Perhaps the most misunderstood and most often overlooked part of a laundry’s equipment package is it’s water heating system. And why not ignore it? What ever goes wrong with it?

 

Some laundries actually go through three or four owners and never change anything with or about their water heating system. Every decade or so, they may replace the circulating pump, but only because they have forgotten to lubricate it on a regular basis.

 

Yet in terms of relative costs, it is usually the single most expensive piece of equipment installed in a laundry, and its use creates the greatest single monthly expense. It represents about 60% of the natural gas bill. Except for rent and wages, the greatest expense faced by a laundry operation is the cost for gas.

So, let’s talk about the water heating process in a laundry and discuss the various kinds of systems used to do that job.

 

First there are certain definitions we all need to understand.

 

The energy used to heat the water is measured in BTUs (British Thermal Units), which is the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of a pint of water about one degree. For illustration, that is about the amount of energy necessary to raise the temperature of two cups of water one degree Fahrenheit.

 

Completely burning one wooden farmer’s match, from end to end, is an illustration of an equivalent of the amount of energy found in a single BTU.

 

When we discuss water heaters the term Energy Efficiency is often used. That is the ratio of thermal units imputed into the heater in relation to the hot water out.

 

Let’s say a water heater is rated 500,000 BTU, and it puts out 400,000 BTU, the heater’s energy efficiency rating will be 80%. Some of the newer heating systems are rated 90% or higher.

 

There are three basic styles of water heater usually found in a modern laundry business. The rarest are self contained units which both heat and store the hot water in a single tank. These are roughly the equivalent of a water heater one would install in a home, only larger.

 

The reason these are so rare is they are relatively inefficient, expensive to run and have a relatively short life span. They can work well in tiny little laundries having six to eight washers. Occasionally they are manifolded in a series to provide enough water for a larger laundry, but they haven’t proven to last.

 

The usual style of water heating system in laundries, has for years, been the direct fired heater backed up by a hot water storage tank, illustrated above.

 

Water runs through coils heated by the burner flames and then rises into a storage tank where it waits for demand begun from the laundering cycles of the washers. It has been projected that 85%, or more, of all laundries use this system.

 

In most laundries the hot water is moved through the laundry’s lines by a re-circulating pump. It’s purpose is to have water at the far end of the system be as warm as the water near the start of the hot water system.

 

This style of heating seems to have almost endless life. Thirty years, or more, is not that unusual in a laundry. What usually requires a change out is the ever higher costs for gas. These old heaters still work well, but they are comparatively inefficient to operate.

 

It’s pretty simple mathematics really. One can buy a new water heating system and pay for it in just a few short years by energy savings alone.

 

 

The argument for the tankless heater is they take up less floor space and they are easy to manifold into a series so they can efficiently answer a laundry’s demand for hot water.

 

This manifolding provides greater efficiency in a laundry as only one heater is on until such time as others are needed. Let’s restate that. No heater is on until there is demand, and only one is turned on until there is even greater demand.

 

Many operators using instantaneous heaters in their laundry have added water storage tanks to keep the number of heaters low and the tank water makes up for demand. There are also other style water heaters such as indirect fired systems, which are very long lasting, but have proven to be a bit on the expensive side for laundries.

 

There’s solar too. Probably the least costly source for energy is the sun, but somehow it has never caught on as the primary source for laundry water heating. Particularly in the southwest, solar is used in laundries as a source to preheat water, but nearly all coin and card op laundry owners still rely on basic direct fired gas water heaters to ensure their customer’s satisfaction.

 

There are certain steps that should be taken and rules to be followed to keep each type of system working efficiently for the entire period of your ownership. These are:

Keep your system clean. Minerals found in the water will adhere to surfaces in the coils and other exposed surfaces. This mineral build up will eventually begin to act as an insulation between the heat source and the water flowing through the heater. In other words the build up makes heaters less and less efficient. Less efficiency costs the laundry owner more and more money for wasted gas.

 

One cure is to provide the inner sides of the copper tubing with an acid bath that should clear out the mineral build up that, if left unchecked, could eventually destroy a heaters coils. An acid bath is the kind of thing that should be scheduled every couple of years.

 

If things have gone too far, the coils can be replaced. The cause would have happened over years and years, and it is not the kind of fix a typical operator can do on his own. Even an experienced plumber likely hasn’t faced this kind of repair job before.

 

But there are experts in the area of boiler and heater repair and it is suggested that you contact the maker of your system for their suggestions and recommendations.

 

Keep heaters on timers. Not only will this save you money on gas to keep the units off the clock in idle periods, it also is helpful extending the life of the heater. The lime and mineral deposits are a product of the amount of water fed through the system. If they are not working, water is not being fed through the heater coils and less deposits will stick to the coils.

 

Insulate, insulate, insulate. All of the hot water lines leading from the storage tank out to the laundry proper should be wrapped with insulation to keep the water temperatures up without having to burn more gas and running more lime and mineral deposits through the coils of a water heater. Lower costs and fewer repairs to the system will be the result. The saving may be miniscule, but they are savings nonetheless.

 

Who is to say miniscule savings won’t, over time, add up to really big bucks?.

 

It is said that a faucet drip can add up to 3,000 gallons of water loss per year, and if that happens to be a hot water tap, can add up to hundreds of dollars per year in expense A miniscule drip? When it comes to efficiency, there really is no such thing as miniscule.