Aware of the many benefits of tankless technology previously installed at the Canton, NY outpatient facility, Andy Leonard, President of ENI Mechanical, knew that tankless would meet greater hot water demands at a larger inpatient facility. “At Gouverneur Hospital they had just built an additional wing and continued to supply heat and hot water to it with their existing hydronic and domestic water system.” This system was comprised of a 5.4M Btu boiler that fed a 6,000-gallon storage tank and an older, inefficient 1.7M Btu back up boiler. Due to the additional workload, the boiler system was unable to keep up and the hospital was experiencing situations in which the water would not keep up to the required temperature setting. “The entire set-up had become increasingly unreliable,” said Andy. “The hospital maintenance staff was having to work continually on the system to ensure that hot water was restored and at least one of the two boilers was operational.”
Howland Pump and Supply was brought in to show the hospital various options available if they moved to a separate modular boiler system for their hydronic heating needs in the winter and a tankless system to supply their domestic hot water year-round. After deciding this was the best option, piping schematics for the domestic hot water system were produced by John Clark with Brooks Washburn Architect, out of Potsdam NY. “Going from four recirculation zones and pumps to one while eliminating the need for storage reduced an unbelievable amount of inefficiency and operating cost — Plus the hospital was making efficiency improvements moving from 80% efficient boilers to 97% efficiency with Rinnai tankless,” said John.
By decommissioning the storage tank, the hospital eliminated associated stand-by loss, Legionella concerns and maintenance costs to regularly blowdown the tank and boilers.
Mike Bajgot and Corey Nattinger of Rinnai walked the hospital building in mid-December 2018 to do a fixture count and size the job. It was determined that four (4) Rinnai TRS04CUiN Freestanding Tankless Rack Systems with a total of 16 engines supplying 3.184M Btu was required and would still provide enough capacity for future growth. Once the quote was approved, a purchase order was cut in February and installation began in March 2019. The hospital expects close to $18K a year in energy, maintenance and repair savings and have the added benefit of increased redundancy and remote monitoring.
“Using the Rinnai Control-R™ Mobile App, the maintenance staff can control and monitor the entire hot water system remotely. With the redundancy of having 16 operable units, they are not having to respond to emergency ‘no hot water’ situations like they were before,” said Corey Nattinger, Commercial Business Manager with Rinnai.
Kyle Besaw, with Howland Pump and Supply appreciates how everything came together. “We ended up selecting Polypropylene common venting that we sourced through Rinnai because of the ease of installation plus it priced on par with PVC,” said Kyle. “We were told the rack systems needed to arrive in 3-4 weeks and Rinnai shipped it complete within 4 days of receipt of order. Their team has been flawless every step of the way.”
Related Case Study
Replacing traditional boilers and tank water heaters with Rinnai tankless units and the Rinnai Tankless Rack System allows Atlanta Motor Speedway to of hot water while simplifying maintenance between events and reducing utility costs.
