Boilers can make facilities more efficient: with fuel prices going through the roof, more building owners are looking for opportunities to reduce cost

Fuel prices keep rising, and with them, consumer interest in how to save energy. Building owners, in particular, are looking for ways of making their facilities more efficient. Because space heating is the largest end use of fuel in commercial buildings, an obvious place to look for savings is at the boiler plant.

Depending on the geographic area, space heating energy costs in a typical commercial building can account for between 25% and 30% of the total energy costs. This percentage is obviously much smaller in warmer climates, where large commercial buildings require little space heating. It is estimated that half of all space heating systems use natural gas, with a typical efficiency of around 70%, although many newer commercial boilers now have efficiencies greater than 90%.

Given the combination of high fuel prices and the availability of more efficient boilers, many building owners are becoming more willing to pay a little more upfront for energy-saving boilers, both in new construction and retrofit applications, in order to realize long-term fuel savings.

ENERGY SAVING APARTMENTS

There are advantages to constructing a new multifamily building as there are many inherent opportunities to save energy. Because the units share structural and mechanical systems and due to the fact that less of the building envelope is exposed, heating and cooling an apartment building usually requires less energy when compared to a single-family home.

Bristol-Pacific Homes of Fall River, MA, is aware of these potential energy savings and thus routinely constructs energy-efficient buildings. The developer has been building homes to "Energy Star" standards since 2002. Indeed, the company won the Massachusetts Energy Star Homes Builder Achievement Award in 2004 due to their incorporation of energy-efficient upgrades into each home they build. These upgrades include cellulose insulation, high-efficiency heating equipment, and extensive air sealing.

When Bristol-Pacific Homes started construction on two new apartment buildings on Sandy Road in Westport, MA, the company was also interested in providing an energy-efficient design for the space heating and hot water needs of all 50 apartments. They looked to Buderus, Londonderry, NH, for ways to make this happen.