The Things We find
It always surprises me the challenges people have who run facilities and that they are at the mercy of professionals designing their systems. This week we had plans on using an existing pump to circulate our excess heat to a sub-floor warming loop installed in an ice arena. This is pretty typical from a process standpoint, but what we found was a 2 HP pump with a capacity of 30 GPM circulating to 2 sub-floor warming systems. Great idea!, but it took about 6 seconds to say wait a minute, this pump runs 24/7 at 30 gallons per minute in an attempt to warm the entire floor with excess heat to avoid frost heave under the ice slab. Each arena needs a pump sized to push a minimum 65 GPM, Results, this pump is 400% undersized and has been running for 23 years 24/7 or 201480 hours consuming 2 Kilowatts in electricity every hour and has cost the owner an estimated $40,000 for doing nothing.
