The Utilities team recently developed an innovative solution to support building heating needs throughout planned outages and emergencies.
The University’s multi-year project to transition to low temperature hot water systems requires modifications to 67 buildings. A pipe or heat exchanger replacement typically involves renting boilers to heat the affected buildings, which can be expensive, according to Associate Director of Utilities Cameron Ratliff.
In addition to the high cost, boilers are not always immediately available during peak demand times. So, the Utilities team came up with an innovative solution – build a mobile boiler trailer. The Utilities team built the mobile heating system using a 7.5-foot by 20-foot trailer and four boilers. Shortly after the trailer came online, an outage in Carruthers Hall put it to the test.
“Carruthers Hall lost its boilers during the winter, and we had our 1.2 million BTU trailer connected in one day to provide temporary heat while the boilers were serviced,” says Ratliff.
The team decided to build a second mobile heating trailer with even more heating capacity using specialized boilers that have a slim design. The second trailer includes a total heating capacity of 3 million BTUs with the option to add two more boilers to increase it to 4.5 million BTUs if needed.
“We now can heat the majority of our facilities on Grounds at any time with these trailers without having to rent boilers… it really is the perfect application for our University; the cost savings alone make it so worth it,” said Ratliff.
