With energy prices going up, controlling the cost of running sterilizers, kitchens, and laundries was a constant concern for John English, director of plant operations for Glenwood Regional Medical Center in West Monroe, LA. West Monroe and its twin city, Monroe, are about 100 miles east of Shreveport.

A Growing Need for Steam

Begun as a community hospital back in the sixties, Glenwood has grown into a regional medical center with a 365,000-plus sq ft full-service, 257-bed hospital, one of four serving the twin cities' population of approximately 100,000 residents.

To meet its steam requirements, the hospital had acquired two 125 hp York Shipley firetube boilers in the early sixties. Two additional 125 hp Cleaver Brooks firetube boilers were installed in the late seventies, and 11 years ago, a 100 hp Fulton watertube boiler was bought to provide steam for the laundry.

English knew that major savings could be realized by increasing the efficiency of Glenwood's heating and steam generation. Although demand for steam from the sterilizers, kitchens, and laundries was intermittent, the old firetube boilers were running constantly and, in addition to being natural gas guzzlers, were requiring ever-larger investments in maintenance and repairs.

The Search Begins

"We started working with Glenwood Medical Center about two years ago," says Bob Sieve of Heatran Corp in Shreveport. "They were in the process of completely modernizing their boiler plant. The reason for this was the age of the equipment and energy consumption. The driving force behind everything that they do over there is to conserve natural gas because of the pricing that we are experiencing now. We specialize in energy-related retrofits." (Pictured, two Miura LX50SG dual fuel boilers next to one of the old firetube boilers they replaced.)

English decided to meet the space heating side of his requirements with condensing/modulating hot water boilers and water heaters, but he still had steam requirements for sterilizers, kitchens, and laundries. Despite his personal experience with several boiler brands, he wanted to know more, so he did some serious investigations at other medical centers to find out what the latest and best systems were.

"Hardy Hays, our consulting engineer, Don Turner, the assistant director, and myself went over to Shreveport and looked at a hospital group made up of four hospitals," he says. "Then we looked at a state hospital there. We talked to them about what boilers they'd had previously. They had several different brands of boilers that they had taken out. That's how we arrived at our decisions -- by talking to them."

It's Inefficient To Keep Them Running -- All The Time

The kitchen, sterilizer areas, and the laundry are the three areas of boiler concern in a hospital. Glenwood's old system consisted of four large firetube steam boilers, which connected converters and steam-fired storage tank domestic water systems directly to the kitchen and sterilizer area, and a separate water tube boiler for the laundry.

"Because of their age and configuration, the old boilers were estimated to have an in-service efficiency of somewhere between 65-70% -- if they were tuned up properly. We had to run our old boilers all the time because it would take at least 30 minutes to get them up and running," says English. (Pictured, left to right, Heatran service technician Larry McDonald, Glenwood boiler operator Bobby Jones, and English, with three installed Miura LX50SG dual fuel boilers.)

He chose Miura watertube boilers, which are engineered to create energy savings, as replacements.

Technology From Japan Is All American Now

The history of Miura boilers in America goes back about a decade. Among the first to discover the technology was Bill Ingerson, owner of Industrial Boiler Service in Snohomish, WA. Several ex-military men, who'd been on duty in Japan, told Ingerson about Japanese boilers that were better than anything they'd seen in the States. Because they were boiler inspectors, he paid close attention to their words.

Embarking on three years of research into their claims, Ingerson eventually identified Miura as the boiler that so impressed the inspectors. Though little known in the United States, Miura is the world's largest boiler manufacturer, with seven plants around the globe. Because the boilers are made of off-the-shelf components, North American Miuras -- manufactured in Canada -- are composed of North American steel, Honeywell controls, and Grundfos (of Fresno, CA) pumps.

Energy-Efficient Design

One 100 hp firetube boiler has about three times the radiant surface area of one 100 hp Miura, radiating a constant amount of heat whether the boiler runs at 100% or 10% of capacity. The lower the capacity use, the higher the ratio of radiation loss to usable steam production.

