by Thermaxx Jackets are great for improving your steam system’s energy efficiency, but the safety benefits for your personnel are overlooked far too often. Read more.

Traditional stay-in-place thermal insulation for piping and other components is rigid, and if it’s partially or fully removed for inspections or maintenance it usually can’t be replaced. Insulation that isn’t flexible, or rigid insulation, doesn’t work for every application. There are some cases where insulation blankets, like Thermaxx Jackets, are a better solution because they can be made with alternative insulation materials that are flexible. This allows for components of irregular shape to be insulated effectively. Read more.

A customer contacted us about insulating a machine designed to liquefy helium so that it can be transported throughout the machine. In order to do this, the helium must be cooled to about 4 Kelvin (-452⁰ F). Our job is to ensure that the components of the machine are insulated well enough to keep the helium at that temperature. This was by far the coldest application we have encountered so far, so the design of the jacket was going to require some special thought… More

A hot boiler room creates many problems. Typically, the ceiling of a boiler room is the bottom of the floor directly above and because heat rises the ceiling area is hot, extremely hot. Many times, we see temperatures exceeding 115°F! The floor above the boiler room radiates heat into the occupied space causing an unanticipated load on the cooling system. The space is so uncomfortable that windows are opened in the winter time wasting more heat. Read more.

Industrial insulation blankets come in all shapes and sizes to fit a wide array of components from pressure reducing valves to steam pipes. The businesses that design, cut, and sew together insulating materials to create insulation blankets are called insulation blanket manufacturers. Thermaxx removable insulation blankets are all designed, measured, cut, and hand-sewn in-house making us the industry leading manufacturer of removable insulation products. Read more.