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.

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.

Sign up for e-mail updates on this blog to stay in the loop on our progress! Just click in the box on the top right under our logo, and enter your email address. Any time we post to this blog you will get an email that a new post is up.

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

Saving Money for More Ministry

Mike, our Maintenance Director, has been working diligently on saving Covenant Heights Camp money through energy efficiency and conservation in what is being called the Cut 90% Do More Project (Learn more, click the "About" tab above). These projects have the ultimate goal of cutting our energy costs by 90% which would free up significant funds for more "direct" ministry. I call it direct ministry here, because in reality, as we all know, you can't do ministry without heat, lights, running water, and other such necessities. That reality, though, is not stopping us from working to be more efficient and better stewards of what we have been given!

With that said, we want to celebrate a few of our volunteers who have given many hours and much expertise to camp in order to switch out all of our lighting ballasts. (Don't know what a ballast is? I didn't. It's a device intended to limit the amount of current in an electric circuit. A familiar and widely used example is the inductive ballast used in fluorescent lamps, to limit the current through the tube.)

This specific project was to switch all of the T12 ballasts on camp to T8 ballasts. This change alone will result in 43% savings on what we spend on lighting. We had a lot of people volunteering their time to help with project. Three that deserve special recognition are Arlie Lease, Jim Ramsey, and Jack Arnold who led the task of switching out 162 ballasts and 356 bulbs!

Thank you!

Want to Volunteer? Email Mike - Mike@CovenantHeights.org

Want to Invest? Donate Here.

Sealing it all up

In Longs Peak today we put spray foam on the walls in the crawl space. Now we have a R-16-20 insulation and an airtight seal. We will save money and Jesse and his family can stay warmer!!

Here is a cool link to see someone using it. Spray Foam in use

This is the best insulation for us to use, and we need a lot more!! *hint hint* We have a lot of work in the Dining Hall, Cabins 7 & 8, and Autumn still to do! This link will take you directly to the correct page if you would like to donate some!

Here is Jordan in action!

Excellent insulation, but you don't want to get it on you!

A visual example

I took a lot of pictures of all the buildings on camp with a thermal camera to see where the heat loss was. Black means cold (low heat loss) and white means warm (high heat loss). The first two are of Longs Peak, where you can see that the new window on left is black (not letting the inside heat escape) but the window on the right is white (the inside heat pouring out!). See what a big difference the new windows make?

 

                                         The picture above is the water treatment plant.
                                                      The picture below is the entry of Winter.