Floating headers make possible Miuras' small size and water capacity, without creating thermal shock to the boilers' water tubes and enclosure. These headers allow the water tubes to be short and straight so the whole boiler can be very small, taking up 33% less floor space.

Additional energy savings result from the Miuras' fast startup capability. Most boilers are turned down, but not off, when steam demand drops. Miuras can be switched on and off like lightbulbs, going from a cold start to steam in five minutes. And, of course, less energy is required on restart because there is much less water to heat.

Efficiency Upgraded To 86%

English compares the difference in operating efficiencies: "The old boilers we were running were in the 65-70% efficiency range -- if they were tuned up properly. The Miuras are running at 86-88% efficiency. It's a tremendous difference. That's counting just when they are operating. But the advantage of the Miura boilers is that, when they are not needed, you can cycle them off and not use anything. Then you can be up and running in just six minutes."

Three Miura LX50 SG dual fuel boilers were installed to supply the kitchen and sterilizer areas. Bob Sieve describes the new installation: "The demand for steam was a little bit more than one 50 hp could handle, that's the reason we put in three Miuras -- two to handle the load and one as backup. The Miura portion of this project is furnishing steam for the kitchen and for the sterilizers and now we're in the process of replacing the boilers in the laundry, which will have two Miura LX-100-SG natural gas units. This will be installed before the end of the year." The kitchen/sterilizer boilers are dual fuel -- propane and natural gas -- to provide backup in case of interruption in the natural gas flow, in compliance with a Louisiana law requiring any hospital above a certain latitude to have dual fuel.

MBM

"Glenwood chose to install the Miura Boiler Maintenance system," says Sieve. "This is our first exposure to MBM. We like it. There is an overwhelming trend in business, no matter whether you are in the boiler business, air conditioning, or whatever, to be able to know what is going on with your systems at all times. I don't believe anybody else has a system like it. Other boiler systems can tie into building management systems but I don't think anybody has got the depth that MBM has."

"The MBM system is working out real well," says English. "We've got the controller on the boiler that tells you the alarms but we also have the software that analyzes the information from the boilers and shows us, graphically, on a computer, the boilers' status. You can actually see what is going on with your flame and stack temperatures, etc. It gives you a lot of beneficial data. You can print out an alarm history. It tells you exactly what the alarms are about. And . . . we can monitor the boilers remotely."

Now, with MBM, customers can do basic troubleshooting themselves. The data is transmitted via a cable that is hard-wired in a daisy chain, going from boiler to boiler. The computer that formats and displays the data can be up to 3,000 ft from the boiler/s. Thirty-one days of boiler operating data can be viewed on the computer screen.

To ensure immediate comprehension of the boiler data it presents, MBM uses an intuitive approach to data organization. Since an operator always wants a reminder of a boiler's settings, they are grouped on one screen. (Also on that screen is the Miura phone number should the operator have a question.) Another screen pictures, in diagram form, the real-time, current boiler status (valves on or off, temperatures, PSI, and conductivity).

Once the current situation has been checked, the operator can monitor three aspects of boiler feedback -- the alarms, cautions, and combustion -- looking through historical data to see if there are any indications of a development that needs attention. The alarms, cautions, and combustion histories are on separate screens. The alarms totals include various flame, water level, power, temperature, and pressure alarm totals. Cautions totals include times reminded about filters, blowdowns, softeners, batteries, sensors, etc. The combustion history records the time period's cycles, low and high firing, blowdowns, blower and pump cycles.

A scrolling screen shows the various signal, pressure, temperature, conductivity, and SCF monitors and is listed, day-by-day, for the prior 31 days.

And, finally, a monthly report screen provides a recap of the month with comparative data from the prior month.

"We've seen a dramatic drop in the energy consumption over the last year," concludes English. "The gas price went up. But what I can control -- the energy consumption -- has gone down drastically."