For the Media: TELEGRAPH HERALD CASE STUDY

CASE STUDY: TELEGRAPH HERALD BUILDING IN DUBUQUE, IOWA

Extra! Extra! Newspaper Plant Cuts Fuel Costs In Half with New, High-Efficiency Boiler System

Replacing two older steam boilers, four 95%-efficient
Munchkin units incorporate modulating and condensing technologies to save energy

DUBUQUE, IOWA — At most large companies these days, the job of driving down unnecessary costs never takes a holiday. Woodward Communications, Inc., owner of the 150-year-old Dubuque Telegraph Herald newspaper, is no exception. Cutting expenses, particularly fuel bills, has been a top priority since the 1970s when energy prices began to soar. Read more...

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HT0701-001.tif The Telegraph Herald cut its energy costs by 49% by replacing a pair of three million BTU boilers with four Munchkin 399 modulating, high-efficiency condensing boilers, manufactured by Heat Transfer Products.

HT0701-002.tif John Fothergill (left), project manager at Dubuque Plumbing & Heating, discusses the operation of the Munchkin units with Judd Briggs, building maintenance manager for the Telegraph Herald.

HT0701-003.tif John Fothergill (left), project manager at Dubuque Plumbing & Heating, discusses the operation of the Munchkin units with Judd Briggs, building maintenance manager for the Telegraph Herald.

HT0701-004.tif The installation started in late September 2005 with the biggest challenge being removing one of the old boilers, which had to be cut up and hauled away.

HT0701-005.tif The installation started in late September 2005 with the biggest challenge being removing one of the old boilers, which had to be cut up and hauled away.

HT0701-006.tif With the installation of the new Munchkin condensing boilers, the Telegraph Herald has cut its gas consumption nearly in half – by 49%, versus the 35% that had been projected.

HT0701-007.tif With the installation of the new Munchkin condensing boilers, the Telegraph Herald has cut its gas consumption nearly in half – by 49%, versus the 35% that had been projected.

HT0701-008.tif The Telegraph Herald newspaper, which has published for 150 years, resides in an 82,000-square foot, three-story building built in the early 1930s.

continued from above...

“We are constantly seeking ways to reduce expenses, especially for utilities,” says Judd Briggs, Telegraph Herald building manager who oversees maintenance operations. “There is always competition for dollars in a corporation. With fuel prices going through the roof, it helps to bring potential savings in this area to the forefront.”

Over the past 30 years, the Telegraph Herald has replaced its heating and cooling equipment piece by piece to make the three-story, 82,000-square foot building more energy-efficient. Some of the replaced equipment was original to the building’s construction during the Great Depression.

One of the first cost-saving initiatives, handled by Briggs’s predecessor in 1978, was ridding the plant of its steam-absorption water chillers and switching to rooftop air handlers. More recently, Briggs focused on the two identical steam boilers in the plant’s basement. He knew they had seen their best days and were horribly inefficient, routinely firing to their full capacity of 3,000,000 BTU, regardless of how much heat the building’s occupants actually needed.

“One boiler was giving us a problem, but the other was fine, so we really didn’t have to get rid of them,” Briggs says. “But when we saw how much fuel they burned even to generate a little bit of heat, we started to look at more efficient boilers. The bottom line: We wanted to eliminate steam altogether.”

“Briggs’ biggest issue was to reduce his heating bill,” remembers Mike Lambert of Hot Water Products, an independent manufacturers representative based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Lambert talked to Briggs about replacing his two gas-guzzling boilers with four, high-efficiency Munchkin 399 units from Heat Transfer Products (East Freetown, Massachusetts) through its local distributor, Republic Companies, also of Dubuque.

95%-efficient: The Munchkin 399 is a high-efficiency condensing boiler with a combustion efficiency of 95% – well above the 80% AFUE ratings of most conventional gas-fired boilers and water heaters. A condensing boiler achieves high efficiency by capturing more heat from the flue gases generated by the combustion process. In addition, the Munchkin employs a modulating burner that is – as the name implies – “load-matching.” That means the amount of gas burned is always proportionate to the amount of heat needed.

“We suggested adding a control package so that Briggs could fire from one to four of the Munchkins, depending upon the energy/heating demand for that day,” Lambert comments. “For example, if he needed only to cut the morning chill of an otherwise warm day, he could use only one Munchkin and maybe as little as 100,000 BTUs. On really cold days when all four boilers were needed, Briggs would still burn only 1.2 million BTU, instead of three million BTUs every time he’d fire up the old, non-modulating boilers.”

