Fuel savings

S Ebels

OK, I gotta crow a little bit. Maybe some of you remember a job I had pics of a year and a half ago. It was a church that had added a 5,400 sq ft addition to an existing 6,000 sq ft structure.

The heating system for the existing structure consisted of 2 oil fired furnaces. The architect had proposed two additional LP gas fired furnaces for the new addition and leaving the two old gals in place. They asked for a bid on that and I gave it to them plus added a quote for replacing both old furnaces and heating the whole structure, now 11,400 sq ft., with a single boiler. Long story short, I stuck my neck out and promised them I could heat it for less than the architects plan. We would replace the two furnaces with a single air handler and zone the ductwork for the main level and the basement. The new addition would be heated with a bunch of panel rads with TRV's. A total of 11 rooms were in the addition. A Viessmann Vitorond with a KW10 reset control would supply the heat. The two old furnaces were oversized by at least 30% as usual.

They have now been through a complete fiscal year so they have a valid year to year comparison of oil consumption. I ran into the church treasurer this past week and asked him if he could look up the numbers for me and see how they were doing fuel on fuel useage. He said they had just had their year end congregational meeting and the topic had come up so he already knew how they stood.

In spite of the fact that they paid an average of $.15 more per gallon and are heating double the sq. ft., they spent 13% less $$.$$ on oil compared to the year before with just the two old furnaces running the existing building.

I don't think that's to shabby considering they doubled the size of the building. Kinds makes me grin and get all warm and fuzzy feeling inside. I love it when a plan comes together!

Weezbo

Excellent . *~/:)

Way to Go .Talk to us about the new system some more...you were faced with quite a few challanges as I recall..how does the system ramp on Sunday mornings ? did the air handeler have a means of Dumping or re distributing the heat gains to other parts of the structure? how is the comfort level upstairs on a 10 degree F day ,on a Sunday service? have you sat in on a service just to see how things are doing ? You had mentioned something about the choir rehersals and what temp or stradgey did you settle on to protect the musical instruments?

Darin Cook_3

Steve, That is awesome

Just think about how much energy could be saved across this country if high efficiency equipment combined with proper control and piping strategy's were used as the norm. We just had a customer who went through a heating season. House is all baseboard with a indirect. We put a Munchkin in. They experienced a 38% savings in fuel usage. So much for a condensing boiler having no place in a "high temp" application. Keep up the great work Steve. We also are a having our customers track fuel usage. It will be interesting to see the results at the end of this winter. Equipment payback in most cases will be even quicker than most time frames given.





Darin

Constantin

That's great news!

That congregation must be so happy with the results. I know that I would be!

S Ebels

Here's the scoop Weez

All in all it's nothing fancy or high tech, just good, properly sized equipment that is setup and piped right.

The Viessmann Vitorond is a VR2-50 that comes with a Riello rated at 172K output. Flue temps run between 270-325 depending on water temp. It's vented into a new 6" stainless steel, all fuel chimney that we put up this past summer.

The heatloss calc for the building came to around 165K at design (-6*). (Remember that half of this building is below grade so the heatloss isn't terrible.) Boiler temp is controlled by the KW10 which is set at a 1.6 curve with the bottom of the curve shifted up about 10*. This gives nice long cycles on the air handler. The AH is an Enerzone out of London, Ont. and is rated at 88,000 with 140* water temp and 4gpm flow, 65* entering air temp. It has an integral Grundfos circ that runs when either t-stat calls for heat. The duct system is split main level and basement.

After observing the forced air part of the new system operate, I think I could have gone one size smaller on the AHU. When the water temp is at 170-180 it cranks out some seriously HOT air. Duct air temps will hit as high as 140*. Both zones ar controlled by W/R programmable stats which keep the basement at 60 during unoccupied periods and the upstairs at 65 for the sake of the organ and piano. These are programmed to bring the basement to 70* and the auditorium to 68* starting a 3AM Saturday night. The janitor says he turns up the Oventrop TRV's on the rads to "just a tad bit under 3" on Sunday morning. The pastor loves it because he can keep his office set were he wishes without heating the whole building. Kind of an interesting setup because one half of the church is the traditional on/off scenario and the other half is strictly proportional, constant circ type heat. There is no mechanical or electrical control shared between the two
parts. Guess which half of the building they say is the most comfortable???

When they use the building during non programmed periods they just turn things up manually. It heats up in 15-20 minutes from what they have said. The stats automatically go back to the program if untouched for 3 hours.

The panel rads in the new addition are piped off two manifolds, one on the south side and the other on the north. The manifolds are reverse returned to keep flow rates and pressure drop pretty much the same to all the rads. All 17 rads have TRV's to give individual room control. There is no setback on the KW10 but the folks at the church know how to turn them up and down and seem to do so faithfully. I set up the piping and circ for the rad zone so it could be controlled by a setback stat if they want but I think they're in love with the constant circ. "It's always comfortable" is a comment I've heard from many of the people that go there. I've poked my nose in there a few times just to see how things are running and they always have the unoccupied rooms running about 60-65*.

We also got them a free standing TFP air filter from Nu-Tech/LifeBreath because a couple of the members have severe allergy problems. I loaned them my console model just to see if it helped and they came back and said the after running it for only a week the folks had no more symptoms. Those things work, period. They asked just last week about installing a humidifier so we'll probably do that soon.

Are they happy? Sure seems that way. Nothing but warm fuzzys coming from that direction. The drop in fuel useage speaks right to their Dutch hearts.

Boilerpro_3

A thought for you about organs and pianos.....

