| Hospital
gets new boiler
“St. Mary’s Hospital and Clinics would like to thank the SMH Foundation as well as patients and community members who have supported the Foundation events in the past for an extremely generous contribution allowing SMH to purchase a new boiler system,” says Matthew Forge, CAO, St. Mary’s Hospital and Clinics. “Without this contribution the boiler replacement project wouldn’t have been possible. Special thanks go out to event sponsors and everyone who attended the last Mardi Gras event for helping to raise these funds,” says Forge. “The original boilers at SMH were installed in 1965 and have served the hospital non-stop for the last 50 years. Recently the need for them to be replaced became apparent,” states Forge. “The boilers at SMH were originally coal and then converted to oil, then electric, and finally wood pellets. Over the last few years compounding steam leaks and failing components began to add up. It was touch and go on how much longer they could last without needing to be completely shut down for major repair,” said Matt Polumsky, SMH Maintenance Manager. In the fall of 2015 SMH administration approved the plan and the maintenance department started moving forward on the boiler replacement project throughout the winter. “The new boilers came on line in late July and operate off of propane at 96% efficiency,” explains Polumsky. “Instead of one giant pellet boiler to supply the hospitals heating demands the new boilers were broken up in to three different zones containing nine boilers total.” There is redundancy in each zone so if one boiler fails the others will pick up the slack and never leave the hospital out of heat or hot water. “This is especially important now as we head into cooler temperatures,” says Polumsky. The hospital receives a largely discounted rate on propane making fuel cost half of the normal going rate. With the discounted fuel rate and combined efficiency SMH is looking to reduce its annual fuel costs by a drastic amount. “This summer we already saved roughly $8500 in heating hot water,” continues Polumsky. “During the winter in severe cold snaps we used to burn 25 tons of pellets in a week and pellets can be fairly dicey to get sometimes. Pellets are a cheap fuel source but our system was so inefficient that it took a lot of them to heat this place. On bad winters we would burn over 400 tons of pellets.” “One of the greatest benefits of the boiler replacement won’t show financially is the amount of cleaning and refueling our maintenance team had on the old boilers,” says Forge. “The maintenance team estimated that they will gain about 500 hours of time back with the new boilers because they are virtually maintenance free compared to the old ones.” “On the final night of the switch over we cooked two pizzas in the boiler to celebrate its last BTUs,” says Polumsky with a smile. The 2017 Mardi Gras event will be held on March 25th. Funds raised from the upcoming event will be used to help with the installation of a new sprinkler system in the hospital. 
Old boiler on the left, new boilers on the right. (L-R)SMH Foundation Board Members Jim Rehder, Matthew Forge, CAO, Theresa Uptmor, Janice Baldus, Jim Church, Morris Arnzen. |
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