Project Brief

Brighton House at 500 Brightwater Court in Brighton Beach had its boiler plant in the cellar when Superstorm Sandy flooded it. KeRi was the MEP and fire protection engineer for the resiliency alteration, from the bid set through New York City Department of Buildings and FDNY filings, a revised filing and construction administration with All-Con Contracting.

The central idea was to lift everything critical above the design flood elevation. A new boiler room at the promenade level houses two new 265 HP low-pressure steam boilers with their feed and condensate equipment, tied back to the building's existing steam risers, while the old cellar plant was removed and the buried fuel oil tank was abandoned in place. A new generator room alongside it holds a 200 kW standby generator with automatic transfer switches, and a new promenade-level electrical room takes a new 480 V, 3-phase, 4-wire, 2,500 A electrical service with house distribution and emergency power panels. KeRi also designed a new 6 inch natural gas service, a new domestic hot water system with water heaters and storage tanks, replacement booster pumps, a new limited automatic wet sprinkler system with standpipe work, and a fire alarm system.

In the cellar, which can still flood, sump and flood pumps discharge through dedicated piping that terminates above the flood elevation, and manual shutoff valves on the areaway drains let the staff close them before a storm.

MEP Engineering Scope

What We Engineered

Resiliency alteration of the apartment building's MEP systems:

• New promenade-level boiler room with two 265 HP low-pressure steam boilers above the flood elevation
• 200 kW standby generator room with automatic transfer switches
• New 480V/3Ph/4W 2,500 A electrical service in a promenade-level electrical room
• Flood pumps discharging above the flood elevation and manual shutoff valves on areaway drains
• New 6 inch natural gas service, new domestic hot water system and replacement booster pumps
• New limited automatic wet sprinkler system, standpipe and fire alarm work, with DOB and FDNY filings

The Challenge

Superstorm Sandy showed that a building with its boiler plant in the cellar could lose heat and hot water to a single flood.

Our Solution

KeRi moved the 265 HP boiler plant, a new 2,500 A electrical service and a 200 kW standby generator above the design flood elevation and gave the cellar pumps and shutoffs to manage the water that still gets in.