In the never-ending quest for effective reductions in energy use, facility managers often tread lightly when it comes to innovations in domestic hot water generation and distribution. Most users have little tolerance for deficiencies in domestic hot water delivery or temperature, according to an article from Building Operating Management on the FacilitiesNet website.
Domestic hot water is a critical service in sensitive applications such as healthcare, restaurants, hotels and motels, fitness, laundries – the list is long. There is zero acceptance for failure of any kind in such facilities, and facility managers are much less likely to try new ideas until they’ve been proven.
As a result, although there have been significant innovations in commercial domestic hot water equipment and methods in the last two decades, uptake has been slow. That means facility managers are often missing opportunities to save energy using mature technology. So it’s worthwhile for facility managers to understand the proven options available today.
The most popular domestic hot water heater in use for medium-size commercial applications continues to be the direct-fired fire-tube storage tank type, using either gas or oil. They are relatively inexpensive, simple, and very reliable, and they provide a large volume of stand-by storage — up to 120 U.S. gallons per tank — for instant response to small draws of hot water while providing ample supply for large but short duration intermittent “dump” loads.
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