Electrical boiler needed
- Thread starter Tamas
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pasadena_commut
Well-Known Member
Not my field of expertise, but even to me it seems like more information is needed. Is this hot water just for washing or also for heating the apartments? Will the building have a central A/C? It sounds like the sort of scenario where moving heat around (A/C extracted heat sent to hot water tank, at least optionally) could result in significant energy savings. LA is warm to hot most of the year, only rarely cold, pumping heat from the roof (if exposed to direct sun) to the water tank would again be more efficient than simple resistive heating of the tank water.
Someone posted that you need this to be engineered,that's what you should do,imagine if you made a mistake in calculations and it was under sized, that's what engineers are for
Mitchell-DIY-Guy
Well-Known Member
I owned a building in Southern Vermont, that was once a service center for the local electric utility. I won’t get into great detail on it’s very complex heating system, but there was a custom manufactured 2000 gallon, 27 kW electric water heater for the building. It was a fully custom manufactured item. After we bought the property, we further had an engineering firm modify it by removing the electric heating elements and installing oil fired heat exchangers.
So whether you like it or not, you’re going to have to go to a boiler engineering firm, one that does commercial HVAC boilers. Here are a few.
https://www.superiorboiler.com/
https://www.hurstboiler.com/
https://www.lochinvar.com/
Rather than one unit that services the entire property my guess is you would be better off with several smaller ones, and a sequencing system. That way you have built-in redundancy.
So whether you like it or not, you’re going to have to go to a boiler engineering firm, one that does commercial HVAC boilers. Here are a few.
https://www.superiorboiler.com/
https://www.hurstboiler.com/
https://www.lochinvar.com/
Rather than one unit that services the entire property my guess is you would be better off with several smaller ones, and a sequencing system. That way you have built-in redundancy.
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As I said in your other post for this same question, you need an engineering firm to design this. A manufacturer provides equipment only. They do not design systems. How many floors are there in your building? Are there any jacuzzi tubs in the building? Does each unit have a washing machine?
I'm guessing there is a standard way to calculate the instantaneous hot water flow rate required for an apartment building as well as a code requirement based on the fixtures in the building. But just a WAG on my part would be in the neighborhood of 100 GPM. The system needs to be engineered.
Rossando
Well-Known Member
There's no good electric boilers, with that said it sounds like anything you would put in that is not gas powered would be three phase and waste a bunch of electricity. Gas is way more effective in creating hot water. Call up the big guys in the game that sell plumbing parts/boilers/water heaters like pace supply they have a team of people that can help engineer this but you need to have an account.
To answer you multifaceted question is next to impossible without more details but Manufacters of boilers are lochinvar, navien, laars, triangle tube, peerless, Bosch, Burnham. This job would easily cost like 30-50k easy
To answer you multifaceted question is next to impossible without more details but Manufacters of boilers are lochinvar, navien, laars, triangle tube, peerless, Bosch, Burnham. This job would easily cost like 30-50k easy
I'd venture to say Pace water heater dept wouldn't want to give this post-er much time. Anyone doing off the cuff search like this is wasting the effort.
That would take an awful big boiler to handle 140 units. You would probably have to have boiler license to maintain it.
pasadena_commut
Well-Known Member
I understand why a lot of you would suggest using gas instead, but CA is pushing hard to be carbon neutral. The date keeps moving around a bit, but they want everything to be electric by 2030.
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/california/california-gas-fueled-furnaces-water-heaters/3011600/
If the OP were to put in a gas boiler and it broke in, let's say, 2031, it seems likely that they would have to redo all that work to make it electric anyway. This would be an enormous PITA since they would need a massive electrical feed along with (probably) external heat pumps and the like, and they would no longer need the flue and the gas lines. Much harder than buy another model XYZ electric boiler from the same manufacturer.
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/california/california-gas-fueled-furnaces-water-heaters/3011600/
If the OP were to put in a gas boiler and it broke in, let's say, 2031, it seems likely that they would have to redo all that work to make it electric anyway. This would be an enormous PITA since they would need a massive electrical feed along with (probably) external heat pumps and the like, and they would no longer need the flue and the gas lines. Much harder than buy another model XYZ electric boiler from the same manufacturer.
