SNOW-MELTING CASE STUDY

Photos courtesy of Sight & Sound Theatre and Watts

Project: Sight & Sound Theatre
Location: Lancaster, Pennsylvania

The Project: The 330,000-square-foot Millennium Theatre and its sister facility in Branson, Missouri, are both known for their awe-inspiring live performances of well-known biblical stories, including Jonah, Queen Esther, Samson, Jesus, and Noah’s Ark. People from around the globe travel to the Sight & Sound Theatres for a truly one-of-a-kind biblical experience, including many live animals, a 30-foot whale suspended over the theatre’s seating (in Jonah), and a cast and crew of 70. “Sight & Sound Theatres brings the Bible to life through who we are and what we do,” says Joshua Enck, president and chief creative officer. “Our mission is to move people’s hearts toward truth through the power of story.”

The theatre even has its own set manufacturing space—almost every physical component of a performance is built on-site. The facility is equipped with massive CNC machines to create forms, a paint shop, metal fabrication, woodworking facilities, and more as needed. Storage of giant props and set pieces for the revolving shows is also accommodated. It is in these spaces, where the Sight & Sound crew creates the physical elements of the productions, that managers needed improvements to make operations run more smoothly.

The Problem: “Two adjacent set manufacturing and storage wings of the theatre created a long, narrow courtyard of sorts, through which people and materials must pass,” says Facilities and Risk Manager Will Downing. “The sun never hits the concrete pad between the buildings, and snow was very hard to remove. We battled it for years, and eventually the concrete started crumbling from the amount of salt needed to provide safe passage.

The Solution: Based on the above, the theatre management decided to install a large snow-melting system and put it out to bid. Seth Energy, a Lancaster, Pennsylvania-based division of Shipley Energy, was hired to install rooftop units at the theatre in recent years and was the successful bidder for the 3,200-square-foot snow-melting job. The company’s small but highly experienced crew was no stranger to snow-melting applications. “When we formed Seth Energy, we had the unique advantage of hand-selecting the best heating professionals,” says General Manager Seth Obetz. “Aside from our apprentice, everyone on the road has at least 15 years under their belt.” When the project was in the design phase, Obetz and Sales Manager Erich Maurer enlisted the help of professionals for design assistance on both the tubing layout and the boiler system.

The Snow-Melting System: The full system includes four primary components:

• Boilers: Two stainless steel 285 MBH condensing boilers provide the heating. “We stacked the boilers one on top of the other to save space in the mechanical room,” says Lew Kuhn, who, along with Jeff Flanagan, headed up the installation. “The boilers are 95 percent efficient and fire in lead-lag configuration. A simple Cat-5 cable from one boiler to the next allows the units to communicate.” The boiler controls make multiple-boiler installation simple. As many as eight units can be installed in series. The specified boiler is available in sizes from 80 to 399 MBH, with four commercial models between 500 and 800 MBH.
• Tubing: 7,200 lineal feet of 5/8-inch oxygen-barrier PEX was installed in 24 loops. The PEX was installed over a three-day period, and concrete was poured on the fourth day, with an in-ground sensor installed in the slab. After installation, the tubing was tested with nitrogen at 30 PSI.

  Maurer notes that keeping the loops under 300 feet on a 180-foot-long slab was a challenge. “If they go over 300 feet, the water will lose the heat needed to melt the snow and ice. Keeping loops under 300 feet meant the use of many loops and having them all come back to one place was very challenging. We navigated this by having a full layout before we started installing. And because all the loops are not exactly the same length, pressure is balanced via the manifold.”

• Glycol feeder: A glycol feeder is used to fill the tubing, which passes through a heat exchanger in the boilers. In the feeder is a mixture of three parts glycol to two parts water.
• Controls: A small but sophisticated snow-melting control system was installed. Kuhn describes its operation this way: “The system lies dormant until the outdoor ambient temperature falls to 35 degrees Fahrenheit. At this point, if the slab sensor detects moisture, the system will turn on, supplying 116-degree water to the loops. There is also a ‘storm mode’ that can be manually activated ahead of a weather event, in which the system will bring the slab up to temperature proactively.” He also notes that the selected controls are specifically geared toward snow-and ice-melt systems, and they were a perfect fit for what was wanted and needed for this installation.

The Results: To date, the snow-melting system has performed flawlessly over the past two winters. Sight & Sound no longer wastes time moving snow and spreading salt. Moving material from one building to another is much easier, and the injury avoidance is a benefit of snow-melting systems that is hard to quantify. The organization is now considering installation of snow-melting systems in all of the theatre’s entrance walkways.