One o’ clock saturday morning and the W Hotel is freezing. Air-pressure differentials have plagued it since its opening in June 2006, and tonight, in January 2007, the winter’s chill has transformed this meat market into a meat locker. Everyone is wearing a winter coat in the lobby’s bar.
Into this tableau of high-styled men and women of, um, negotiable morality steps Gerald Kettler and his two assistants. They work for Kettler’s company, Air Engineering, and wear denim jackets and insulated flannel shirts. Kettler holds in his hand something called a VelociCalc, which looks like Mr. Spock’s tricorder with a hose attached. He moves to the glass door at the back of the bar. The problem here is with the seam between the door and the wall. The air is rushing through it. The pressure inside the building is less than the pressure outside the building. That’s why the VelociCalc reads 57 degrees near the lobby’s door. Air-pressure differentials aren’t unusual for new buildings, with their computer-controlled climate systems and integrated environmental works. Kettler’s clients also include One Arts Plaza, the Ritz-Carlton, and the new Hunt downtown headquarters; they will in all likelihood deal with the same problem the W faces.
So how to fix it? “Pump more air into here,” Kettler says. That’s the easy answer. The hard part is doing it. Fixing the air pressure in the lobby might create a problem elsewhere. So Kettler will take measurements tonight. Later he will tweak the heat sensors. After that, he will tweak the pressure sensors. It takes about a year to get to know a building like this. These new ones all have their own personalities. “Just like you have to get to know a person before you can help them with their problems,” Kettler says, “you have to get to know a building.”
