About the instructors

Dunwoody College Custom Training instructors have extensive technical skills and classroom expertise. Your boiler system instructors have a wide range of industry experience and bring to the series enthusiasm and in-depth boiler knowledge. For six Thursday sessions, you can expect both practical instruction and interactive curriculum that you can put into practice back at your operations.

 

Session 1
Thurs., Oct. 6: Heat Exchange Efficiency

• How commercial building heating/cooling systems work
• Boiler design: steam versus hot water heating
  • Water side/fire side heat exchange, fuel types, operating characteristics
• Distribution system requirements and operation
• Commercial building performance and comfort factors
• Assessing efficiency: the efficiency equation—heat in versus heat out
• Strategies to reduce fuel consumption: efficient boiler characteristics
• Distribution efficiencies: control of heated space
• Operating overview: water level, draft, stack temperature, routine maintenance impact
• CenterPoint Energy heating rebate programs

Session 2
Thurs., Oct. 13: Heat Generation and Effective Distribution

• Moving Btu: CFM, ΔP, ΔT, GPM, HVAC system dynamics
• Psychometrics and comfort: understanding sensible and latent heat
• Vendor discussion and demonstration: steam systems
  • Condensate return systems, boiler feed, ΔP to assess condensate return problems
  • Steam trap operation:
    • — Application and operating characteristics of float, thermostatic, F&T, 
      inverted bucket, impulse, TLV traps
    • — Testing performance; ΔT, ultrasonic, IR, test ports; assess operation
    • — Maintenance and diagnostics routines
  • Venting non-condensables, vacuum breaks
  • Using the steam table to improve heat exchange

Session 3
Thurs., Oct. 20: Hydronic Heating and Load Control

• Hydronic systems:
  • Getting the air out: vents, air eliminators, purging
  • Effective distribution method, modifications, maintenance
• Maintaining coils, control valves, air dampers, and unitary equipment
• Standard versus high efficiency boiler design
• Condensing boilers – 94 percent efficient and above
• System components: burner, exchanger, distribution
• Multiple boilers: staging, rotation, backup
• Boiler controls: on/off, modulating, reset, operating limits
• Flame safety, microprocessors modules, safety interlocks
• Load control components: temperature, pressure, on-off, timed, proportional, DDC

Session 4
Thurs., Oct. 27: Combustion/Operating Efficiency, Performance Maintenance

• Burner design, requirements for proper combustion
• 3 Ts of combustion: time, temperature, turbulence
• Combustion science; CO, CO₂, NO₂, hydrocarbons, temperatures, percentage measure
• Assessing and adjusting combustion: O₂ trim and stack economizers
• Reading the meter and calculating efficiency
• Operating measures to reduce fuel use
• Increase heating efficiency:
  • Vent dampers
  • Stack economizers
  • Insulation, preheats, boiler staging, tune-ups
  • Commercial building energy/enthalpy recovery equipment
• Combustion analysis: Use of stack analyzers, burner adjustment
• Fire side and water side cleaning and inspection
• Maintenance requirements: safety valves, water columns, level control components
• Seasonal lay-up: wet or dry procedures, storage requirements, re-start

Session 5
Thurs., Nov. 3 Boiler Water Treatment

• Water science; destructive corrosives, negative elements
• Softening: ion exchange basics, RO, filters
• Feed water pumps and de-aerators
• Treatment: deposit control, chelate treatment, phosphate treatment, sludge conditioners, silca contamination, corrosion inhibitors, oxygen scavengers
• Conductivity control: skimmers and bottom blow down
• Vendor discussion and demonstration: water treatment
  • Water treatment presentation
  • Demonstration: water sample analysis and water treatment procedure

Session 6
Thurs., Nov. 10: Site Visit: Routine Care and Maintenance

• Boiler logs: requirements and opportunities for efficiency improvement
• Trending performance measures
• Boiler site visit:
  • Identify system components
  • Specific device operating characteristics, idiosyncrasies
  • Track a system flow, monitor performance
• Vendor discussion and demonstration: burner adjustment
  • Stack analysis, burner tuning, confirmation, re-check