Fertilizer manufacturer selects aquatherm products for new headquarters – The Agro-Culture Liquid Fertilizers story began in 1963 when Douglas Cook had a vision to create a natural fertilizer to improve farmers’ crops.
Cook started his business with three employees mixing fertilizer in buckets in his garage. Fifty years and 97 additional employees later, the company is now recognized as a pioneer in the industry and continues to expand across the U.S. and in other countries. With distribution and manufacturing centers across the nation and a mission to “prosper the farmer,” the new corporate headquarters was built with great concern for the environment and the agriculturalist.
The HVAC system is mainly geothermal, with aquatherm blue used to connect to the wells. The geothermal system was designed and installed by Greensleeves Energy Solutions. They were able to decrease the amount of wells needed by about 60% by drilling deeper and installing a Munters chiller to compensate for fewer wells. This design was predicted by Greensleeves’ energy modeling, to be considerably more energy efficient.
Happy Environment, Happy People
An indirect contributor to the Gold status was aquatherm’s polypropylene-random (PP-R) piping system, which is fully recyclable, rust- and corrosion-free and long-lasting.Additionally, the polypropylene material requires less energy for initial production than other piping materials and involves none of the environmental effects associated with mining operations.
Light weight, fast processing
First, Wieland-Davco selected Progressive Heating Cooling & Refrigeration, Inc. (Lowell, MI) as the project’s HVAC contractor. The initial plan was to use copper and insulated steel pipes, but Progressive recommended the use of aquatherm PP-R pipe for chilled and condenser water applications because of its ability to provide labor time savings. An added benefit was the lightweight aspect of aquatherm pipes, which makes it more manageable and installer-friendly, resulting in reduced labor time.
An additional advantage was the light weight of the pipes: this leads to easy processing and shortened working times. Pete Flanagan, owner of Progressive, explained:
“We thought we could achieve some cost savings too because the system didn’t have to be insulated. The owner liked the lifecycle benefits the aquatherm pipe system provides. He also did his own research and liked what he found out.”
The owner, Nick Bancroft, was very involved and supportive of integrating aquatherm pipe on the project from the start.
“The main reason I chose to go with the aquatherm piping was the long life that I perceive that we will get out of the product and the heating and cooling units,” Bancroft said.
Columbia Pipe conducted Progressive’s aquatherm installer training and offered assistance throughout the installation so that everyone involved with the aquatherm pipe knew the unique features and proper fusion techniques and tools. This made Agro eligible for the 10-year multimillion dollar warranty offered by aquatherm.
Fabric-locked connection guarantees long service life
aquatherm produces highly engineered piping systems made of Fusiolen® PP-R, a low-friction, hydrophobic and heat stabilized material. One of the unique features of aquatherm pipe is that it is connected via heat fusion. Unlike traditional pipes that require mechanical connections, resins, glues, open-flames, etc. to connect, aquatherm pipes are connected by heating both the pipe and fitting and fusing them together, which bonds them at the molecular level and turns them into one solid piece of pipe with no leak path.
Most traditional pipes’ connections are the weakest part of the pipe, but aquatherm’s connections can last the life of the pipe. aquatherm, although still relatively new to North America, have been proven worldwide for the last 40 years.
