Founded in 1891, The Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Conn., consists of 50 buildings over 810 acres. In addition to more than 30 residential buildings for faculty, the campus includes 12 dormitories, academic facilities, and an athletic center with two ice arenas and an Olympic-size swimming pool. While the large campus is a major selling point for the school, it can present challenges for the team charged with ensuring the facilities are comfortable and running at optimal efficiency.

“We have a range of buildings to maintain, from modern to historic,” Charlie Geyer, project and energy manager, said. “And our technology ran the gamut as well. This presented multiple challenges for the maintenance staff, who had several different systems to learn, operate, and maintain.”

In 2007, The Hotchkiss School integrated the various building systems across the campus with Honeywell Enterprise Buildings Integrator (EBI). The facility-management platform allowed the school to link all of its systems without having to upgrade technology in the older buildings.

HVAC, access control, and critical-point monitoring are tied together through EBI. Operators can view, access, and manage any facility system in real time from any workstation. This increases efficiency, reduces operating costs, and improves performance continuity. For example, the discharge temperature for the converter in the boiler plant increased to dangerous levels because of a warm spell during winter. This caused the heat pump to turn off and water to stagnate. The safety pressure-release valve blew off, and glycol spilled into the room. Maintenance technicians were notified immediately by EBI alarms, even though they were not in the plant. The technicians used the system to write an emergency program to restart the pumps and prevent the situation from reoccurring, regardless of weather conditions.

More than 15 of the school's buildings, including all of the dormitories, academic buildings, and the athletic center, run on EBI.

AN ‘A+' IN ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

With more than 500 acres of woods, two lakes, wetlands, fields, brooks, and ponds on campus, the outdoors often is a teaching tool. It is imperative that the facilities on campus align with the school's environmental focus and commitment.

“Saving energy and minimizing our impact on the environment have always been high priorities for Hotchkiss,” Geyer said. “Not only is the school interested in the related cost savings, but also ecology is a significant part of the curriculum. The students are actively engaged in conservation, and oftentimes they are the driving force behind green initiatives.”

Every year, Hotchkiss participates with 30 to 40 other boarding schools nationwide in the Green Cup Challenge, organized by the Green Schools Alliance. Students work with their school's maintenance and facility team to measure and reduce campus electricity use and related greenhouse-gas emissions.

“The first year Hotchkiss participated in the Green Cup Challenge, we came in last because of inefficient heating in one of our dorms,” Geyer said. “Now, after all of our energy-efficiency improvements, I'm confident that Hotchkiss will be competitive.”

The installation of Honeywell Energy Manager, an advanced energy-information application that integrates seamlessly with EBI and other building applications, is one of the school's more significant additions. The software-based tool allows Hotchkiss to view and control energy use in facilities across campus and provides an improved process for monitoring, validating, and optimizing energy consumption.