Tekmar 279

152NP

Can anyone give me an idea of what fuel consumption savings they realized by installing a Tekmar 279 controller? I have a 1 million BTU gas fired boiler hooked to a two pipe system in a 24,000 sq,ft. four story commercial building.  The system has three zone valves, so I would probably be looking at a controller for each zone?

This will be my first season with natural gas. Oil was costing $24,000 to near $40,000 a year depending on price and weather.

Haviara

Tekmar 279

I would be curious as well. I am trying to get my old heat timer replaced on a 22,000 sf residential building. Last year I used about 11k gallons of fuel on a steam system. Does the building's DHW work off this system as well?

152NP

Tekmar 279

DHW was being provided by the boiler until the coil went bad.  The building only needs to have hot water for the restroom sinks, so it was no big loss to hook up a small dedicated water heater. The previous building owner had the boiler producing DHW in the summertime which was an insane waste of energy...one million BTU for a bathroom sink???!!!



I am waiting for a call back from a Tekmar sales rep to get their take on things. I talked with the Tekmar company and they said they were reluctant to make any explicit claims about what the uinit can save, but that they did recieve reports of 10% to 40% reductions.



I was just interested in hearing  some first hand accounts of what this thing has done in particular cases. This would be a respectable investment and I would like to know what the payoff might be.

nicholas bonham-carter

Saving fuel

Make sure the system is operating properly with low pressure(use a vaporstat), and good venting before you simply change the control. These controls are a big improvement over the old ones, but they cannot compensate for any "deferred maintenance"--NBC

152NP

Tekmar 279

Thanks for the advice.

System currently has a pressuretrol set at 2lbs.  I will look into a vaporstat if you think there is something to be gained. A few main traps have been rebuilt last year. violent banging alerted me to their need for repair. Will check vents.  The are probably a few bad radiator traps because I have noticed a hot return line or two. Maintenance is not fun, but absolutely needs to be done.  I have been slowly making up for years of blatant neglect by previous building owner. They let a bad water pressure reducer feed fresh water into the condensate tank for two years.  It ate the wet returns to hell.

Haviara

Installing New main vents

When I first came to this site and read up, one of the first things I decided to do was listen to NBC and look into installing new vents on my mains. I wound up drilling the lines and installing about 12 #2 vents in the basement. I am not certain about my fuel savings $ as of yet but what I saw was that the north east corner of the building which was the furthest from the boiler now was getting heat evenly with the rest of the building. The entire building was heating up much faster and evenly. I suspect that this will be a good first step for you. Also Make sure you have good insulation covering everything you can.

Haviara

Installing New main vents

When I first came to this site and read up, one of the first things I decided to do was listen to NBC and look into installing new vents on my mains. I wound up drilling the lines and installing about 12 #2 vents in the basement. I am not certain about my fuel savings $ as of yet but what I saw was that the north east corner of the building which was the furthest from the boiler now was getting heat evenly with the rest of the building. The entire building was heating up much faster and evenly. I suspect that this will be a good first step for you. Also Make sure you have good insulation covering everything you can.