24/7 availability of hot water at the right temperature is a hot button issue for facility managers in the hospitality, education and healthcare industries. To avoid both scalding and bacteria growth, water must be stored at a high temperature, then mixed with just the right amount of cold water before being delivered to the end user. The valves that provide this mixing are the key to reliable and safe, domestic hot water.

Valve Types

There are two types of mixing valves that can properly temper domestic hot water: motorized and thermostatic. Motorized valves use electronic sensors and controls which helps to restore ideal water temperature under peak loads. Thermostatic valves use an internal thermostatic element to control temperature without the need for external power. They both produce a reliable safe supply of domestic hot water. They differ in how they are controlled, and in what features are available to communicate with them remotely.

Motorized Valves

Motorized valves are meant to interface with electronic controls to precisely dial in the supply temperature. These valves can be provided as stand-alone units, or they can be integrated into the building’s heating control system to provide remote monitoring and control capabilities that allow building operators to monitor and adjust their systems without the need to visit the mechanical room.
An example of a robust motorized valve is our Heat-TimerⓇ  motorized 3 way mixing valve for  DHW that is controlled electronically by our ETV Platinum Plus Control. Using this combination, installers can easily retrofit underperforming mixing valve implementations with a robustly designed valve/control system combo that yields advanced features:

1. 2 or 3 way motorized valve operation.
2. Control panel can be located up to 500 feet away from valve.
3. Quick response to large changes in demand
4. Potential to Monitor temperature and alarms remotely through mobile devices
5. Integration into larger EMS, BMS systems
   
   

Installation of the valves and controls can be made easy for the professional by purchasing the ETV in a pre-piped unit to make installation a breeze. The Electronic Tempering Station (ETS) only needs to be connected to hot and cold water and power, avoiding manual connection of the valve and the sensors saving a great deal of installation time. These units are available in all standard valve multiple valve sizes. For more information see our product page on the Electronic Tempering Station (ETS).

Thermostatic Valves

Thermostatic valves are the trusty workhorses of the domestic water mixing valve world. For hospitals and nursing homes they provide the long term steady performance that is needed. What they lack in communication and remote monitoring capability is made up for in simplicity and reliability. They do not require power since they use an internal thermostatic element to control the output temperature to the set-point set via thermostat. These valves are ideal for locations where long term durability and reliability are key, and remote monitoring is not necessary. For more information on Precision Thermostatic Tempering Valves see our product page.

HVAC Professionals Trust Heat-Timer® Valves

For assistance picking the best domestic hot water valve for your facility come to the experts at Heat-Timer®.

Heat-Timer® is dedicated to providing the highest quality domestic hot water valves on the market. Our team of technical experts can help you pick out the right valve for the job, be it a school, retail center or resort. You can rest easy knowing your systems are being reliably controlled for occupant safety and energy savings.

Contact us today and speak to a technician or visit our website at https://www.heat-timer.com

Original content posted on https://www.heat-timer.com/types-of-domestic-hot-water-valves/

While “green solutions” are often looked at as renewable energy or recycled materials, in the building heating controls industry, this includes solutions that save the customer in overall energy consumption. Less energy used typically means less energy produced which means lower carbon footprint, less pollution from dirty energy sources, etc…

And incidentally, the other meaning of “Green” applies too. Heat-Timer Controls save building operators money, usually big money on yearly heating costs.

The need to maintain heating system efficiency is key creating a green solution. Heat Timer® control systems can offer just that, putting the customer’s mind at ease knowing they’re participating in a green movement, decreasing energy consumption, and extending the life of their boiler and associated subsystems by lowering maintenance and replacement costs.

Why is my Heating System Not Already “Green”?

After a building has been designed and commissioned, there are a number of ways a control system can become inefficient or be forced out of calibration. Many systems even those with newer more efficient boilers, lack the central brain to control and manage a large distributed system, resulting in midnight visits to the boiler room after irate tenant phone calls, just like it was 100 years ago.

