Royal Class Service provides HVAC
Nestled at the top of a hill off Veronica Avenue in New WIndsor is a seven-acre tract of land called Windridge Farm. The former mid-18th century farm was purchased by Andy Weyenberg over a year ago and he’s been slowly bringing the property back to its former glory to grow crops, as well as mushrooms. Seeking a modern boost, the mycologist reached out to Royal Class Service, of New Windsor, to install 21st century heat pump technology to aid in growing organic mushrooms for local markets and restaurants.
The property is surrounded by trees and located on a dirt road. It has a barn, which Weyenberg has been using as the base for his mushroom operation. Nathanael Greene, a prominent Revolutionary War leader, was once stationed in the house where Weyenberg resides.
Weyenberg, an Ohio native, received his undergraduate degree in performance theater from Boston University. After graduating in 2014, he moved to North Carolina and started working with a theater company. He also worked part-time doing odd jobs such as serving as a rock climbing and zip line instructor at a camp. Weyenberg moved back home when his father experienced a scare with cancer. Not knowing how long he was going to be living there, he landed a full-time construction job. On nights and weekends, he volunteered to work on a farm.
Twice a year he attended farming conventions and quickly learned he enjoyed hard labor, sweating, and working with his hands.
Although he grew up surrounded by farms, agriculture was not a part of Weyenberg’s life — his father was a businessman and his mother was an accountant. While theater taught him how to teach himself, farming became the thing he wanted to start doing. After attending a five-day workshop about growing mushrooms, Weyenberg decided he wanted to give it a try.
“It hit all the fun parts of my brain – lab work, science, and using my hands,” he said. The turnaround is immediate, going a month from inoculation to harvest. You can do it indoors and all year round. It’s a lot of science. It was super fun. I started growing mushrooms in my basement in Cleveland. From that I got better.”
Weyenberg checked out all the books he could about mycology, plants, and soil, and through trial and error he used different source material, like coffee grounds, grass, and hay, to grow mushrooms. He took an online course in the science of soil and continues to read new books on plants or scientific studies regarding agriculture.
Eventually Weyenberg moved to New York, to be close to his theater friends who lived in New York City, and settled on the Hudson Valley.
To grow mushrooms, Weyenberg sterilizes grow bags in a steam sterilizer unit. The bags are then filled with substrate, or growing medium. Liquid culture or spores are then injected into the grow bags and left alone until mycelium, rootlike growths, start to form. A five-pound bag of spawn can colonize 50 bags of substrate. The bags are marked by date to indicate when they’re ready to move into the grow room. The bags are stored in a climate-controlled room where Weyenberg is able to set the appropriate temperature and humidity levels needed for mushrooms to grow. It’s here that Royal Class Services comes into play.
Heat pump technology isn’t new. It was created around 1857 in Europe, but advancements have paved the way to more efficient heating and cooling systems. Although it doesn’t technically promote farming, it serves the purpose of the client and helps reduce his carbon footprint in the process.
The system, which is more efficient than the basic heating and cooling system in a home, pulls air from the outside and uses refrigerant that circulates between the indoor fan coil unit and the outdoor compressor, explained Matthew Pillius, owner of Royal Class Service.
“The outdoor component is an inverter compressor and can run at the most minute capacity and has the ability to ramp itself up to a big demand, so it sizes itself to the load,” said Pillius.
Heat pumps are energy efficient and environmentally friendly because it’s a ductless system.
Mark Bruce, project manager for Royal Class Service, added infrastructure doesn’t have to be demolished to install a heat pump system. There are ways of concealing outdoor equipment to aesthetically satisfy the customer. Weyenberg said he spoke to a couple of different heating and cooling companies, but chose Royal Class Service because representatives were prompt and knowledgeable in explaining the system and how it worked.
“It’s important to maintain stable temperatures for optimum mushroom growth and a heat pump is a good bet to keep the barn at a steady state year round,” said Weyenberg.
In addition to growing mushrooms, Weyenberg has been trying a few different methods to rebuild the soil. One such method is regenerative farming which entails putting more into the soil than he’s taking out. This is accomplished through cover cropping and crop rotations. He’s also implementing an agricultural practice employed by Native Americans-Three Sisters Planting.
“Native American cultures learned if they grow beans, squash, and corn alone they’re hard to grow, but if you put them in the same plot you have the corn growing, that’s the trellis for the beans which supply the soil, and squash shades the soil so it doesn’t lose so much moisture,” Weyenberg said. “If you have the right groups of things growing together they support each other and you do less work.”
For more information about Windridge Farm, visit windridgefarm.org. To learn about Royal Class Service, royalclassservice.com or call 845-569-1299.