EMH engaged the Brewer-Garrett Company when they had an immediate need to replace their aging boiler plant with high efficiency mechanical equipment. At the same time, an addition to the Acute Care Center was being designed to enhance patient services. The existing hospital and upcoming addition required an innovative and rapid solution. 

To address both the immediate needs of the hospital, and the future building addition’s mechanical requirements, we provided a turnkey design/build solution, which would be funded with the project’s energy savings.

Our engineers utilized the existing boiler plant facility to install a modern Boiler/ Chiller Central Plant. The previously decommissioned 54-year-old boilers were removed to reclaim valuable space for the three new energy efficient Ohio Special package boilers. The new found space also allowed two new 740 ton centrifugal chillers with a new cooling tower to be integrated with an existing newer air cooled chiller to create a unified chiller plant with increased capacity for the new addition, winter operation, and needed redundancy.  New chilled water distribution piping tied the existing chiller nodes together.  Other energy conservation measures included a comprehensive lighting retrofit, the installation of variable frequency drives (VFD) on motors and steam trap renovations. Comfort issues were addressed and energy management capabilities were enhanced with expanded building controls.  

The new Central Plant was designed to provide energy efficiency, needed equipment replacements and upgrades, accommodate the heating and cooling requirements of the new expansion and offer needed redundancy.  While these design criteria were met, the greatest success of the project was the positive financial impact. The project was energy savings self funded, and these savings reduced the “first cost” budget of the new addition.