Improving Hot Water System Performance in Commercial Kitchens - a PDH Online Course for Engineers, Architects and Surveyors

Improving Hot Water System Performance in Commercial Kitchens

Course Outline

This course reviews the fundamentals of water heating for commercial food service and describes the design process. It concludes with real-world design examples, illustrating the potential for a high performance, energy and water efficient system. It is a supplemental guideline that complements current design practices (ASHRAE Handbook 2007) and codes.

This 3 - hour course requires studying the document titled “Design Guide - Energy Efficient Water Heating, Delivery and Use” prepared by Fisher-Nickel, Inc. The document guides the designer or engineer through high-efficiency hot water system design and equipment specifications.

This course includes a multiple-choice quiz at the end, which is designed to enhance the understanding of the course materials.

Learning Objective

By completing this course, the design professional will be able to:

reduce hot water use of equipment and faucets while maintaining performance;
increase the efficiency of water heaters and distribution systems;
improve hot water delivery performance to hand washing sinks;
incorporate “free-heating” technologies like waste heat recovery and solar pre-heating;
Understand the role of condensing heaters; and
Understand the pros and cons of tankless vs. storage heaters.

Intended Audience

The target audience for this document is kitchen designers, mechanical engineers and contractors, code officials, foodservice operators, property managers, plumbing professionals and maintenance personnel. It is intended to apply both to new buildings as well as to retrofits of existing buildings.

Benefit to Attendees

This course will help readers to achieve innovative strategies that will deliver the service of hot water as efficiently as possible while meeting the increasingly challenging regulatory codes and user expectations.

Course Introduction

Hot water is the life-blood of restaurants. The hot water system provides the service of hot water to clean hands, wash dishes and equipment, and for cooking purposes. For food safety reasons, foodservice facilities are not allowed to operate without an adequate supply of hot water for sanitation. Therefore it is essential to design the water heating system to meet the needs of hot water using equipment under peak operation.

This 3 -hour course provides a brief overview of and potential design considerations for hot water plumbing systems for residential and commercial buildings.

Course Content

This course content is entirely based on the public domain document titled “Design Guide - Energy Efficient Water Heating, Delivery and Use” prepared by Fisher-Nickel, Inc.:

Design Guide - Energy Efficient Water Heating, Delivery and Use

Please click on the above underlined hypertext to view, download or print the document for your study. Because of the large file size, we recommend that you first save the file to your computer by right clicking the mouse and choosing "Save Target As ...", and then open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you still experience any difficulty in downloading or opening this file, you may need to close some applications or reboot your computer to free up some memory.

Course Summary

How quickly and efficiently a hot water system can deliver to the point of use, require focus on three areas:

Generation: Heaters shall be sized for meeting both the daily requirements and for the hourly peak loads of the occupants of the building. Hot water can temporarily run out if the design is inadequate and will have higher energy costs if the system is oversized.
Distribution: Once heated, the hot water must be delivered to the intended point of use. The factors influencing the distribution efficiency include length of piping between the water heater and a given fixture, continuous recirculation controls, and materials and insulation effectiveness.
Use: Hot water is used by a variety of fixtures and appliances (faucets, showerheads, clothes washers, and dishwashers). Using efficient products such labeled faucets and showerheads that function at lower flow rates will increase the efficiency of the system.

Quiz

Once you finish studying the above course content, you need to take a quiz to obtain the PDH credits.

DISCLAIMER: The materials contained in the online course are not intended as a representation or warranty on the part of PDH Center or any other person/organization named herein. The materials are for general information only. They are not a substitute for competent professional advice. Application of this information to a specific project should be reviewed by a registered architect and/or professional engineer/surveyor. Anyone making use of the information set forth herein does so at their own risk and assumes any and all resulting liability arising therefrom.