Hot Water Heating > Boiler Plant Installation

Existing Conditions

There are various electric baseboard heaters and electric forced air heaters in the building. Electric resistance heating is a very expensive method of heating a building.

Retrofit Conditions

We recommend installing a new high efficiency forced draft boiler plant. Existing electric baseboard heaters and unit heaters should be replaced with hot water baseboard heaters and unit heaters.

For the boiler plant, we recommend vertical coil tube designs from Patterson-Kelley, Lochinvar, or RBI because:

•	They provide the highest efficiency available in a non-condensing boiler (approximately 83% seasonal efficiency).

•	They come apart easily for service.

•	They fit through a standard doorway, for easy retrofit.

•	They can be installed to share flues with existing boilers, either atmospheric or forced-draft.

A proposed schematic is included in Appendix E: Savings Opportunities.

Further Benefits

Application Details

Any heating plant installation should be designed by an experienced engineer to ensure that the building Owner gets the best value. One-for-one boiler replacement in an old plant will not achieve maximum savings because it does not take into account operating differences between the original and new boilers, and does not capture opportunities in piping, pumping, and correct boiler sizing. This basic approach can also shorten boiler life and will often cost more overall than an engineered plant, since most original heating plants can be downsized significantly based on a careful analysis of historical fuel usage.

Issues and Concerns

Flue venting regulations have changed significantly in the past 10 years, and may present significant design challenges and restrict technology options when retrofitting existing natural gas heating plants.

References

Analysis

Analysis text here