Installing a pair of high efficiency steam boilers in each of its three major buildings proved to be the remedy Bryce State Hospital needed to reduce energy consumption.

Alabama’s oldest and largest psychiatric facility is located in Tuscaloosa on a campus of more than 200 acres. As part of a state-wide mandate for increased energy efficiency at public facilities, Bryce State Hospital opted to shut down the fire-tube boiler in its central steam plant and installed the units from New York-based Miura Boiler.

"We chose to install three Miura LX 100 and three Miura LX 50 high-efficiency steam boilers because of their energy savings, compact size, and ability to go from a cold start to full steam in five minutes," says Bob White, director of engineering at Bryce Hospital. "Once the new Miura boilers were commissioned and the large firetube boiler was retired, the natural gas savings were staggering -- almost 50 percent less gas consumption from day one of the Miura startup."

Miura Boiler’s compact design generally can double the capacity of an existing boiler room, or cut in half the space requirements of a new boiler room.

"The pre-existing patient-care buildings did not have boiler rooms since they originally operated from the central fire tube boiler," White says. "Miura boilers are compact in size, so it was easy to install two Miura boilers efficiently in each building and design the new system based on that."

Bryce Hospital uses its Miura steam boilers primarily for heating its large, multi-winged buildings, as well as for generating hot water and for reheating (where hot water is used for heating purposes). In the event that a load becomes too heavy for the Miura LX 50 boiler, the Miura LX 100 automatically provides back-up and supplies additional heat.

"We once had an electrical outage in one of our patient-care buildings, which resulted in a loss of heat," White notes. "Fortunately, as soon as power was re-established to the building, both Miura boilers came on immediately and heat was restored in amazing time. The reliability of the Miura boilers, combined with their quick startup, is a big advantage."

The Miura boilers were purchased from Marspec Technical Products Inc., Spanish Fort Ala.