New York has been enduring the coldest weather in two years over the last week, and residents in Williamsburg's Edge have been suffering through the cold snap with some not-so-fun heating problems. One resident says that the heat hasn't been working properly in over a month, but residents have been told repeatedly to simply reset their unit breakers by turning them off and on. "We all do this," writes our tipster, "go to sleep, and then in the middle of the night whatever heat we temporarily had SWITCHES BACK TO FREEZING AC! It is an absolute nightmare." He adds, "The new penthouse just got listed for $2.5 million but any buyer better be prepared to install their own igloo.
We were forwarded emails from management that said the heat pumps had been failing, most recently last night, but they were unsure why this was continually happening, so mechanics were coming this morning to asses the situation. At 11:30 this morning, residents were notified that "various mechanical and HVAC vendors" were on site and the pumps were "up and running again." We reached out to building management to confirm that the problem has been solved but we haven't heard back yet. We haven't heard back from our tipster, so we hope he's not frozen solid. Are any other buildings having heating problems? If your icy fingers can still use a keyboard, hit up the tipline.
Jonathan Fair of Douglas Development called us to confirm that the heating problem has been fixed, and he explained what went wrong. The problem was caused because the cooling fan for the main heating pump would fail, causing the pump to overheat. When the pump overheats, it shuts down as a precautionary measure. The secondary pump then takes over, but the secondary pump is not large enough to handle the whole building load, so it, too, would eventually shut itself off and heat would stop being supplied to the building. Fair said this has occurred seven times over the last three weeks, but it was never out for more than two hours. He said that the cooling fan has been repaired, and mechanics are examining the secondary pump to ensure that it will continue to work properly. So it seems that all is right and warm once again.
· All coverage of the Edge [Curbed]
Loading comments...