Daron Thomas of Thomas Industrial Sales checks out the master control panel for the new radiant heating system at Les Residences Jodin. Our competitors say we’re old and slow to change. That our machines are ugly. That we’re not on the cutting edge. We say, “Yup.” “Old” means we’ve been around for over 100 years—and we’ll be here for 100 more. “Slow to change” means we don’t do fads. Oh, we’ll turn on a dime to make changes that our customers need. But fads? Nah. We’d rather protect your investment. “Not cutting edge” means we’re proven. We build what works and we stick with it. And “ugly”? Well. You don’t need to be pretty to make a damn good pellet mill. Every few weeks the ash from the bio-mass boilers is removed and transported to local farmers who spread it on their farm-lands as a conditioner. Once the heat is generated in the hot water boilers it is sent to two 1,500-gallon buffer tanks where it is stored. The water in the buffer tanks is then pumped through a pair of Bell & Gossett pumps at a flow rate upwards of 1,100 gallons per minute and travels through 147,000 feet of in-floor PEX piping that generates radiant heat for the entire facility. “It’s the biggest [radiant system] we’ve ever done,” says Sylvio Landry of George’s Plumbing and Heating, the mechanical contractor that was chosen to provide the mechanical work for the project. Thomas says the provincial government’s decision to opt for biomass boilers was likely a combination of interest in energy savings and a desire to be “more green.” “The province has a green energy plan and they realize by burning wood pellets they grow local jobs, which isn’t the case with any other type of energy,” he says. “They knew this could be a good application.” LOST IN TRANSLATION headquartered in Germany, has since been working on translating all of its manuals for use in North America. Fortunately for the mechanical contractors, Thomas and his associate Terry Thibodeau are well versed in the installation of Viessmann equipment and were able to answer any questions put forth by Landry and his team. COMMUNICATION IS KEY GLOBAL BIOMASS GROUP Your Partner in Productivity CPM Biomass Group CPM/Europe BV 1-601-932-9080 www.cpm.net +31 75 65 12 611 www.cpmeurope.nl Landry says reading the instructions for the installation of the boilers ended up being one of his biggest hurdles to overcome. “Some of the manuals were in German,” he says while laughing. This was due to the installation being a new kind of project in Canada, Thomas explains, stating that Viessmann, which is A Viessmann master control communicates via a local operating network (LON) con-trol module to all four boilers and runs the boilers as required, monitoring the tem-peratures in the buffer tanks and commu-nicating this information to the building management team. “If I wanted to look at a boiler’s history I could go in and take a look at what is happening, look at the temperatures, the actual return temperatures – how much energy that it’s adding, and any faults that may arise,” Thomas explains. The system is web-enabled so the oper-ator can log in from a smartphone or tablet and make any necessary changes. “This system is fairly elaborate because it’s a seniors’ home and the operators need to ensure there’s the proper amount of heat,” Thomas says. Although Les Residences Jodin nursing home is currently the largest biomass boiler installation Thomas has performed in East-ern Canada to date, he says these types of mechanical systems will soon be common-place throughout the region. • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016 CREATIVE: BIO PRETTY PELLET CBM_Janfeb16_CPM_CSA.indd 1 ORDER 828 Canadian • LINE 1 • INSERTION JAN/FEB 24 BIOMASS 1/3 PAGE • 2 1/8X10 • DEADLINE 1/20/16 2016-01-19 11:44 AM CPM BIOMASS • CANADIAN BIOMASS
Canadian Biomass January February 2016: Page 24