Normally, a system will undergo a retro-commissioning or recommissioning effort every 5-10 years. This includes a full building energy audit study of a facility, finding places in the system where inefficiencies have developed over time. This can include: boiler control resets, boiler lockouts, outside air resets, domestic hot water storage leaks, and the list goes on. The point is, this is a lengthy, time consuming and costly endeavor that could easily be avoided through the use of a modern Heating Control system.

Some ways you could save energy using an automated control system:

1. Instead of placing your boiler on a time-clock, starting and stopping operation at certain times throughout the day, placing a boiler on an optimized start-up and shutdown schedule could drastically save you reheat or overheat energy.
2. Boilers are often controlled only by space temperature, return temperature or time-clocks alone. With an automated control system, a boiler can also be controlled by outside air reset configurations. This is where the boiler senses outside air temperatures, and adjusts preheating building conditions to plan for colder days. It can preheat during off-peak hours, not only producing gas savings, but peak cost savings as well.
3. Boiler control systems can lack proper valve automations requiring building techs to manually maintain valve settings. With Heat-Timers® tempered hot water control valves installed, the system can plan for tenant operations based on historical trend data. They can preheat storage tanks in the morning instead of time-of-use and can send tempered water to fixtures that use more volume daily, saving on large domestic hot water loop energy losses.
4. Heat-Timer Systems can also save people energy. With our completely digital interfaces through mobile devices and the internet, most alarms and setting can be received or modified remotely, leading to a better quality of life for building managers and technicians, not to mention their tenants who get faster response to issues.
   
   

Our Heat-Timer® contractors are trained professionals, who specialize in just that. Providing cutting edge HVAC automated “green” solutions, decreasing the customer’s overall energy consumption, and allowing the customer to work about their day-to-day operations hassle free and comfortably.

To find a Heat-Timer® contractor near you, use our national contractor finder, or call our team today.

Original content posted on https://www.heat-timer.com/why-heat-timer-controls-are-considered-part-of-a-green-heating-solution/

The complexity of modern distributed heating systems for apartment complexes, schools, hotels, and campus’ require careful planning and implementation by commercial HVAC experts. At stake are tens of thousands of dollars of monthly energy costs that would otherwise go directly to your bottom line. Certified Heat-Timer® HVAC Contractors are not only heating system experts, but are partnered with the world’s leading solutions for modern heating controls. The combination creates an automated, optimized solution that leaves no money on the table.

Key Elements of Cost Optimization in Commercial Boiler Systems

Whether your building and its heating system is old or new, sending BTU’s up the stack is like burning hundred dollar bills at a campfire. Yet there are many ways this can happen in your boiler configuration and the analysis as to root cause, requires deep knowledge and experience with the many variations of boiler systems out there.

Here’s just a few ways that a heating system can be inefficient:

1. Your boiler’s fire rate could be stuck at a constant 100%, expending all of its energy on heating a space that doesn’t need heat. Often due to boiler lockout controls or insufficient hydronic loop volume.
2. Building space thermostats could be in the wrong place out of calibration, or room designations have changed since the design, giving your boiler false or faulty readings.
3. Boiler are constantly operating from completely off to on, leading to thermal shock.
4. Boiler return temperature could be too high, reducing the overall efficiency of hydronic condensing boilers.
   
   

Common to solving all these problems is some version of a heat timer Platinum Series control which uses advanced, self-learning algorithm’s to understand peak periods and hot spots in your building. Building installation is facilitated by connection to a network of wireless sensors and mobile alerts that make our controls operate more like a full-blown energy management system, at a fraction of the cost of one.

Using the BuildingNet interface, gives users remote access from an app on mobile phones, tablets, and an internet interface for desktop control. Our remote interface provides alarms and diagnostics to the user and allows for full customization of boiler operations. Furthermore, Our Platinum Series Control is compatible with nearly any building management system (BMS) you may want to install in the future, providing the heating control subsystem.