I am involved extensively with music and haved served on an organ restroration committee and attended Interfaith Coalition on Energy conferences where this has been studied.

I believe over 300 members of the American Guild of Pipe Organ Builders were surveyed and asked if setbacks to 45F were damaging to thier instruments. The unanimous decision was they were not. In fact, many preferred these lower temperatures because the relative humdity would be much higher than if the unoccuppied space was kept at warmer temperatures of 60F or higher. Low relative humidity, not low temperatures, is the chief cause of damage to the windchests and leathers in a pipe organ. It also damages furniture and other instruments. Many instances were given of congregations that started keeping the space warmer for the "good of the organ" only to find a few years later that hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage had been done. The trend to keep organs heated all winter here in the U.S. probably is reflected in the fact that the typical pipe organ here needs to be rebuilt every 50 years while the often 600 year old organs in European cathedarals that go virually unheated have only been rebuilt a couple of times.

The chief problem found with setback is the insturment goes out of tune. And the chief place for this out of tune condition is the reeds. However, if the instrument is throughly warmed up evenly and slowly, the instrument will come back into tune. No instrument, including pipe and electronic organs, pianos, synthesizers, will be in tune at low air temperatures due to the change in density of air. Its just is more obvious on Pipe organs due to the fact that the reeds are especially effected.

The recommended setback temperature for churches during extended unoccuppied times is 45F. This protects piping and plaster from freezing while maintaining better indoor humidity levels. It also mimics the pattern of most older structures.....no one was in the chursh during the week 24 hours a day to shovel coal into the old furnaces or freestanding stoves. Energy (coal)was just as expensive then as enrgy is now, and they didn't want to spend the money.

Boilerpro

S Ebels

Good info BP

What have you seen done to regulate the RH for a structure housing an organ. There's only a couple of churches left around here that have pipe organs, my own being one and it's a constant battle keeping it in tune. Ours is housed in a hard surfaced room that is seperate from the sanctuary. There is a cloth/curtain covered opening, approximately 10'x12' that has a wood slat type damper in the front that modulates the volume. This is closed unless the instrument is in use so the pipe room is effectively isolated from the rest of the building.

Is it recommended to try to keep the pipes at a constant temp and RH throughout the year? If so, what is the best operating environment?

The other problem we have in our church is that the air intake for the blower is located in the basement, (think warm and high humidity) which has to have a profound effect on the wooden windchest and pipes. They sit there all week at 55* and about 20% RH, then on Sunday morning, Whoosh! everything fills with warm moist air. At least my gut feeling is that this is part of the problem. Don't even go into what this does to ambient air pressure in the basement where the furnaces are located. That's a whole 'nuther topic.

Any thoughts??? I would welcome some "moral support" from any of you on this. My gut level instinct tells me that keeping the operating conditions constant is more important than what they actually are temp and RH wise.

Mad Dog

Good work Steve ...and

When I see ya some day I'll but ya som e drinks for having the guts to go out on a limb like that. Mad Dog

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Steamhead

There's nothing like

a well-built, well-played pipe organ. And all the ones I've seen have had their blower air intakes in the basement. I can see how this would cause maintenance and allergy problems.

With suitable sound-deadening, we ought to be able to supply these blowers from the rooms where the pipes are. This would at least keep the humidity constant, and a suitable humidification system should be able to handle the rest. Obviously we don't want to run the humidifiers during services, since a room full of people would emit lots of humidity on their own!

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Weezbo

cold here at my house -20's

yesterday ,the word of mouth was the Deeper cold was like45below over in Canada,..boink is what that does for my head:).....what i was interested in was that everything worked out for you and sounds like your still On The Job for the duration:) i just turned on one of those three speed fans to move air across the slab...i have the water temp up to 80 degrees in the slab speed drives are useful

Boilerpro_3

Your final statement hits the nail on the head

"My gut level instinct tells me that keeping the operating conditions constant is more important than what they actually are temp and RH wise."

And that is operating condition....what happens during the week when the thermostat is set back to 45F doesn't really matter...as long as the humidity is kept reasonable. And at 45F, its pretty easy to keep the relative humidity up in a reasonable range..... much easier than at 60F, for instance, as the higher the temp the lower the relative humidity.

Most churches in my area are set up so that the shutters open when the organ is off... this at least allows the pipes to stay closer to the room temp. Also, many have some supplementary heating to keep the chamber from getting too cold, since most chambers are on outside wall. I was in one a few days ago, where they had installed a small humidifier in the chamber.

I know what you mean about the blower.....I see this all the time. My former church had it located it an almost airtight concrete vault in the basement. I believe that much more compact blowers are now available that are located in the chamber, so they can draw air from the chamber.

I suppose if you wanted to, you could continue to have the shutters close, then install a mini climate control sytem in the chamber. Probably the best thing would be install a very quiet high volume, air turnover type air handler(like used in well thought out heated warehouses now) to deliver large amounts of air just slightly above the setpoint temperature. This would keep the air temp more even through the height of the space. Radiant would be bad here since the pipes near the source would be much warmer than those in th shadow.
Then you could add a little humidification and cooling and demudification for the summer.

A church I did major work for a few years ago was unique. The pipe organ, one of the largest in Northern Illinois, I have been told, was built by the same man that built the heating system in the 1950s. There are 3 separate chambers, one on each side in the front and one in the rear. In addition, a stop of trumpet pipes is suspended from the rear wall. Each chamber had its own hot water convectors and thermostat.
Hope this may give you some ideas!

Boilerpro