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NG Boiler installation Company Recommendation in Colorado


navenjohnson

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Hey,

Food for thought, which may be some of the reason for the installer hesitance.

  • Any boiler with pressure over 15 psi requires a lot of differences in install, operations, licensed boiler operators, etc. You want 15 psi or lower. Right off the bat that will save you greater than 50% CAPEX costs and who know how much in long term OPEX cost.....but a lot.
  • 30hp is about 1M btu/hr, which is a pretty good size. I run a 1.5M and a .5M between my two distilleries. But the sizing is dependent on a lot of things;
    • total capacity mashing and distilling,
    • if you're going atmospheric boiler at any elevation over 4000' you'll need to derate the boiler by as much as 20%. Meaning your 1M btu/hr boiler will have an output of 800,000.
    • Additionally, the output of the boiler is automagically derated 10-15% just based upon efficiencies.
  • The true cost of a boiler system, is not just the boiler. Header installs (at 1M btu/hr assume at least a 4" header) in carbon steel, condensate return pump system, wiring and controls, stack install, gas piping install, etc, etc. All of those things add up pretty quick and if installing a 15psi+ system, all of those items get much more expensive.
  • On a used boiler, ask the following questions:
    • Was a condensate system used? If not, that means that single pass water was being used which quickly erodes tubes in a boiler.
    • Has the boiler lost any tubes? If so, how many and how were they plugged?
    • Is the boiler's local control system newer than 10 years? Figure your installer might not want to work on an older system or that spare parts may no longer be available.
    • Did the boiler have an automated blow-down system?
    • Were water treatment chemicals used during the boilers previous life, if so what and how much?

I don't think that you're getting a run around from your potential contractors, I think they may be trying to save you potential long term headaches and expense. Ask them some more questions and see if there might not be a compelling issue to just buy a new one. All in, a 1.0M btu/hr boiler, headers, condensate system, controls, piping, etc should come in at less than $50K installed. If you can't afford that, you may need to think about a smaller boiler and initial startup (as I did with my .5M) then expand to a larger system in the future (as I did when I installed our 1.5M system).

Cheers and good luck,

McKee

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