Breadth Topics

 

Construction

            The building of SLS Hotel Vegas was originally built in 1960. During the recent renovation, there was a budget limitation which really influenced the design for the entire project. A lot of the original distribution system equipment in the facility was retained instead of being replaced, in an effort to save money. The existing equipment is permitted to remain in use due to a Grandfather Clause, but it is beyond its useful life and could pose safety issues if it fails. As a result of keeping the old equipment, the connections between the distribution boards and the panels are not well organized. As proposed in the electrical depth, a new distribution board would be designed for the electrical system for safety issue and saving the budget. The cost analysis would be performed to compare the original cost of the distribution boards and the upstream transformers and the new cost of the consolidated distribution board and the upsized transformer.

 

Building Enclosure

            The project is located in Las Vegas, NV and Las Vegas has a subtropical hot desert climate. According to ASHRAE Standard, Las Vegas is in the Climate Zone Number 2, Sub type B, which is the hot-dry climate. The climate zone would influence the selection and arrangement of hygrothermal control layers in a building enclosure, so that the higher levels of thermal resistance might needed to reduce the cooling load. A new wall assembly type with higher thermal resistance would be designed compared to the original design to enhance the performance of building enclosure to reduce the cooling load.