The Solution

Working closely with Wink Engineering and the hotel’s facilities team, Griswold Controls recommended installing Automizer® combination control valve coil piping packages on the four-pipe fan coils.

Key Advantages

• Single Source for Coil Components Eliminates coordination issues and ensures system compatibility.
• Multi-Function Valve Combines actuated temperature control and flow limiting in one compact package.
• Small Footprint Ideal for historic buildings with tight mechanical space.
• Equal Percent Control Mirrors coil heat transfer curves for superior temperature regulation.
• Pre-Assembled & Ready to Install Reduces labor, installation time, and jobsite handling.

Because the Automizer features automatic flow control, the retrofit could be accomplished a few rooms at a time without affecting the rest of the hotel's circuits — making it the ideal product for hotel renovation. In a manual balance application, the entire system would have had to be rebalanced every time a room was taken offline. By installing the Automizer, the hotel minimized room downtime, substantially reducing the potential for lost revenue.

Automizer® Combination Control Valves

Automizer® Next Generation valves combine an actuated 2-way control valve with a stainless steel automatic flow limiting cartridge and manual isolation ball valve — all within one compact body.

• Globe Valve Performance Ball valve pricing with equal-percent control.
• Patented Optimizer® Inserts 30–50% greater rotation response.
• Automatic Flow Limiting Eliminates overflow and underflow.
• Field Repairable Stem Resistant to chemical treatments and temperature swings.

Coil Piping Packages & Hose Kits

Griswold Controls offers over 900 standard pre-plumbed coil piping packages that simplify engineering design and speed installation.

• Pre-Assembled & Shrink-Wrapped Ships ready to install.
• 48-Hour Shipping Standard packages up to 2″.
• Automatic or Manual Flow Options Works for any balancing application.
• Single Source Supply Eliminates compatibility concerns.

The most recent – and stunning – addition to the southern Nevada skyline is the new Wynn Las Vegas Resort. Built at a cost of $2.7 billion dollars and opened in April 2005, the 50-story bronze tower contains 2,700 luxury hotel rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows, 22 restaurants, the 2,000 seat “Aqua Theater-in-the-Round,” and the “Promenade” with luxury boutique shopping. Built on the site of the former Desert Inn, it also includes an 18-hole golf course. Whereas most high-end hotels have car rental desks, Wynn Las Vegas houses a Ferrari-Maserati car dealership inside the resort. The front entrance and three-acre Lake of Dreams are shielded from the street by a 140-foot tall mountain with 60-foot tall pine trees.

Steve Wynn, who had previously built the Mirage (1989), Treasure Island (1993) and Bellagio (1998) hotels, conceived and developed Wynn Las Vegas. Several years ago he sold those three properties to MGM Grand in order to develop Wynn Las Vegas. This resort-casino clearly establishes a new threshold for local, high-end properties. JBA Consulting Engineers, Las Vegas, is the mechanical engineering firm responsible for the project. Bid and mechanical construction activity was divided into seven distinct areas, and the specification allowed for either automatic or manual flow controls. Southland Industries, Las Vegas, handled area one and the central plant, and Hansen Mechanical of Las Vegas was awarded responsibility for areas two through seven, which covered the tower.

Engineered Equipment & Systems Co., the Griswold rep for southern Nevada, successfully convinced Southland Industries and Hansen Mechanical to utilize Griswold coil piping packages. Unimizers® were installed on a majority of the fan coils, VAV boxes, heating coils and heat pumps in the hotel rooms, showrooms, the Aqua Theater and the villas.

According to Matt Miceli, the Engineered Equipment & Systems Co. sales engineer responsible for the project, the Unimizer packages significantly reduced Hansen’s ATC coordination costs. Matt said, “Hansen has been a Griswold Controls customer for some time. They especially like Griswold’s coil hookup packages and the way we shrink-wrap them. No other vendor provides this packaging concept. This project also offered them the opportunity to add the Unimizer® to the packages, which greatly simplified the coordination with the ATC contractor. The project time frame was extremely aggressive and the Unimizer® packages saved the contractor a significant amount of install time.” James Gomel, Hansen Mechanical project manager, stated, “The Griswold coil-piping packages allow for installation consistency to the systems along with a valuable savings in labor cost. In addition, incorporating the Unimizer® with the package allows for a complete installation of the coil-piping package, thus eliminating the need for additional labor required to install the controller in the field."

