SIDEBAR: ENGINEERING A SOLUTION

After its pivotal meeting in December 2007, the majority faction on the Parkway Village board got busy exploring options and making tough decisions. The following month, it hired the EME Group, which had conducted a New York State Energy and Research Development Authority (NYSERDA) audit for the co-op in 2007, and charged it with developing a list of options for replacing the worn-out heating system.

David Newton, a mechanical engineer with EME, produced five possible scenarios. The one favored by the board – installing a boiler in every apartment – would have cost a prohibitive $21 million. The board opted instead to install two highly efficient "condensing" boilers in the basement of every building, at a cost of about $14.5 million.

Then, as required by city law, an environmental consulting firm, was brought in to survey the exposed asbestos in all basements and crawl spaces. Airtek Environmental Corp. produced cost estimates for asbestos removal, and will monitor all work and inspect every apartment for asbestos. Its services will cost the co-op a bit more than $200,000.

Bids for the two projects were put out and contracts were signed. Asbestos removal work began in early August 2008, and installation of boilers began after Labor Day.

"It is our intention that by Thanksgiving, the portion of the campus serviced by the temporary boilers in the trailers will be completed, and the trailers will be gone," says Newton. "The whole project will take about a year."

"We think what they've come up with is pretty efficient," says Benn Lewis, vice president of Airtek. "They're doing just what they need to do to get this done."

When the job is complete, Parkway Village "will have gone from having one of the least energy-efficient heating systems in the city to having one of the most efficient," says Newton. "Their savings should come to about $1 million a year."