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.

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.

This is Awesome!!!!!

This is so awesome!!!!!
And there is really no other word for it...

I am really excited to tell you about our newest project. Our camp - God's camp - is going start saving a ton of money... EVERY year! Do you how that is going to happen?........

With a wood burner which will have the capacity to heat up to six buildings: the dining hall, Alpine Bathhouse, and Staff Cabins 7-10.

A wood burner to purchase, costs $9,200, but will pay itself off in only 1.5 - 2 years. Learn more here It not only will provide heat, but also hot water to the buildings it is connected to.

You may say, "That's cool... but how are you going to come up with $9,200?" That's the best part! We just got a check for $9,200 from an awesome, and very, very faithful donor! Is that cool, or what? I'm not sure cool quite expresses our intense gratitude. It's incredible! No, awesome!

We start prep work on Monday the 17th. First we'll start on staff cabins 7-10, and then the Dining Hall. And move from there. The dream is that as this unit pays itself off we might even be able to get another one and introduce it to other parts of camp and save even more money.

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We are pumped... join us!


Want to see other great stuff happening at Covenant Heights Summer Camp and Retreat Center? Check out the Covenant Heights Blog at www.CovenantHeights.BlogSpot.com or go to www.CovenantHeights.org