replacing 5 hydrotherms

jackchips_2

"political" problem, Mayor (once a Mayor, always a Mayor).

As a Selectman in my town politics plays into all our decisions and almost always delays them for years-no exaggeration-as you know.

What does surprise me about your heating problem is that your government allows what the current Mayor is proposing. Here in Massachusetts, we are required by law to bid out any project over a certain amount and even under that amount, most times, we must obtain three quotes.

It would be impossible to get equal quotes without a design by an engineer and more than likely through an architectural firm.

Good luck in your pursuit of a heating solution and a political one.

All the best,

Jack

Fred Rappuhn

5 hydrotherms

Help me with one guys: I am the former mayor of our town, the municipal building, approx. 13,000 sq ft, is in need for a new heating system. Build in 1969 with original 5 Hydrotherm, (HydroPluse) boilers, only firing 4 because repair stole parts from 1 to fix the others. No idea what the heatloss would be but by the age of the building I would say it was not the most energy efficiency. This is a building that houses our city offices, police, and court.

The new mayor and 1 councilperson are on a campaign to save the taxpayers $$$$$, they say to abandon the boilers and install rooftop forced air furnaces. Move the upper level into the basement for a week while you run the ductwork, ect….The new councilperson is a retire building inspector/heating contractor(warm air). He said it would be more effient because you can get furnaces @ 92% compared to the best a boiler can do is 80%.

I am preaching the direction to go is hire a HAVC consultant to spec out the job for the best system baised on our needs, cost, efficiency, ect…. Then put it out for bids

The new mayor has been calling every mom & pop scorched air guy in town to get a price, some of the smart one have admitted it’s out of their league. Some really smart one won’t touch it unless the see a engineers report the the flat roof can take the load.

The new mayor say we don’t need a consultant or engineers, they cost too much money.

In you opinion what would be the best way to approach this. Boilers vs scorched air for a building of the size. How do you bid a job of the nature, do you go by a bid document or give an apples & oranges bid?

Randy-Lee Braman

Roofs and load

boy i don't think i'd be putting anything on a flat
roof without a engineers report,and stamped to boot.
Been a witness twice in too roof collapse's,both times
happened in the winter when snow load and equipment load
exceeded the roof desighn.
Randy-Lee

Alan(OnVacationInOregon)Forbes

HydroPulse

What kind of heating do you have now? Radiant? Baseboard? Radiators? Fan coil?

Fred Rappuhn

I am asuming fan coil or a heat exchanger. This system is tied into air cond. also. And there is room dedicated to an air exchanger. No in floor or radiators.

ALH_4

Boilers

Not knowing a lot about the situation, I say install two modulating condensing boilers and put thermostatic valves on all of the baseboards or radiators. Size each boiler to carry half the heat load to provide the best modulation range. If full standby capacity is necessary, install three, each sized to carry half the design load. Outdoor reset plus the ability to zone and provide a small nightly and weekend setback temperature will save a significant amount fuel. Even just replacing the boilers with new mod/cons will save significant fuel. The mod/cons could easily run at efficiencies in the 90's at all times. I recommend looking at the Lochinvar Knight boiler because it has the ability to control three boilers built in to the control. The ability to zone the hot water system with thermostatic valves is a major advantage over forced air. Also the current system can be reused, making the retrofit to mod/cons with TRV's far less intrusive than installing forced air.

Performing a heat loss calc should be the first step. The existing system could be oversized. Look at sources of heat loss at the same time. A program to replace leaky/inefficient windows or doors might be a good investment.

Edit: With the fan coils, they can still benefit from mod/con boilers. Even at high supply temperatures, the boilers can still condense as shown in the attached chart.

Bruce M

What is The Name of The Town?

Mayor Fred, It would help to name the town and let the media in on this. There might be a professional that is near your town who might want to look at the present setup. It seems like a hair brained idea. What kind of fuel are you using? Natural gas? Are you in a "Tornado Alley" area?

Fred Rappuhn

But looking at this with the city's set glasses, how does the council select a contractor.
You might come in and recomment installing 2 Knight mod/con boilers and the next guy geothermal.
How dose the city make heads or tails of it without being and hydronic heating expert?????????

