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Some like it hot--the rest of the story: building principles.

Article Excerpt
In October of 2005, "Building Principles" looked at a budding project to replace the hot water heating system in a camp kitchen. Way back then, I promised that we'd return to the story when there was more to tell, so here's the "rest of the story" as radio commentator Paul Harvey likes to call it. After a winter of wrestling with the project, and a summer of operation, it's time to tell you how it all came out in the end. If you can, break out that back issue and read through the details. For those of you who don't archive Camping Magazine though, let's revisit the high points.

The camp's kitchen needed a supply of hot water for food preparation, as well as hand and dishwashing. The dishwasher units were configured to sanitize the dishes at the rinse cycle with 180 degree water. The existing system was a cobbled together collection of propane fired boilers, a recirculating pump, and a leaky pressurized storage tank. The camp was considering replacing the single boiler with three modern boilers that the plumber believed had sufficient capacity, but the question of hot water storage (a regulated pressure vessel) remained a big question mark. The alternative was a technology called "tankless" or "demand" hot water heating. The idea is that hot water is never stored, but produced only when there is an open hot water faucet (a "demand"). So instead of keeping water hot for hours with nobody using it, energy is consumed...

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