Bellbrook Chiller Upgrades 2026

Two Bellbrook-Sugarcreek schools now hold temperature on the hottest afternoons of the year. Stephen Bell Elementary has a new closed-circuit cooling tower in place of two dry coolers that could not keep its heat pump loop in range, and Bell Creek Intermediate has a new Trane air-cooled chiller with six new Calmac ice storage tanks on an extended pad. Prodigy treated the two buildings as two different problems and delivered both plants, from the tower, chiller and ice tanks to the pumps, drives, water treatment and controls, on one pre-bid TOP-C cooperative contract at a guaranteed maximum price, with bonds and permits included.

Bellbrook-Sugarcreek had two mechanical problems in two buildings, and they were not the same problem. At Stephen Bell Elementary the water-source heat pump loop would not come down to temperature in summer: the two dry coolers serving it reject heat to ambient air, which holds them ten to fifteen degrees above outdoor temperature, so on a 95-degree afternoon the loop sat above 105 degrees against heat pumps that want condenser water between 60 and 90. At Bell Creek Intermediate the plant was aging out — a York air-cooled chiller, and FAFCO ice storage tanks deteriorating past what their original design could hold.

At Stephen Bell the dry coolers came out and a single closed-circuit cooling tower went in — a fluid cooler, whose spray pump wets the coil, sized at 2,231,000 BTUH for the whole building load and rated to deliver 85-degree water at the 95-degree summer design point. It carries a stainless steel basin, single-point power, a variable frequency drive on the 20-horsepower fan, and a water treatment system for the new loop.

Bell Creek got a new air-cooled Trane scroll chiller on R-454B refrigerant and six Calmac ice tanks in two banks, with the concrete pad extended to take them. Pressure drop through the new chiller, tanks and heat exchanger now exceeds the original design, so the ice loop pump was upsized from ten to fifteen horsepower with a drive, and control conduit found full of mud was replaced. Both buildings were bought pre-bid on a TOP-C unit price contract, at a guaranteed maximum price, with bonds and permits included.