Heating the building required 26,000,000 Btuh, a costly need that had been met for half a century by a high-pressure steam boiler. The State of California does not require a licensed boiler operator with a thermal fluid heating system that operates within a closed loop at a very low pressure.
Hot oil is pumped through unfired steam generators to create steam without high pressure.
The hospital saw the need to change from direct-fired steam generation to a modern thermal fluid heater. Honeywell provided micro-based DDC controls and Model 7,800 Burner Controls for the new system and served as the general contractor. The changeover to thermal fluid heaters also enabled the hospital to reassign the licensed boiler operators to other duties. The direct-fired steam boiler was oversized and consumed energy insufficiently every time it recycled. This has led to a projected annual saving of 18 percent of the hospital's natural gas bill.