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Boilers to go condensing under new efficiency regulations Industry fears higher costs, more difficulty for retrofits By Simon Blake New energy efficiency regulations are going to make some commercial boiler retrofits significantly more difficult and expensive. Under Amendment 15 to Canada’s Energy Efficiency Regulations, all gas hydronic boilers must be 90 percent efficient – by July 1, 2023 for residential units and Jan. 1, 2025 for commercial boilers. While there is a wide selection of condensing equipment available, in retrofit applications venting may be a challenge and replacing one boiler in a multi-boiler system may prove difficult. The boiler industry lobbied Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) hard for an exception for older systems that could not easily be upgraded – a compromise that was made for commercial water heaters. “They said, ‘we don’t care about that.’ They look at the number of units being sold… Seventyeight percent of the market has already shifted to high efficiency,” remarked John Goshulak, P.Eng., vice-president, sales and marketing, Weil McLain Canada, Burlington, Ont. The big problem is in industrial, commercial and institutional (ICI) retrofit situations with large high temperature systems and multiple boiler installations. “There is 20 percent of the market that is not buying high efficiency,” added Goshulak. “Why? From the surveys we did, it’s because it won’t work – it won’t fit, there’s no benefit, the customer can’t afford it.” “It’s going to be very challenging,” said Robert Waters, technical director for the Canadian Institute of Plumbing & Heating. “There are going to be existing buildings, like apartment and multi-family buildings – that have noncondensing appliances. They are now going to have to switch to condensing and you could be looking at some pretty extreme re-venting costs.
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Plumbing & HVAC – July/August 2020
Engineer Dave Muncaster, owner of Nu-Mun Contracting, Calgary, recently completed a high efficiency Weil-McLain boiler retrofit at The Cube, a 52,000 sq. ft. seven-storey office building that has been converted into a multi-unit residential.
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