Adam and I did a tour of boiler rooms today as part of our field investigation phase of two boiler replacement projects. One project will be pretty straight forward, replacement of two Kewannee firebox hot water heating boilers in an elderly housing complex, 1978 vintage. The boilers are at best operating at 70% annual efficiency and we plan to replace them with high turndown condensing boiler units. The boilers will take up less space save operating costs. While we are there we will look at controlling the exhaust air system, replace some existing electric lighting, and revise the hot water circulating pump piping (which looks like it was installed incorrectly day one). We will use the building Makeup Air Unit and it's glycol loop to subcool the return water and maximize efficiency gains. The other job as programmed is a simple task, replace a oversized steam boiler serving a maintenance building with a pair of properly size units to reduce boiler cycling. We all know that conversion to hot water heating could save more operating cost in the end, but the budget doesn't allow conversion of the five air handling unit coils and the return piping that would be required. The project will save significant amounts of energy - it could save more. I guess it's like personal choices we make in terms of energy, you do the best you can within the parameters in which you live.
Oh yes, the pig washer - we went to look at a machine that is use to wash petroleum pipeline "pigs" to understand how it is connected to water lines and drains. To us it was an 8 foot by 8 foot X on a plan. When we got to the warehouse it was an 8 foot by 8 foot by 16 foot tall wooden crate - we didn't open it up, we didn't see it, we still don't know how to connect it up.
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