Freezing Bulldogs at Butler University

The first cold snap of the year is always rough on us all, but worse when a university residence hall loses heat. Butler University's Resco building found itself in that very position this week, when Indianapolis saw its first sub-zero temperatures of the season.

Dave Johnson of BBC Pump and Equipment got an early morning call that Resco had lost its 3,000,000 BTU/h heating boiler, which handled nearly the entire heating load for the building. They were left with only a single 900,000 BTU/h jockey boiler, normally used for reheat, to keep hall's residents warm on one of the coldest days of the fall.

By early afternoon, BBC Pump had arranged for a dedicated truck to deliver two replacement Riello Array 2000 MBH boilers next day to campus, and were hard at work tuning the remaining jockey boiler to get as much heat from it as they could to hold back the cold temperatures until the new units arrived.

The new boilers arrived at Resco at 6:45AM the next morning, with Dave Johnson and Bill Steinmeyer of BBC Pump and a group of technicians from Johnson Melloh mechanical contractors to set and re-pipe the new boilers.

The modular nature of the Riello Array boiler allowed Bill and the technicians to offload most of the weight of the boilers and deliver the frame easily through tight corridors and doorways into the basement boiler room.

By early afternoon the boilers had been set and the final piping connections were being made. Startup could begin and the new boilers were fired up and began making hot water just before 5PM, beginning the work of bringing the loop temperature back up to 160F from the 88F it had dipped to.

Availability of the boilers, quick delivery and the modular nature of the boiler all helped to make the project a success, quickly turning around what could have been a very difficult situation for Butler University and the students living in Resco.

Great work by everyone involved! Many thanks to Honeywall, Butler maintenance staff and Johnson Melloh for all their help in the process.

To learn more about BBC Pump and Riello Array Boilers, visit BBC Pump - Reillo Array Boilers.