St. Bernards Village in Jonesboro, Arkansas is a large independent living complex run by St. Bernards Health, a Catholic health system that’s the largest in northeast Arkansas. Residents live in separate apartments, but there are common areas for dining and social activities.
For more than 20 years, Village apartments got their hot water from three boilers with six 500-gallon storage tanks. “The old system was very institutional,” says Blake Brasher from RGB Mechanical Contractors in Jonesboro. “Some of the storage tanks had ruptured, so it was definitely time for an upgrade. The old boilers and tanks were so large that they had to be torched and cut apart so they could be removed from the mechanical rooms.”
“We thought that tankless units would be a good replacement choice, so we contacted State to see how many units we’d need to get the same performance,” says Brasher. “We ended up installing 31 State tankless condensing units that could be rack-mounted to save space. There are very tight quarters in the Village’s mechanical rooms.”
Since the State tankless units generate hot water on demand, the Village no longer has a need for thousands of gallons of water storage. Because the State units provide an excellent 0.93 Uniform Energy Factor (UEF), the local utility [Centerpoint Energy] was able to offer the Village a rebate of $500 per unit for installing them.
St. Bernards Village paid $1,235 for water heating in August 2017 when the old equipment was still being used. In August 2018, the new State tankless units helped lower that bill to just $969. That’s a savings of more than 21 percent.
“Since switching to State, the complex has been very pleased with the results,” adds Brasher. “We’ve had zero false alarms. St. Bernards Village has really benefited from the rebates, lower gas bills and great performance of the State units.”