AW - New boiler for process heating

stevengo

We are upgrading the pasteurizing vat at our cheese plant and it requires a 525K BTU hydronic or steam boiler. This unit will only run for only a few hours two to three times a week. Our last steam heated vat was much smaller, and it had a propane fired 200K BTU steam boiler, which fit in a nearby room that was only 9'x7'x7.25', and it was power vented. It also space heated two zones, 600SF and 300SF. It was way oversized for the space heating, but it's what was installed when we bought the place, so we kept it until it met it's demise last year.

Our milk needs to get to 180F, so the water jacket needs to be higher than what a condensing boiler is capable of reaching. The jacket is able to withstand 70PSI, so a hydronic system at normal water pressure will work, a low pressure steam boiler, or a reduced high pressure steam boiler. The vat has two zones, and can handle GPM rate of 30-50 per zone.

I am not married to the idea of continuing to space heat with the new boiler system, especially since it will be way too large to supply the small load without short cycling or having to balance it out by using thermal storage. We can heat the spaces with electric for now and figure out a more efficient system later.

We are on a farm and have a diesel tank, so we could forgo the propane and use heating oil.

However, anything we decide to use will most likely not fit in the tiny room that we once used. In this case, we'd have to insulate a different part of our building to accommodate the new boiler system, at a bit of an expense.

As an aside, we heat our domestic water with a commercial on demand water heater, which get's the water to 180F. We need this temp to clean our equipment. We don't need to tie the domestic hot water into the new system, but if it helps or is convenient to do so, that is an option. It is located in the small boiler room.

Any suggestions for fitting the system in the small boiler room? Perhaps preheating the process water with a few wall mounted on demand condensing boilers and then topping it off with a non condensing unit? If we could do this, then we possibly could tie the space heating into the system.

If not, any other suggestions?

300 G Vat:
https://b7a58841-f1a6-4aec-9d68-165043701347.filesusr.com/ugd/480ce7_fe2d014d550847f389415464eaf6e8be.pdf

Hot Water Boiler Schematic:
https://b7a58841-f1a6-4aec-9d68-165043701347.filesusr.com/ugd/480ce7_16c1dd953b0744faa2e763fe94508777.pdf

Steam Boiler Schematic:
https://b7a58841-f1a6-4aec-9d68-165043701347.filesusr.com/ugd/480ce7_72e5833f1a4b4b6e9fdeeda0eaeff358.pdf

2 Zone option:
https://b7a58841-f1a6-4aec-9d68-165043701347.filesusr.com/ugd/480ce7_ead3613f087c45fea0b8916ff1c5a2cd.pdf