No matter how intricate, simplistic or out-of-date your system is, a Heat-Timer contractor’s main focus is to provide safe building energy solutions while providing the customer with tangible savings, easy to use heating controls, and a seamless interface with nearly any building management system out on the market.

We carefully vet and select only the highest of quality contractors through our online contractor partner program. Where we provide training and energy solution support for approved partners only, giving our customers the ability to choose contractors who serve at the need of the customer.

To find a Heat-Timer® contractor near you, use our national contractor finder, or call our team today.

Original content posted on https://www.heat-timer.com/heat-timer-hvac-contractors-will-save-you-money-on-energy/

In apartment buildings with centralized heating systems, maintaining comfort levels for the entire occupied space can be a frustrating and expensive undertaking. No one likes to be confronted with angry calls from tenants about continued issues with the temperatures in their unit that never seem to go away.

As makers of the worlds most sophisticated heating controls, Heat-Timer® expertise is often consulted when commercial HVAC companies are trying to solve these issues, especially in older buildings. The following is a great example of how tenant comfort can be proactively, and economically managed by a smart implementation of Heat-Timer Control systems.

How to stay ahead of the curve on Heating issues.

General Managers of both small and large apartment complexes face unique heating challenges. Being aware of them before a tenant complains and being able to resolve them quickly before they cost the complex money, has always been the goal of Heat-Timer controls.

Temperature instability in your buildings can be caused by many different issues, and the services of a truly capable commercial HVAC company is essential to analyzing and resolving them. In some cases, we have seen the breakdown and drift of control systems in older buildings forcing building engineers to actually make out complex schedules for manually changing the positions of various steam valves in the complex based on outside temperature. Not only is this a tremendous challenge, but ultimately it is doomed to fail in large installations, as well as wreaking havoc with the quality of life of building engineers and maintenance personnel.

In these cases, temperature variations in parts of the building can be caused by a lack of respect for the ambient outdoor temperature. Because this factor changes frequently and older control systems do not accurately incorporate this into boiler management protocols, you end up with situations where boilers are running too hot, too often. In other cases, boilers encounter “thermal shock” because they’ve been completely shut off for too long. These scenarios not only contribute to excess energy usage but greatly increase the need for boiler maintenance and more frequent, expensive replacement.

One Way to Solve the Heat Distribution Problem

An example solution for one of our clients involved implementation of our Heat-Timer SRC Platinum Steam Outdoor Reset Controls. The SRC regulates the amount of steam based on the current outdoor air temperature. It controls the amount of heat by continuously modulating the packless steam valve. By monitoring the outdoor air temperature, the SRC control can anticipate a heating demand increase or decrease and modulates the valve accordingly. The colder it is outside, the more steam that is allowed to enter the building’s radiation.

But perhaps the best part of implementing the Platinum control was its affect on the quality of life of the building maintenance crew. Heat Timer’s platinum series supports our Internet Control Management System (ICMS) which we call BuildingNet. This Internet Communication package allows you to monitor and adjust any Internet-ready Platinum Series heating control from any Internet browser. All the operating and recording software is contained within the panel. This means the control can be accessed from any computer or mobile device with Internet connection. Alarms are pre-configured to alert building managers before problems occur, allowing problems to be anticipated and solved from the golf course, instead of requiring a midnight visit to the boiler room.

Heat-Timer Wants to Solve your Energy Consumption Problem

The cost of upgrading to Heat-Timer Controls is generally dwarfed by the savings in fuel in the first month of operation for a large complex.

“The reduced boiler maintenance after the installation of the (Platinum Series) HWRs was enough to pay for the controls.”   James Marsanico, General Manager

Contact Heat-Timer® today when you are done messing around with your building’s heating system. We’ll set you on the path toward big savings on energy costs.

Visit https://www.heat-timer.com

Original content posted on https://www.heat-timer.com/why-certain-apartments-in-your-building-are-always-too-hot-or-cold/