Combating snow, ice and limited-to-no parking, the Toyota-Lexus dealership in New York City’s Manhattan borough found that adding a hydronic snow and ice melting (SIM) system on its rooftop would let it store vehicles on-site without worrying about winter weather.

With its showroom on the fourth floor of the Eleventh Ave. building on Manhattan’s westside, known as Hell’s Kitchen, the dealership decided to use the 40,000-square-foot, eighth-floor roof as a convenient and practical way to keep inventory ready to show. SIM tubing was also installed on the ramp leading to the roof.

For the SIM system, nearly seven miles of nominal 3/4-inch oxygen barrier PEX-a tubing from MrPEX Systems (Ramsey, Minn.) was used. The nearly 500-foot-long loops of the tubing were laid at 12-inch spacing and arranged into 72 circuits embedded in concrete. Seven 1 1/2-inch stainless-steel manifolds distribute the heated water/glycol mixture throughout the system.

“We designed the system to not only take into account the ambient temperature ranges, but also the wind coming off the Hudson River,” explains Steve Little of Warmfloors (Bozeman, Mont.). “Mathematically, you can easily figure out the heat load of a house or a building on the coldest day because they are both enclosed. That might be 20 to 25 BTU/hour/square foot. 

“However, the snow melt here can be five or six times more if it’s windy. Luckily, there’s heated space below the roof.”

The MrPEX tubing provided the results the team was looking for, but the boilers were another critical component. 

“That was the hard stuff — getting the right size that would also fit on the roof,” he adds. “We wanted the boilers as close to the tubing as possible, maximizing the heat efficiency and quickly getting the heat to the tubing. The boilers must match the amount of tubing you put in. You want them close to the tubing because otherwise, your pressure drops and piping gets bigger; they also need to be close to the distribution manifolds.”

The entire SIM system is comprised of the rooftop and ramp area. Little chose HTP EliteXL boilers because they are lightweight with a small footprint and easily fit through doors.

“The rooftop needed two HTP EliteXL ELX-1000BN boilers at 1 million BTU/hour input each,” Little explains. “The smaller ramp area needed two HTP EliteXL ELX-800BN boilers, each at 800,000 BTU/hour input. I used snow and ice melting charts to estimate the BTU/hour/square foot to size the output of the system and boilers. While the HTP Elite XL boilers are great, I ultimately chose them because they are relatively light with a small footprint and they easily fit through the doors.” 

Uncommon SIM that Makes Sense

E-Travis Mechanical (Woodland Park, N.J.) did the entire SIM installation. According to company founder and owner Ezzy Travis: “There are two mechanical rooms, east and west. One is under the ramp to the roof; the other is inside the building. We also ran the SIM system inside the ramp; even though it’s inside the building, it is exposed to the weather from the roof.” Manifolds are located in these mechanical rooms.

Travis started in the plumbing business as a teenager, eventually founding his company 10 years ago. Growing up in New York City gave him an advantage. 

“I’ve been in the business for about 25-plus years, specializing in old hydronic heating and steam systems,” he says. “Living and working in the city, I got to see a lot of odd and interesting things. Certain things in New York you don’t see anywhere else in the country, such as putting a SIM system on the roof of a commercial building. I don’t recall ever seeing a project like that. It’s uncommon, but it makes a lot of sense.”

Travis relied on his experience to move equipment and the 37,000 feet of PEX in one of Manhattan’s tightest and most congested areas. “We also had many meetings with the city, the owner, the contractor and others to obtain the necessary work orders and permits and plan out the logistics,” he explains. 

The E-Travis crew consisted of between four and 12 members. “At the beginning, we needed all 12 to stage the equipment, do the layout and secure the PEX to the wire mesh using an automatic tying machine, not zip ties,” Travis notes. “However, even at more than 40,000 square feet of area, the job went quickly mainly because of all the planning.” 

The first phase — the main roof on the eighth floor — took the crew only six days. A month later, the second phase — the ramp and the lower area — took one day with a crew of four.

Meeting Demanding Winter Requirements

“PEX tubing is an ideal product for these types of systems,” notes Lance MacNevin, P.Eng., director of engineering for the Plastics Pipe Institute’s (PPI) Building & Construction Division. “It is both flexible and strong, and has the pressure and temperature capabilities for delivering high amounts of thermal energy to meet demanding winter requirements. PPI recommends these systems for many types of outdoor facilities.”

He adds: “The alternative for this project would have been the use of heavy, noisy snow removal equipment on the rooftop of this building, but there was still no convenient location to dump all the snow. Putting a hydronic snow and ice melting system on the roof of a commercial building to allow cars to park there was a true marriage of need coming together with the solution. 

“This hydronic system is not only convenient, but will probably save the dealership owners a lot of money over the years while making it safer and easier to show cars during the winter.”

Steve Cooper has reported on various plumbing, construction and infrastructure projects for several decades. Based in New York, he has traveled extensively to conduct on-site news interviews with professional engineers, contractors, government officials and representatives of major companies supplying the industry. He can be reached at 516/623-7615 or steve@scacommunications.com.