Fred Rappuhn

Your correct, boilers are nat. gas fired and we are in Davison , Michigan, Mid Michigan, just north of about 60miles of Motown.
And that's former Mayor, after 25 yrs on council, I was backing the plans for a new building, not renovations, some pople didn't like that! So they would rather pay up the nosie for lots of years.

ALH_4

Consultant

It might be worth hiring an engineer to evaluate the options. It cuts into the budget, but it's better than installing the wrong thing. I could be completely wrong with my free instant internet assessment. However, the current mayor could be completely wrong to assume that what may have been appropriate for his home is appropriate for every building.

I assume the City employs a firm that provides general engineering services? Perhaps that firm has the ability or knows of someone who has the ability to evaluate the alternatives and present the City with a recommendation. Calling contractors without this information is a gamble at best.

Bruce M

Have you contacted Pyro Heating and Cooling?

They are in Howell. Why not give them a call? (517) 548-2114. Their e-mail is:
pyro@pyro-heating.com

Unfortunately the mid-west is mostly heated with hot air. That is primarily done for economy of installation. It is the least desirable way to heat a building in terms of comfort. Am I correct in thinking that the domestic hot water (DHW) comes from these boilers?

Fred Rappuhn

Now that you mention DHW, I don't recall a storage tank for hot water. The is a office building, no shower bath, kitchen. Is that what you are asking?

Fred Rappuhn

Jackchips, Your right, once you think for the city it's hard to stop. Yes, our city manager can spend only up to $2,500.00 without going out for bids. But we have department heads being bossed around by a bully and a dummy!
So there are reacting to the demands and wasting thier time going about it the wrong way, IMO.

A HVAC consultant should be brought on board, put it out for bids, and the consultant oversee the installation!
Am I of base???

Bruce M

I am talking bathrooms.

I am sure this building has bathrooms and I would guess that there is hot water in the sinks. That is DHW. If you remove the boilers you will have to install hot water heaters if there are none at present.

Boilerpro_5

Incredible....

your current Hydropulse boilers are 90% efficient or more. Where is this guy getting that boilers are only 80% efficient, he's sitting in a building that defies his remarks! Take into account that most roof top units are 78% thermal efficient and talk about going backwards. Also, there are numerous studies showing that losses from forced air systems typically increase heating loads 20% or more...just check out state and federal websites. A Dummy and Bully is right!

Boilerpro

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Fred Rappuhn

Sure, but I belive a stand alone water heater. Not off the boilers.

Weezbo

wow.

i cannot see how it would be possible to have 13000 square foot building requiring 5 heat sources. what is going on there?

sound like you need someone with a pencil and eraser, someone else with an eye for insulation detail, someone else to install another insulated build up roof . is the structure made out of bamboo?

once you have some reliable heat loss numbers....

i do not know the DHW required or how many restrooms there may be however i think you could power a small hotel with 5 boilers...


the way the government does this here is, personally invite 3 4 local contractors who know what they are about then when they have proven to the contractors that they are clueless cant answer the questions had no idea of the current costs ... Then they try to get something together and are more realistic as to what they need and the schedules ,time line, safety ,material storage, security...that typically takes years.... my question really is , who designed the building?

you got "engineered" . (i hope that is the politically correct way to say that on a family site.)

Keith_8

Who does the HVAc work for the Town?

Having an engineer access the situation and provide an unbiased evaluation is worth the money and then some. The mayor is a fool to think otherwise. What makes the mayor an expert in all things? Would a private business owner in your town be allowed to make the kinds of changes to the building that the mayor is proposing without bringing in the licensed professionals? Not likely. You would think from a liability angle the town would not want to subject itself to the exposure. Is the mayor comfortable signing off and becoming personally responcible for the outcome?

My suggestion would be to explain the situation to whoever is the outside HVAC company that does the majority of the work for the town. Ask them to provide a detailed scope what they would propose as a design build option. Hard for me to believe that adding RTU's would be less expensive than replacing boilers.

Be upfront and explain that their scope outline(not the pricing) will become public in a public bid format.

Keep it about the project and avoid the political debate.

Keith

Boilerpro_5

The pulse boilers are small.....

I suspect they may be only 150,000 input each...The 300,000 input models came later, I think.

Boilerpro

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Weezbo

even so,

with cascading rotation for longevity and fuel consumption savings ...that is a tremendous amount of heat loss..