The Challenge:
The Heat, Light, and Power Team at St. Marys Hospital Medical Center in Madison, Wisconsin knew that it was time to upgrade the outdated Bailey pneumatic control systems on their three boilers when devices started to fail and their supply of replacement parts began to dwindle.
"The controls were easily 35-to-40 years old and replacement parts were unavailable from Bailey. We have over 300 beds and run 24/7, so we were not about to wait for something catastrophic to happen before we took action," says Clarence Day, the Supervisor for Heat, Light, and Power. "We wanted to be proactive."
The Team's action steps involved doing some initial research, which included speaking with the facilities personnel at Beloit Memorial Hospital (Beloit, Wisconsin) who had recently done a burner controls upgrade project with Climatic Control Company.
"We knew about Climatic Control Company, having bought parts from them over the years," recalls Day."We checked out a number of control schemes that we were interested in pursuing, and invited Climatic Control Company's John Graham and one other burner management systems company in for interviews. The Team also wanted a 'walk-through' of a similar, completed project. Climatic Control Company took us to see what they had done for Beloit Memorial."
Graham, the Manager and Senior Project Engineer for Climatic Control Company's Industrial Systems Division, has renowned expertise designing and engineering burner management and combustion control system solutions. He had been instrumental in the system upgrade at Beloit Memorial Hospital.
"After making sure that the proposed engineering specifications were precisely what we wanted and needed at St. Marys, we decided as a team to go with Climatic Control Company and the Honeywell controls," says Day.
The Solution:
The three electronic burner management systems provided by Graham included Honeywell UDC6300 Leaderline Multiloop Controllers for steam pressure and drum level control, Fireye Flame-Monitors® with expanded annunciation for burner management, and Maxon Micro-Ratio® valves for precise fuel/ratio control.
Working closely with Day and his team, including Bill Miller, their in-house electrician, Climatic Control Company's Industrial Systems Division did the engineering, prepared the schematics, and built the burner control panels under Graham's direction. Once the panels were delivered, Becker Boiler (Madison, Wisconsin) did the turnkey pipefitting and welding, and Miller, with assistance from the plant staff, removed the old controls, set the new pre-wired boiler control panel, and did all the electrical wiring with Graham consulting on the controls side. The new, smaller panels and intuitive layout not only made servicing easy, but also saved a significant amount of space in the boiler room.
According to Day, "The drawings were excellent. John (Graham) and his associates are extremely knowledgeable about burner control and management schemes."
"What we wanted was simplicity of operation, a reliable, user-friendly system, and local support when needed," concludes Day. "We've even realized labor savings, since the system pretty much runs itself. We got all that by working with Climatic Control Company."
"I would strongly recommend Climatic Control Company, especially John, to other hospitals or health care facilities looking to upgrade their burner/boiler control systems."
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