Replacing Our Ancient Boilers

Compared to the rest of the historical buildings the boilers and furnaces are not that old, but they were at the end of their lifespans at 40, so as part of the overall restoration of Grace Church, we are replacing them with high efficiency natural gas boilers and water to air heat exchangers.

The benefits of the new boilers are many, but here are a few of my favorites:

• Saving Energy - We expect to save 100,000 kBTU each year, saving us thousands of dollars and reducing our environmental impact by 18 metric tons of CO₂ every year.
• No More Oil - We no longer have to deal with oil deliveries, the volatile price of oil and having oil tanks on site.  What a relief!
• No More Combustion in the Church - with the removal of the natural gas furnaces and their replacement with water to air heat exchangers and fan coils, all of the combustion for the heating system now takes place only in the boiler room and not underneath our beautiful sanctuary.

Here are some pictures from the boiler upgrade work that Medford Wellington has been doing.

Before & Now

Old inefficient boilers

Old Oil Boilers Piping

New High-Efficiency Natural Gas Boilers

Old Oil Tanks

Old Furnaces that mostly failed this Winter

New boilers wearing blankets because it is cold today

Old ducting and furnaces for recycling

Pipes and fittings to be installed for new heating system

Bags of fittings for new heating

More to come...

Bell Removal!

The bells were removed today from the Grace Episcopal Church bell tower, and sent to Chime Master in Lancaster, Ohio for restoration.  The entire operation took two days, and was an amazing feat.  The bells will be restored, fitted with new clappers on a new metal frame in Ohio, and then disassembled and brought back and reassembled inside our bell tower after the tower has been restored.  We hope to have the bells back this fall.