Commercial, Energy Efficiency  -  December 1, 2017

Health club chain overhauls RTU portfolio

Health club company Life Time, which holds more than 127 locations across 27 states, recently completed an overhaul of its rooftop air handling units resulting in nearly 25% energy savings over the past four years. 

The majority of the Life Time's resort-like health clubs are now using high-efficiency units with cutting-edge control technology, according to a report from U.S. DOE's Better Buildings initiative. The company joined the Better Buildings Advanced RTU Campaign in 2016, and was recently awarded by the program for implementing the highest percentage of high-efficiency upgrades to its RTU portfolio. 

Life Time has incorporated 3,200 Lennox Packaged RTUs with multi-speed air volume functionality and 200 energy recovery units, according to a Dec. 1 blog post from the DOE. The company also partnered with Lennox to perform biannual checkups at its locations, and has installed a Novar building automation system, which provides alerts on temperature and performance, offers a computerized maintenance management system to track maintenance.

According to the DOE, Life Time replaced more than 1,000 RTUs and retrofitted another 1,800 with advanced controls in four years, amounting to 95% of its RTU inventory. In total, the overall is expected to yield savings of 21 million kWh. 

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