Each Munchkin 399 has the capacity to fire between 100,000 BTU and 400,000 BTU, “When there’s a call for heat, the first boiler will come on at low fire and try to satisfy that call,” Lambert continues. “Once it reaches 85% of its firing rate, the second boiler will fire. If both reach 85% without satisfying the load, the third will fire, and so on. With this series approach, coupled with the modulating-burner technology, the newspaper stood to save a lot of money on its energy bills.”

Nonetheless, Briggs shopped around before he finalized his decision, and he even got some “insider” information from a local church that had installed a Munchkin. “I knew the personnel well there, so I was able to check out their unit, along with its energy savings and price,” says Briggs, who liked what he saw. He did some number-crunching of his own and estimated that by going with the Munchkins he would cut 35% of his energy costs.

Smooth installation: The installation started in late September 2005, and its biggest challenge was the removal of one of the old steam boilers, which had to be cut up and hauled away to make room for the new units. There were some baseboard registers already in place, but extra ductwork and a lot of extra plumbing were added to accommodate the loss of steam heat for the rooftop air-handling units.

“Everything went smoothly,” recalls John Fothergill, project manager at Dubuque Plumbing & Heating, which handled the changeover, including the boiler removal. “With the expertise of Mike Kelly of Republic Companies, we were able to handle the piping redesign work without any problems. Also, Judd had the mechanical plans for the building, which saved a lot of time, too.”

By mid-November, the installation was complete and the new system activated. To no one’s surprise, Briggs saw an immediate energy-savings. But he decided to give the new system some time, so that he could document the savings over an extended period.

As it turned out, his numbers were wrong. Comparing the final two years with the old boilers (May 1, 2003, through April 30, 2005) with the first two years on the Munchkin system (May 1, 2005, through April 30, 2007), Briggs was surprised to learn that gas consumption was cut nearly in half – by 49%, versus the 35% he had projected. (See chart.)

“We like the way the new system works just fine,” says Briggs, who hasn’t logged any complaints from the 200 employees who work at the paper. “There is no such thing as a perfect world, but everything is much improved. Trust me, it’s really nice not to fire up three million BTU when you need only 50,000.”

With the new boilers up and running, Briggs has now moved onto other energy-savings measures, including installing a new capacitor bank to bring the plant’s power factor close to unity, between 93% and 95% efficiency. The goal is to avoid an additional 1% demand charge by the local utility for every percentage point the plant was operating below 90% efficiency.

“We were averaging 73%, which translates into a significant demand charge to our billing,” says Briggs, who is doing all he can to stay ahead of the curve. “It is a constant battle, but money talks.”

(1) The Telegraph Herald’s fiscal year runs from May 1 of one year until April 30 of the next.

Note: Judd Briggs of the Telegraph Herald calculated the average gas consumption of the last two years the old steam boilers were in operation (3,166,900 cubic feet for 2003-2004 and 2004-2005) and the first two years with the new Munchkin boilers (1,616,050 cubic feet). Using these two-year averages, he then calculated a gas-consumption savings with the new system of nearly 49%:

3,166,900 – 1,616,050 ÷ 3,166,900 = .4897, or 49%

HEAT TRANSFER: Founded in 1974 by Raymond B. Davis, Heat Transfer is a designer and manufacturer of advanced heating and hot water systems. Product categories include high efficiency boilers and advanced boiler control systems, high efficiency gas-fired water heaters, oil-fired and electric water heaters, indirect water heaters, and marine and pool heaters.

For more information about these products, visit Heat Transfer at www.htproducts.com. Or call toll-free: 800-323-9651 (508-763-8071 if calling from Massachusetts).

For editorial assistance, contact John O’Reilly c/o LNC Communications:
815-469-9100 or John@LNCmail.com

[CONTRIBUTORS]

Telegraph Herald
c/o Woodward Communications Inc.
801 Bluff Street
Dubuque, IA 52001

Dubuque Plumbing & Heating
205 Stone Valley Drive
Dubuque, IA 52002

Hot Water Products
10338 Mount Saint Bernard Drive
Dubuque, IA 52003 563-590-0306

Photography Credit: Jeremy Portje, Telegraph Herald

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