Boiler Trends in the Hospitality Industry

Like most businesses, hotels are always competing for customers to keep their hotels at maximum occupancy while delivering luxury and guest comfort and protecting the bottom line. Guest satisfaction is imperative to minimize the potential for unoccupied rooms, and disruptions are minimized as much as possible.

As hospitality industry property owners and managers look to purchase capital equipment, like boilers, key areas of focus are cost effectiveness, reliability, and footprint. Owners are looking for reliable products that require less labor-intensive maintenance and better uptime, as this all equates to the availability of hotel rooms.

In the past, the boiler was a large footprint recirculating system in the basement serving the entire property.  The boiler was constantly running, so there was always a supply of hot water.  When the boiler required maintenance, the hot water for the entire facility was down.  Maintenance would take place during the day to minimize disruption to guests.  However, if there was a larger issue or even a boiler failure, that could mean expensive rental boilers, unhappy customers, and unoccupied rooms.

Modern hotels, though, are trending toward smaller-footprint compact boilers and point-of-use boiler technology. With compact boilers, there is limited stored water within the boiler, which limits the standing energy loss and operates at a much higher efficiency.

Consider this: If a hotel has a compact boiler system allocated per floor, it can offer a fast supply of hot water. If a hotel has a low occupancy rate for a night, it can focus its guests on certain floors and not operate those boilers. If the boiler system needs maintenance, the property is only isolating a floor, for example, and not the entire building.

These boiler systems are small enough to go up an elevator, fit through a 36” doorway, and take up only a fraction of the space compared to large boiler systems, making them ideal for new construction or smaller hotels, motels, and inns.

Another factor in today’s environmentally and sustainability-conscious world is that property managers at hotels are striving to lessen their carbon footprint. One way this can be achieved is with compact gas or electric water boilers. Large fire or water tube boilers tend to produce high levels of Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) during the combustion process, contributing significantly to air pollution. Compact or low NOx boilers are designed to minimize this emission considerably.  As regulations become stricter to reduce pollution, these smaller boilers will meet environmental compliance, be more energy and cost-efficient, offer reliable performance, and enhance the property’s corporate responsibility.

Finally, the maintenance of water heaters is paramount to their longevity. These smaller footprint systems are generally easier to maintain, requiring annual cleanings, and basic maintenance.

Goodway has partnered with Lochinvar, a compact boiler manufacturer that fits the above objective perfectly.  Accompanying the industry-leading preventive maintenance solutions of Goodway with Lochinvar ensures their boiler’s efficient operation and longevity.