In total, over 2,000 Griswold Controls piping packages are installed on the project along with over 20 air handler packages in area one. In addition to the flow controls and coil piping packages, Engineered Equipment & Systems Co. sold in excess of $100,000 worth of Griswold Filtration separators and separator package filtration systems for the numerous cooling towers on the project.

Located in the heart of Dallas, just north of the downtown business district in a formerly unusable inner city site, Victory Park is one of the country’s most significant master planned urban developments. The project began with the construction of the American Airlines Center Arena in late 2000, home of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team and the Dallas Stars hockey team. A acre urban center, when complete Victory Park will offer retail establishments, dining, modern office space, residential units, entertainment venues, and a cutting-edge hotel. Part of the development will include Victory Plaza, an area reminiscent of Times Square in New York City.

In 2005, immediately across the street from the American Airlines Center, McCarthy General Contractors broke ground on what is now the W Hotel. The W Hotel, owned by Starwood Properties, is a 33 story luxury condo–hotel offering unique and exciting interiors, classic W amenities including terry/pique robes, an infinity edge swimming pool on the 16th floor, and top–notch restaurants and lounges. W Benton Wofford of James Johnston & Associates, the Consulting Engineer, designed the building to include hotel facilities up to the 15th floor, and luxury condo units from the 16th to 30th floors. Ross Perot Jr. has his own private penthouse suite complete with his own personal heliport on the roof.

Griswold Controls IRIS automatic packages with hoses were purchased for the terminal units; vertical stack heat pumps in the hotel rooms; and to maximize floor space, horizontal heat pumps for the condo units. Griswold Controls space saver packages were selected on the vertical stack units because space limitations required that the packages fit inside the heat pump cabinets.

Matt Summerville of Brandt Engineering, project manager for the mechanical contractor and long-time Griswold Controls customer, was pleased to provide Griswold Controls with project details. As a matter of fact, Brandt employee Mike Clark, the piping superintendent, told Griswold Controls that he had no problems whatsoever with any of the 382 Griswold Controls packages on the W Hotel and would not only use Griswold Controls products again, but would highly recommend them.

The W Hotel opened in June, 2006.

Cramped Spaces Prompt Ingenuity

During the renovation, more than 500 fan coils were replaced in North Tower guest rooms. Units were installed above the ceiling in the entry vestibule of the rooms, leaving only 12" of vertical space for the manual balancing system. Tobin Stanley of Bovis Lend Lease contacted Griswold Controls to provide pre-assembled coil piping packages with Automizer® combination control valves, saving space and labor during installation.

Coil Piping Packages Provide Numerous Benefits

The balancing cartridge in the Automizer is factory preset to automatically limit the flow for each room or zone, eliminating the need for startup balancing and any subsequent rebalancing. The automatic balancing packages saved the hotel approximately $35,000 in start-up labor alone.

For this project, the standard coil package included the flow limiting cartridge of the Automizer combined with a low-torque, equal-percentage actuated ball valve and factory mounted Siemens actuators. The entire piping package takes up roughly one-fourth the space of a typical manual piping configuration.

Automizer® & Coil Piping Packages

Automizer® combination control valves

Automizer® Next Generation valves feature Griswold Controls' field repairable stem design and allow for field servicing without removal. These all-in-one valves combine an actuated temperature control valve with an automatic flow limiting cartridge, making them ideal for schools, office buildings, VAV boxes, fan coil units, heat pumps, and terminal boxes.

Coil Piping Packages & Hose Kits

Griswold Controls offers over 900 standard packages, pre-assembled for easy installation and timely delivery. Options like hoses and extension kits are also available.

• Wide selection of pre-assembled, easy-to-order configurations
• Easy ordering: order by specific part numbers
• Timely delivery of standard packages
• Variety of options: downsized automatic temperature control, extra ports, inclusion of Automizer or Unimizer valves