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Domestic Hot Water

Solutions Guide
for Hospitals

4 common healthcare
challenges and their
cost effective solutions
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Healthcare premises are dependent upon water to maintain hygiene and

a comfortable environment for patients and staff, and for treatment and
diagnostic purposes. Interruptions in hot water supply can disrupt healthcare
activities. Previously, the design of systems required sufficient reserve water
storage and buffering tanks be available to minimise the consequence of
disruption, while at the same time ensuring an adequate turnover of water to
prevent stagnation in storage vessels and distribution systems.

1 hot water running

because
I need to keep the

patient
comfort and
safety
is a priority
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The Solution: The Spirax EasiHeat accurate and instantaneous hot water. The
DHW incorporating SIMS technology is a Spirax EasiHeat DHW can satisfy a wide
complete, compact and energy efficient heat range of duties and deliver accurate stable
exchange package that will revolutionise safe secondary temperatures even with
your hospitals domestic hot water supply. sudden and wide load changes
Reducing the risk of legionella and other water
contaminants, whilst consistently delivering The application is water heating, with a high
hot, clean and efficient hot water no matter
secondary temperature rise and large sudden
what the demand.
load changes; a duty typical of domestic hot
water. The graph shows that even with the
The Spirax EasiHeat eradicates the need
large sudden load changes, a safe, constant
for storage vessels and buffer tanks, creating
safe hot water temperature is maintained.

160 160
150 150
140 140
130 130
Water flowrate (litres/min.)

120 120
110 110

Temperature (C)
100 100 Water flowrate
90 90 This is the flowrate of cold
80 80
water being delivered to the
70 70
60 60 Spirax EasiHeatTM DHW.
50 50
40 40
30 30
Water temperature
20 20 This is the temperature of hot
10 10 water being delivered by the Spirax
0 0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 EasiHeatTM DHW.

Time (mins.)
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I have no space to
expand my system
Storage vessels and hot water tanks have
large footprints, taking up limited and valuable
floor space within the plant room. This can
often make it extremely difficult to expand hot
water capacity as your needs grow.

The Solution: EasiHeat packages remove

the need for hot water tanks and storage
vessels and are easily installed into existing
pipework to allow easy expansion when
necessary. Duty assist systems can also be
installed to cater for predicted load demands
during winter or busier periods. EasiHeat
packages will maximise your output from a
minimum footprint. The core unit only occupies
2 m with even the largest output unit, fitted
with all available options, only taking up 3.8 m
to save floor space in the plant room.
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My storage vessels are a source of

potential legionella
outbreaks
Legionella thrives in conditions where
stagnant water is stored between 20C and
60C. Storage vessels are often a source of
legionella bacterial growth. These should be
cleaned and tested regularly to mitigate this
risk as much as possible.

The Solution: Complete removal of storage

vessels and buffer tanks is the only certain
way of removing this source of legionella.
EasiHeat Heat Exchange Packages
eradicate the need for storage vessels,
creating accurate and instantaneous hot water.
The system can also perform a pasteurisation
process to keep pipes clean and patients safe.
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My system isnt
energy
Energy
consumption

efficient Costs

World-wide fuel prices are forecast to Accurate and reliable monitoring and
continue rising over the next decade forcing measuring of your hot water systems, is
organisations to impose more stringent provided by our new innovative control system
energy and carbon reduction targets. incorporating SIMS technology (Spirax
Pressure is being placed on all parts of the Intelligent Monitoring System). With its 7"
healthcare sector to reduce costs, improve colour touch screen you have complete and
efficiency and lower their carbon footprint. easy access to the data required to understand
Utilities, especially hot water systems, are a how and where you use your energy, so you
key battle ground that most hospitals should can make more informed energy management
consider when trying make efficiency decisions and increase efficiency quickly.
improvements.
The Solution: Correctly sized units ensure
accurate control and responsiveness under all
load conditions. This helps to drive optimum
performance, so you can heat the same
amount of water for less cost by ensuring
none of the energy available in the steam
goes to waste. Providing hot water on demand
eliminates the need for storage, removing
a possible breeding ground for Legionella
bacteria, whilst also reducing radiated energy
losses, lowering your total life cycle cost.
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CASE STUDY (Healthcare): Leighton Hospital

Leighton Hospital has cut its water heating costs by 15% per annum
by upgrading its Domestic Hot Water system to two Spirax Sarco
The Installation
EasiHeat steam-to-hot-water systems. The upgrade will also cut Spirax Sarco worked closely with Leighton Hospital to make sure the
carbon emissions at the hospital. switchover to the EasiHeat systems was as easy as possible. Due
to this being the primary hot water system for 90% of our hospital, the
Our aim was to achieve a more accurate control of our outgoing major challenges involved ensuring constant operation of the system.
water temperature, eliminate wasted energy due to storing large However, the overall scheme design, which Spirax Sarco helped to
volumes of hot water, and reduce or eliminate scheduled maintenance perfect, meant that very few shut-downs were needed and the hospital
works regarding annual inspections, explains Brian Colley, Energy & suffered no loss of service, says Mr Colley.
Environmental Engineer at Leighton Hospital.
The installation at Leighton Hospital, a 540-bed acute hospital,
Before the installation of the new heat exchange system we had to brings the total number of EasiHeats at the site to ten, underlining
pasteurise the water by keeping it at 80C for an hour before we could the hospitals confidence in the technologys superior reliability and
open it up onto the circuit. Then, because it is domestic hot water, energy efficiency. Six of the existing units supply low temperature
we had to cool it down before it could be used, which was a huge hot water (LTHW) for the space heating system in the main hospital
waste of energy. Installing the EasiHeat systems means it is no longer building, while a further two units provide a combination of LTHW and
necessary to store hot water, which will reduce carbon emissions. Domestic Hot Water (DHW) for some of the hospitals outbuildings.
The latest EasiHeat systems will supply almost 90% of the DHW in the
The Solution main hospital building, making the transformation from calorifiers to
EasiHeat steam-to-hot-water systems in the main part of the hospital
Spirax Sarco engineers offered an EasiHeat DHW package as the almost complete.
system would enable Leighton Hospital to meet all their objectives. The
EasiHeat is a ready-to-install system that uses steam in a compact,
plate heat exchanger to deliver water on demand at a constant, stable
The Results
temperature, even with the sudden, wide load changes frequently The EasiHeat systems has since help Leighton Hospital achieve
experienced in a hospital environment. As it is supplied on-demand, all its objectives:
there is no need to store hot water, avoiding the associated energy
losses and would significantly reduce the risk of Legionella. Significantly reducing the cost per annum of heating water,
through greater temperature control accuracy and the removal of
We have a lot of experience with plate heat exchange systems, which storage vessels
meant our decision to upgrade to the EasiHeat systems was an easy The EasiHeat packages have also reduced maintenance costs.
one to make we knew they would be perfect for this project. Unlike calorifiers which are pressure vessels and must be stripped
down for annual insurance inspections, EasiHeats do not need to
meet this requirement, saving substantial maintenance costs
Reduced the risk of legionella.
Visit www.info.spiraxsarco.com/healthcare
for more information about
improving your hospitals domestic
hot water system.