Water plant insulation

A wonderful friend gave camp some money to seal up the water plant better. The wind blows all the heat right out in the winter months. Currently the walls have a R-13 fiberglass insulation, but we added another  R-16 with this insulation. It is a radiant barrier and a vapor barrier, which is good because the high humidity is damaging to the fiberglass. Now the water plant has R-29 on the walls!

You can see more about the insulation at: http://www.insulation4less.com/Insulation4lessProduct-1-Prodex-Total-48-Inch.aspx

Dining Hall heat

We got the water heater all up and running for the Dining Hall. That's a lot of hot water!

Now we are heating the Dining Hall and the staff housing below it with the wood burner. The white pipes you can see going into the top of the furnace pipe 180*F water into coils, and the furnace fan blows it into the building.

I have not been keeping up with the blog too well lately... but we have done a lot with the wood burner this summer!

Bill and Mecaila did a huge amount of work toward it, and helped in other ways too! We got the pipe put in from the wood burner to Alpine (the bathhouse) and to the Dining Hall with 1" super insulated pipes like these in the picture

First we worked on Alpine. We were a bit intimidated to start with the Dining Hall, because of all the duct work. Not only was it tight, but we also had never done it before - and it was going to be a job! 

 

The long black pipe installed on the front of the water heater is the heat exchanger. Most water heaters are set at 120*F. This heat exchanger will make the water 180*F. That means as long as the wood burner is burning, the temperature will stay above 120*F, causing the electric part of the water heater to not turn on. And of course the electric part of the water heater not running means no money is spent!! If the wood burner is not running, say if it isn't stocked with wood on Christmas or Thanksgiving, the electric will kick on as soon as the temperature drops below 120*F, meaning no frozen pipes even if the burner is off.

180*F is too hot coming out for use, so we needed to put in a mixing valve. You can see it on top of the tank. It mixes the 180*F with cooled water to make 120*F water.

As for the heat for the bathhouse, we got it hooked up to the boiler so when it calls for heat, the pump turns on and moves the water through the heat exchanger (which is at 180*F) and the boiler runs at 150*F.

Now, if the wood burner runs it will keep the water running from the wood burner to the buildings at 180*F, and the electric water heater and gas boiler will not run unless the water temperature gets below 120*F. This would happen if the burner is not loaded with wood, or if the demand on the wood burner is too much (like in below freezing weather) and the wood burner can't keep up, the water heater and boiler will use electricity or gas to keep up. 

A small but important part of the whole arrangement is BayWeb. It is a web based thermostat, which I can monitor and control right from my smartphone. It sends me an email if the temperature of the system gets outside the limits I set, which lets me catch any issues before guests become uncomfortable and before pipes get to freezing temperatures! (You wouldn't believe how often pipes would freeze in lodges and such before I found BayWeb...) Thanks Pat and Patsy for providing the BayWeb! 

A huge thanks to Bill and Mecaila for all their hard work helping me on this project. They enjoyed working on a project with such a big impact saving money from utilities, that we can now use for the ministry! 

This project is a great example of what Cut 90% and Do More is all about: reducing the amount of money needed for necessary things like utilities by implementing energy efficient and green energy measures, so that a bigger portion of our funds can channeled toward direct ministry: reaching kids for Christ. Now that is a goal worth working toward!

The Wood Burner is Running!

It's AL-I-I-I-I-I-I-IVE!!! Last week we spent a lot of time to get this going. Two guys came up to get the boiler room all set up and running right.

Saturday, the Covenant Heights Board of Directors came for a meeting and got to see camp's new wood boiler fired up for the very first time. Terry Ruch, our BOD president, got the honor of starting it up. Now we get to start saving money with this huge part of the Cut 90 project!

Terry R lighting the burner.

Terry R and Mike.

  BOD left to right: Gerald, Hannah, Lee, Tom (Camp Director), Terry D, Evan, Tracy, Glenn, Mike (Maintenance Director), Terry R. (not pictured: Nancy, Josh, and Chuck

This is a smokeless unit, but it does have smoke when it is very first started!

The wood burner is currently heating Cabin 8. In about a week we should have Cabin 7 hooked up as well. We are working on putting in-floor heating in Cabin 7 now. After Cabin 7 is hooked up, Cabins 9 and 10 will be next, with the Dining Hall following when the ground finally thaws.

The wood burner is so efficient, it is actually having trouble heating just Cabin 8 at the moment, because it's not a large enough load for it! There is not enough heat being called for with just one cabin, so it keeps tamping down the fire until it actually smolders out. I can't wait to get the other cabins and the Dining Hall hooked up so this things can run full bore.


Thanks for your interest in camp and support.
If you are ever interested in volunteering, or just want to know more please contact Mike at Mike@CovenantHeights.org.

And, if you want to help us continue to improve camp for our campers, please consider making a tax deductible gift to Covenant Heights. Online Giving Here. 

Wood Burner Update!

I got the wood burner installed and hooked up! Now all the work is inside. The plan is to fire it up on April 13th, when our board members are here. It's been hard finding time the last two weeks to work on it because of routine things I need to keep up around camp, problems arising, and wonderful volunteers.
My problem is that I want it going now; the way I look at it, every day that goes by we miss money we could have saved. But I have realized I need to take care other things as well, and it's all in God's timing - not mine.