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Church Steam Heat Savings
ttekushan_3
Member Posts: 960
Keep this in mind when its suggested that dumping steam heat in favor of new "more efficient" systems perform energy savings miracles--
ALTHOUGH IT WON'T DO ANY GOOD IN THE HVAC INDUSTRY SINCE IT DOESN'T INVOLVE HUGE CAPITAL EXPENDITURES ON BRAND NEW EQUIPMENT,
it should influence your maintenance decisions.
I was referred to a desperate church (no, that's not the denomination) with an old school/office/library building. Steam Heat. 3million btu input bryan boiler, leaking, filthy. Couldn't stage down (two stage firing only). Protemp control off adjustment to accomodate system problems. A few bad traps, not that many really. Leaking pneumatics that caused all valves to open, but still poor heat.
Church had installed large panel radiant electric heaters in office areas due to troubles, and individual gas heaters (vented) in others. Central air/heated meeting rooms had radiation disconnected to help remainder of system. This had been going on for years.
Everything finally stopped altogether. THEN they called me. Became an emergency no heat situation.
Initial visit:
Replaced a lot of the boiler's flexible water tubes (found new old stock on site. handy). Cleaned inside and out. Descaled, cleaned burner rather rudimentarily until combustion numbers weren't that far off. Water treatment instituted. Continued to shed impurities from boiler internals so multiple flushing required. Replaced a couple of traps.
This was on a Saturday and was able to get it to run smoothly by late evening so they'd have heat for the Blood Drive sunday, and everything for monday. Now, mind you I hadn't touched the pro-temp control yet, nor the pneumatics. It was Saturday night for crying out loud. And how hot could it get? I mean, this is the way it had been running before, right? Stopped in on the freezing snowing Monday. The windows and doors were open and it was still 87 degrees in the building!!!
Finished up the job complete with restoring the operation of all removed radiation and repair of pneumatics.
Three day's work for me. When completed:
DAYTIME firing time/DD on the system has been REDUCED 47%.
Night setback has been reintroduced but NOT factored in yet.
Runs on lo fire about 30% of the time. Not factored in yet.
And I am to return there to lower it even more since the common areas are still running a bit warm.
It'll be interesting to see where the numbers are with everything factored in.
Could the savings be. . . 69% ???
-Terry
ALTHOUGH IT WON'T DO ANY GOOD IN THE HVAC INDUSTRY SINCE IT DOESN'T INVOLVE HUGE CAPITAL EXPENDITURES ON BRAND NEW EQUIPMENT,
it should influence your maintenance decisions.
I was referred to a desperate church (no, that's not the denomination) with an old school/office/library building. Steam Heat. 3million btu input bryan boiler, leaking, filthy. Couldn't stage down (two stage firing only). Protemp control off adjustment to accomodate system problems. A few bad traps, not that many really. Leaking pneumatics that caused all valves to open, but still poor heat.
Church had installed large panel radiant electric heaters in office areas due to troubles, and individual gas heaters (vented) in others. Central air/heated meeting rooms had radiation disconnected to help remainder of system. This had been going on for years.
Everything finally stopped altogether. THEN they called me. Became an emergency no heat situation.
Initial visit:
Replaced a lot of the boiler's flexible water tubes (found new old stock on site. handy). Cleaned inside and out. Descaled, cleaned burner rather rudimentarily until combustion numbers weren't that far off. Water treatment instituted. Continued to shed impurities from boiler internals so multiple flushing required. Replaced a couple of traps.
This was on a Saturday and was able to get it to run smoothly by late evening so they'd have heat for the Blood Drive sunday, and everything for monday. Now, mind you I hadn't touched the pro-temp control yet, nor the pneumatics. It was Saturday night for crying out loud. And how hot could it get? I mean, this is the way it had been running before, right? Stopped in on the freezing snowing Monday. The windows and doors were open and it was still 87 degrees in the building!!!
Finished up the job complete with restoring the operation of all removed radiation and repair of pneumatics.
Three day's work for me. When completed:
DAYTIME firing time/DD on the system has been REDUCED 47%.
Night setback has been reintroduced but NOT factored in yet.
Runs on lo fire about 30% of the time. Not factored in yet.
And I am to return there to lower it even more since the common areas are still running a bit warm.
It'll be interesting to see where the numbers are with everything factored in.
Could the savings be. . . 69% ???
-Terry
Terry T
steam; proportioned minitube; trapless; jet pump return; vac vent. New Yorker CGS30C
0
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